Tag Archives: jesus

Rev. Jeremiah Wright was Right

January 23, 2025UncategorizedBible, christianity, faith, god, jesusrevolsen

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!

The Unwritten Word

January 20, 2025UncategorizedBible, faith, god, jesus, Psalmsrevolsen

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Luke 4:14-21

Prayer of the Day: Blessed Lord God, you have caused the holy scriptures to be written for the nourishment of your people. Grant that we may hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that, comforted by your promises, we may embrace and forever hold fast to the hope of eternal life, through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

The heavens are telling the glory of God;
   and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
   and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
   their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
   and their words to the end of the world. Psalm 19:1-4.

This psalm is one of my all time favorites. It begins with a lyrical expression of the many and diverse ways God’s glory is reflected in God’s creative handiwork. Each day “pours forth speech” while “night to night declares knowledge.” Yet “though it goes out through all the earth,” theirs is not a speech readily intelligible to human ears. Still, for those who are attentive, the sunrise is not merely a daily occurrence. Each new day is like the beginning of a marriage, filled with joy, promise and hope. It is the starting point of a great race across the heavens by the strong yet benevolent athlete, God’s agent of life and growth whose warmth reaches every corner of the earth.

Creation has a good deal to teach us if only we have ears to listen. As Jesus points out, the flowers of the field and the birds of the air testify to God’s generosity and the confident faith in which God’s good gifts are to be anticipated and received. The mustard seed illustrates the tenacious growth of God’s reign. The wind is a symbol of God’s Spirit that blows where and when it wills with gifts of healing and renewal. The cycle of seedtime, growth and harvest are pregnant with illustrations of faith, patience, hope and resurrection. The world’s wonders do indeed tell the “glory of God” and “proclaim his handiwork.”

Halfway through, the psalm changes its focus from the witness of Creation to God’s self revelation in the Torah. While this might strike modern readers as abrupt and discordant, I believe the poet was intentional here. The psalmist understands the commandments of God to be woven into the very fabric of creation. Just as the sun chases away the darkness of night bringing light and warmth to the earth, so the law of the Lord “is perfect, reviving the soul.” Just as the heavens proclaim the glory of God, so “the commandment of the Lord is clear.” Just as the light of the sun enables one to see one’s way, so God’s law is ever “enlightening the eyes” of all who rely upon it to guide their ways.

The lessons for this Sunday are weighted heavily in favor of the written word. Jesus preaches from a text of Isaiah the prophet announcing the liberation of the poor and oppressed; the healing of the blind and lame. Under Nehemiah and Ezra, the Hebrew exiles returning from Babylon are instructed in Torah with an eye toward establishing a renewed community. As a Lutheran protestant whose tradition has always emphasized the primacy of the written word and which has been suspicious of “natural theology” or knowledge about God derived from the natural world, I have usually made the written word the focus of my preaching on this particular Sunday. But these days I often wonder whether perhaps I have neglected and undervalued creation’s witness to God’s beauty, wisdom and compassion. That is one of the reasons I have sought to bring my reflections into dialogue with the reflections of poets. Too much of our preaching, I believe, is doctrinally correct, theologically sound and analytically coherent but lacking in beauty and imagination.

Much of our worship and hymnody tends to denigrate creation. One of the hymns we used to sing in the church of my childhood begins as follows:

I’m but a stranger here, Heav’n is my home;

Earth is but a desert drear, Heav’n is my home.

Danger and sorrow stand Round me on every hand;

Heav’n is my fatherland, Heav’n is my home.[1]

In some respects, the hymn resonates. Sometimes life feels as though one were living as a stranger in a “desert drear.” To the degree it validates the experience of people struggling through dark times and assures them that they do in fact have a home in God’s infinite love, the hymn is a genuine expression of lament. Nonetheless, equating the entire earth with a lifeless desert through which one regrettably, though necessarily, passes as a stranger in order to reach one’s true heavenly homeland takes things too far. The earth is God’s good creation, a sphere of which we are an integral part and a place where we ought to feel at home. However many scars God’s human creatures have inflicted upon this good earth, it remains good and filled with wonders telling of God’s glory. Who are we to turn our noses up at it?

As children of the Enlightenment, we are engrained with a rationalistic mentality that regards the earth, its oceans, forests and varieties of non-human life as “things.” Mystery, awe and wonder have no place in the lab where nothing that cannot be empirically verified is true. In our economy, only that which can be monetized has value. For the machinery of capitalism, the world is only a ball of resources to be exploited for profit. The sun is neither a bridegroom nor an athlete. It is simply a ball of burning hydrogen. Plants are either crops to be devoured or weeds to be poisoned. Animals are bred for food, pets, game or, if sufficiently exotic, maintained on preserves for the wealthy to view on safari. In this stale, stuffy and confining worldview, poetic imagination languishes.

Our psalm for this Sunday, as well as the Bible as a whole, opens up a deeper understanding of reality. Through metaphor, simile, analogy, parable, song and story a much richer view of creation becomes visible. Through scriptural testimony to the holiness of the earth and its creatures, God’s glory is revealed in all of its wonder, beauty and power. By the power of the Holy Spirit and eyes to see and ears to hear sharpened by attention to the wonders all around us, that glory transforms our hearts and minds.

Here is a poem in which the poet looks beyond dead rationalism and seeks to discern speech that “pours forth” from creation.

Eavesdropping

Long years ago

I stood beneath

A group of firs

And heard the breeze

Whispering secrets that were hers.

For though I strained to comprehend

I couldn’t find within the wind

A single syllable or hint

Of what the hidden language meant.

But as I watched,

The ancient trees

Took up the issues in the breeze

And without words or any speech

Conversed among themselves.

And as each

Shared his sagacious view,

His branches swayed as hands will do

When beings of our race confer

On topics that their souls bestir.

The others rocked as if to bow

In reverence and to say just how

They’d never heard it said so well,

Then turned to hear another tell

Just how he thought the matter stood-

All of this in that darkened wood.

I was then a child of tender years

Eavesdropping on speech

Beyond young ears.

I’m older now with hairs of gray

But none the wiser to this day

Regarding the awful mysteries

Discussed that night by

The ancient trees.

Source: Anonymous

[1] “I’m But a Stranger Here” by Arthur S. Sullivan, published in the The Lutheran Hymnal (c. 1941 by Concordia Publishing House).

The Body of Christ and the Vanishing Common Good

January 13, 2025UncategorizedBible, christianity, Church, faith, jesusrevolsen

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Isaiah 62:1-5

Psalm 36:5-10

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

John 2:1-11

Prayer of the Day: Lord God, source of every blessing, you showed forth your glory and led many to faith by the works of your Son, who brought gladness and salvation to his people. Transform us by the Spirit of his love, that we may find our life together in him, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” I Corinthians 12:4-7.

In the world at large, it has never been evident that there is such a thing as the common good. The notion has always lived uncomfortably in the American psyche next to our uncritical faith in self interest driven capitalism, whose philosophical father, Adam Smith famously observed:

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.” Wealth of Nations, I:II, p.26,27.

Consequently, society is not governed by a common search for the greatest good for all people, but the quest of each individual seeking their own personal good without regard for others or society as a whole. Indeed former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher went so far as to question whether society even exists, asking rhetorically “….who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.” Isabel Paterson, journalist, author, political philosopher and a leading libertarian thinker brings this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, stating:

“There is no collective good. Strictly speaking, there is not even any common good. There are in the natural order conditions and materials through which the individual, by virtue of his receptive and creative faculties and volition, is capable of experiencing good.”[1]

Saint Paul makes unequivocally clear that, when it comes to the church, the Body of Christ, the opposite is true. Individual good, not the common good, is delusional. Just as it is ridiculous to suggest that a hand or a foot can live independently from the rest of the body, so it is equally implausible that any individual believer can thrive apart from full participation in the community of disciples. I Corinthians 12:14-20. With all due respect and contrary to the above mentioned authorities, community is real, there is a common good and reaching it requires the unique gifts, talents and perspectives of all its members.

Rev. Lester Peter, a seasoned pastor and prison chaplain who preached at my ordination service over four decades ago, gave me the following advice. “Peter, just remember that everybody you see in your congregation on Sunday morning is there because Jesus called them to be there. Each one of them is there because they have a gift, an insight, a talent that the church needs. Each one of them has something to teach you that you cannot learn from anyone else.” I would be less than honest if I were to deny that I have struggled with Lester’s and Saint Paul’s words at times. More than once I have looked at a member of one of my congregations and mused to myself how much easier my job would be without them and their antics. I suspect Paul felt the same way about some members of the Church at Corinth, a congregation with more problems than you could shake a stick at. Nevertheless, Paul can say to this sad puppy of a church, “Now you are the body of Christ.” I Corinthians 12:27. Not, “You should be the body of Christ,” or “If you ever manage to get your act together you might be the body of Christ,” but “You are the body of Christ.” So act like it!

Sometimes, the church gets it right. In the church of my childhood, I was blessed through the ministry of a teenager named Gary. Gary helped with our Sunday School and he was the only teenage boy I knew who showed any interest in kids my age. My church friends and I didn’t think much of Sunday School, a time just slightly more tolerable than the church service. But we lived for the fifteen minutes between the end of Sunday School and the start of the service during which Gary played tag, kick ball and hide and seek with us. He listened to our stories and laughed at our silly jokes. I don’t remember exactly when I learned Gary was what in those days we called “mentally retarded.” (Thankfully, this pejorative term has been removed from polite and civil discourse.) What I do know is that Gary showed to me the care and attention Jesus showed to children. He made me and my friends feel welcome and included. In our congregation, Gary was not a social problem to be solved or a drain on the rest of society. He was a gifted member of the body of Christ building up that body with bonds of friendship. We would not have been the community we were without him. Gary may well be one of the reasons I am still in the church.

Increasingly, we are living in a world that acknowledges no common good, a world in which the only good is my good, a winner takes all world where everyone else’s gain is my loss, a world in which “kitchen table issues” dominate (read my kitchen table), a world too small for people of the wrong race, the wrong accent, the wrong language, the wrong documentation or the wrong religion. In this world dominated by diffuse self interests, disciples of Jesus are called to be a community witnessing to a radically alternative way of being human. We are a community that asks not, “What is wrong with this person that doesn’t seem to fit in here?” but rather, “What is wrong with us that we cannot discern this person’s unique gifts to our community?”

Here is a well known poem by John Donne that serves as the antithesis to individualism, populism, xenophobia and all of the other hateful ideologies that deny the unity of the human family.

No Man is an Island

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

Source: This poem is in the public domain. John Donne (1571-1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary. Despite his great education and poetic talents, Donne lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. He spent much of the money he inherited from his family on womanizing and travel. In 1601, Donne secretly married Anne More, with whom he had twelve children. In 1615 he was ordained an Anglican deacon and then, reluctantly, a priest. Donne did not want to take holy orders but did so because the king ordered it. Under Royal Patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Donne is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His poetical works include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs and satires. He is also known for his sermons. You can read more about John Donne and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

[1] Paterson, Isabel The God of the Machine, (c. 1943, Van Rees Press, New York, NY)

On Baptism

January 6, 2025UncategorizedBaptism, Bible, christianity, faith, jesusrevolsen

BAPTISM OF OUR LORD

Prayer of the Day: Almighty God, you anointed Jesus at his baptism with the Holy Spirit and revealed him as your beloved Son. Keep all who are born of water and the Spirit faithful in your service, that we may rejoice to be called children of God, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
   I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
   and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
   and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God,
   the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” Isaiah 43:1-3.

This passage taken from this Sunday’s first lesson from Isaiah is close to my heart. I first discovered it when I was still a teenager negotiating that stormy patch of water between childhood and the adult world. On days when it seemed as though life was as bleak as life can get (it doesn’t take much to get you there when you are a teen), these words from the prophet seemed to promise light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. Sometimes, that is all you need.

Sesle and I chose this passage as one of the lessons for our marriage liturgy. By this time, with the benefit of a seminary education, I had a clearer understanding of these words. I knew that they were spoken by a prophet of the sixth century to the people of Israel newly liberated from Babylonian exile and given the opportunity to brave a long and dangerous trek through the desert wilderness back to their homeland. Israel’s position felt similar to the one Sesle and I found ourselves to be in. We each were emerging from a past of life experiences that had formed us. But now we were setting out on a journey into the future that would be shared. I had had enough experience within my own family to know how fragile marriages are, how vulnerable families are to heartache, tragedy and loss. I have known many men and women better than me whose marriages ended in divorce. I figured that the God who saw Israel through its journey across the wilderness to a new existence could be trusted to be with Sesle and me as we embarked on our new life together.

This day of the church year on which we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus is also profoundly significant to me. Both of my two daughters, born just shy of a year apart, were baptized on this feast day. When I baptized my eldest daughter, I began the sermon by announcing that Sesle and I, after prayerful consideration, were putting her up for adoption. It was an acknowledgement that infant baptism amounts to surrendering custody of one’s child to God. As parents of a baptized child, Sesle and I were now simply legal guardians, babysitters if you will, of a child who would be raised, mentored and formed by God’s Spirit. We were releasing any hopes, dreams and plans we might have had for our daughter, knowing that the mystery of her life would now unfold under God’s guidance and direction. Our role as parents would be to provide support and assistance in her discernment.

When my second daughter was baptized, I announced that we had in our midst a hardened, unrepentant sinner and that I would name her. That sinner was, as you may have guessed, my infant daughter. I pointed out that sin is less about acts than it is about our natural inclination to be completely self absorbed, indifferent to the needs of others and wholly fixated on our own. A baby is the quintessential sinner. Through socialization, it learns that its own well being depends on considering the interests of others and sometimes putting those interests ahead of its own. Yet even this is arguably a self interested calculation. Moreover, in spite of my best intentions, my daughter would likely learn, along with everything good I try to teach her, my prejudices, misconceptions and cultural biases. She was destined to inherit a position of unearned privilege in the midst of an inequitable society. That is why baptism begins with a renunciation of “the devil and all the forces that defy God,” “the powers of this world that rebel against God” and “the ways of sin that draw you from God.” Discipleship with Jesus is a life long struggle of resistance against these demonic powers and a continuing practice of learning to trust God, proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world God made and work for justice and peace.” Liturgy of Holy Baptism, Evangelical Lutheran Worship.

When you are a pastor baptizing your own children, you can get away with shenanigans like these. I wouldn’t recommend as a matter of course springing them on an unsuspecting extended family on the day of a baby’s baptism. Some members of my own family found the above remarks a little unsettling. Still, I think the Baptism of our Lord presents a great opportunity for talking about baptism, a serious matter that suffers from an excess of “cute.” Mary and Joseph got a preview of Jesus’ baptism in last Sunday’s gospel when Jesus, at the tender age of twelve, stayed behind in Jerusalem. After three days of frantic searching, they found him in the Temple about his “Father’s business.” That was a graphic reminder to them that Jesus was not their own, that he was part of something bigger than his family, his community and his nation. He is, as we hear in this Sunday’s gospel, God’s Son.

To remember your baptism is to be reminded that you are not your own. It is to be reminded that life is not supposed to turn out as expected. It is to understand that when your plans and expectations fail, it does not mean that you have failed. Saint Paul tells us that “all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28. Too often we have taken that to mean that all things work together for our own personal good or for what we want or think we need. In fact, however, the “good” to which the apostle refers is the good of God’s redemptive purpose for the world. Jesus’ life unfolded for the good of the world and God’s promised reign of justice and peace, but he was born in a stable to a couple forced to flee as refugees from political persecution and was put to death as a criminal at a young age. That hardly comported with the hopes and dreams of his parents, his people and his disciples. It may not even have comported with Jesus’ own hopes and dreams. Nonetheless, Jesus’ obedient life, faithful death and glorious resurrection worked to complete God’s redemptive purpose for all creation.

As Saint Paul points out, in a culture that worships wealth and power, glorifies violence and equates bullying with strength, the life to which Jesus calls us appears as “foolishness.” I Corinthians 1:25. The way of Jesus paints a stark contrast to the way of the American Dream of wealth, comfort and security. By remembering our baptism, we are reminded by the God who adopts us as beloved children that we are better than what our culture tells us we are. We are more than what our imaginations can conceive. The totality of who we are cannot be known until such time as Christ is all in all and we know as we are known. Suffice to say, our lives, whatever verdict the world might pronounce on them, are each of infinite importance to the God who calls us by name. In them, God is bringing to completion God’s own purpose.

Here is a poem by teacher and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer composed during his imprisonment touching on that point.

Who am I?

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
like a Squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly,
as though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
equally, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person to-day and to-morrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine!

Source: Letters and Papers from Prison, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (c. 1953 by SCM Press). Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in 1906. He studied theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and at Berlin University where he became a professor of systematic theology. At the outbreak of World War II, Bonhoeffer was on a lecturing tour in the United States. Against the advice of his friends and colleagues, he answered the call to return to Germany and lead the Confessing Church in its opposition to National Socialism. Bonhoeffer was arrested in 1943 and imprisoned at Buchenwald. He was subsequently transferred to Flossenburg prison where he was hanged by the Gestapo just days before the end of the war. To learn more about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his books and poems check out this website.

Divinity of Humanity

December 30, 2024UncategorizedBible, christianity, faith, god, jesusrevolsen

SECOND SUNDAY OF CHRISTMAS

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

Lord, I am ashamed of this magazine.

You must be profoundly hurt in your infinite purity.

The office employees all contributed to buy it.

The boy ran to fetch it,

And pored over it on the way back.

Here it is.

On its shining pages, naked bodies are exposed;

Going from office to office, from hand to hand-

Such foolish giggles, such lustful glances….

Empty bodies, soulless bodies,

Adult toys for the hardened and the soild.

And yet, Lord, man’s body is beautiful.

From the beginning you, the supreme artist, held the model

before you, knowing that one day you would dwell in a

human body when taking on the nature of man.

Slowly you shaped it with your powerful hands; and into its

inert matter you breathed a living soul.

From then on, Lord, you asked us to respect the body, for the

whole body is a conveyer of the spirit,

And we need this sensitive instrument that our spirits may

commune with those of our brothers.

Words, in long processions, lead us toward other souls.

A smile on our lips, the expression in our eyes, reveal the soul.

The clasp of a hand carries our soul to a friend,

A kiss yields it to the loved one.

The embrace of the couple unites two souls in quest of a new

child of God.

But it was not enough for you, Lord, to make of our flesh the

visible sign of the spirit.

Through your grace the Christian’s body became sacred, the

temple of the Trinity.

A member of the Lord, and a bearer of this God,

Supreme dignity of this splendid body!

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

The pure body of the tiny child,

The soiled body of the prostitute,

The vigorous body of the athlete,

The exhausted body of the factory worker,

The soft body of the playboy,

The surfeited body of the rich man,

The battered body of the poor man,

The beaten body of the slum child,

The feverish body of the sick man,

The painful body of the injured man,

The paralyzed body of the cripple,

All bodies, Lord, of all ages.

Here is the body of the fragile new-born baby, plucked like a ripe

fruit from its mother.

Here is the body of the light-hearted child who falls and gets up,

unmindful of his cuts.

Here is the body of the worried adolescent who doesn’t know that

it’s a fine thing to grow up.

Here is the body of the grown man, powerful and proud of his

strength.

Here is the body of the old man, gradually failing.

I offer them all to you, Lord, and ask you to bless them, while

they lie in silence, wrapped in your night.

Left by their sleeping souls, they are therefore before your eyes,

your own.

Tomorrow, shaken from their sleep, they will have to resume

work.

May they be servants and not masters,

Welcoming homes and not prisons,

Temples of the living God, and not tombs.

May these bodies be developed, purified, transfigured by those

who dwell in them,

And may we find in them, at the end of their days, faithful

companions, illumined by the beauty of their souls,

In your sight, Lord, and in your mother’s,

Since you both belong to our earth,

And all the bodies of men will be the guests in glory of your

eternal heaven.

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.

[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.”

Walking With Our Neighbors through the Largest Mass Deportation in US History

December 17, 2024UncategorizedBible, christianity, faith, god, jesusrevolsen

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

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.

Over Stuffed Refrigerators and Crowded Closets

December 9, 2024UncategorizedBible, christianity, faith, god, jesusrevolsen

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

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:

Get off my land!

Who says it’s your land?

My deed.

Where did you get that deed?

I inherited it from my father.

Where did he get it.

From his father.

And where did he get it?

He fought for it.

Well, then. I’ll fight you for it!

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

In gardens sweet each flower mark did I,

How they did spring, bud, blow, wither and die.

With that, contemplating of man’s short stay,

Saw man like to those flowers pass away.

Yet built he houses, thick and strong and high,

As if he’d live to all Eternity.

Hoards up a mass of wealth, yet cannot fill

His empty mind, but covet will he still.

To gain or keep, such falsehood will he use!

Wrong, right or truth—no base ways will refuse.

I would not blame him could he death out keep,

Or ease his pains or be secure of sleep:

Or buy Heaven’s mansions—like the gods become,

And with his gold rule stars and moon and sun:

Command the winds to blow, seas to obey,

Level their waves and make their breezes stay.

But he no power hath unless to die,

And care in life is only misery.

This care is but a word, an empty sound,

Wherein there is no soul nor substance found;

Yet as his heir he makes it to inherit,

And all he has he leaves unto this spirit.

To get this Child of Fame and this bare word,

He fears no dangers, neither fire nor sword:

All horrid pains and death he will endure,

Or any thing can he but fame procure.

O man, O man, what high ambition grows

Within his brain, and yet how low he goes!

To be contented only with a sound,

Wherein is neither peace nor life nor body found.

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.

Message of Advent: Stay Woke!

December 3, 2024UncategorizedBible, christianity, faith, god, jesusrevolsen

SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Prayer of the Day: Stir up our hearts, Lord God, to prepare the way of your only Son. By his coming give to all the people of the world knowledge of your salvation; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
   for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a mighty savior for us
   in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
   that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.” Luke 1:68-71.

Prepare the way of the Lord,
   make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
   and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
   and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Luke 3:4-6.

“The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” Malachi 3:1-2.

Zechariah sings an encouraging song about a coming savior for Israel. This savior from the house of David will be “mighty.” He will demonstrate God’s favor toward God’s people, save them from the hands of their enemies and protect them from all who hate them. He will liberate them from the oppressive bureaucracy of empire, free them from crushing taxation and military occupation, all to the end that they “might serve [God] without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all [their] days.” This sounds like a savior made to order. A strongman savior who will seal the border against the hoards of migrants seeking to invade our country and “poison our blood,” put the nation first over global competitors, destroy our “enemies” and give us the security for which we long.

The prophet Malachi, whose words are recited in our lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures, was one of those “holy prophets from of old” to which Zachariah refers. Luke 1:70. He, too, promises a savior for God’s people. But Malachi sounds a cautionary note. Do you really want the savior God would send? Are you ready for a savior whose salvation will begin with the rigorous cleansing of your own life and the idols to which you cling? Are you prepared to follow a savior who forsakes the power of arms and instead confronts evil and injustice with truthful speech and nonviolent resistance? Are you ready to stand with this savior who sides with the poor, the sinner and the outcast even to the point of going to the cross? Can you stand in the presence of the God who will ask you where you were and what you did when God’s beloved children were hungry, naked, homeless, refugees, persecuted and imprisoned? Yes, says Malachi, the mediator of God’s covenant will come. But are you ready for him? Do you really want him to come? When you pray, “Come Lord Jesus,” do you really know what you are asking?

The gospel lessons from the last two Sundays have given us what seem to be grim news. They were filled with images of war, ecological destruction, social unrest and cosmic disturbances. But perhaps these images are grim only because they threaten to undo the status quo, the established order, the patterns of regularity that most of us who have to leisure to read articles like this find comforting. For most of the world, the established order has not been particularly kind. Peoples all over the world who have been victims of colonialization, exploitation and crushing poverty now find themselves the primary victims of climate change, a crisis for which they are the least responsible. The United Nations, for all the good it does, nevertheless serves to ensure the continued dominance and control of the wealthiest and best armed nations of the world at the expense of the rest. Many of us who enjoy the fruits of prosperity and opportunity this country offers do so at the price of the enslavement, exploitation and ongoing discrimination experienced by Black Americans. For all “those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,” the break up of the old order, the erosion of its foundations and the signs of its imminent collapse look less like the end of the world than the prelude to a new age. Luke 1:79.

In north America and Europe, Christianity has served historically as the religion of the wealthy, the powerful and the conqueror. The empires, kingdoms and nation states under which it thrived throughout much of its history gave it a position of privilege, power and prestige. In return, the church’s art, teaching, liturgy and practices lent legitimacy and support to the governments under which it lived, honoring their leaders, blessing their wars and condemning all who dared criticize them. The church served as the arbiter and enforcer of morality for the dominant class, sanctifying their possession of wealth, monopoly on power and exercise of violence against those deemed a threat to the existing order. Defending the status quo is our natural reflex when threatened. Even those of us who identify as “progressive” find ourselves working to make the existing order more just, more equitable and more humane rather than entertaining its replacement.

That, however, is not where the church began. The community called church grew out of discipleship to a marginalized person within a marginalized community in the backwaters of the Roman Empire. The early church worshiped as the Son of God a child born out of wedlock to a homeless couple in a stable who were refugees from political violence seeking sanctuary in a foreign country. The one Christians called messiah was cruelly executed by the state under color of law. The New Testament church was a diverse collection of small communities made up of individuals from all walks of life, including outcasts and misfits. It had no legal standing, no representation in the imperial bureaucracy and no societal influence. When the early church had dealings with the Empire, they were not friendly. The Book of Revelation reveals a church experiencing the full weight of oppression under the established world order and could see a better hope only beyond its dissolution. The new heaven and the new earth, according to John of Patmos, would come through revolution, not evolution.

The church’s chief problem is that it has been struggling for centuries to pound the square peg of God’s good news for the poor into the round hole of state religion. The fit has never been right. We have had to downplay the life and teachings of Jesus in order to justify state violence, individual accumulation of wealth, inequality and indifference to human well being, all in the interest of legitimizing, rationalizing and defending our patron states, their institutions and their social orders. Perhaps the greatest miracle of all time is the fact that the gospel of Jesus Christ survived at all-in spite of us. The great theologian, preacher and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, found a meaningful and formative witness to that gospel in America, not in the halls of Union Seminary where he studied, but in the preaching of the Black churches of Harlem. Among the cruelly colonized people of Central and South America we have seen the birth of liberation theology focused on the life, teaching and practices of Jesus. Remarkably, these preachers and teachers understood Jesus and the reign of God he proclaims far better than the conquerors who sought to impose it on them. The church, it seems, is most at home on the margins among the poor, the oppressed and excluded.

Liberation theologians have often referred to God’s “preferential option for the poor” as the starting point for reflecting on the meaning of the gospel. That rubs a lot of folks the wrong way. “Do you mean to tell me, pastor, that God doesn’t care about people who aren’t poor?” That from a woman in a congregation I once served. The answer is, “no.” God loves all people, rich and poor alike. God means to redeem all people, rich and poor alike. But for those of us who are not poor, persecuted or outcast, salvation takes a different shape. For us, salvation means liberation from our lust for dominance and control, our addiction to wealth and privilege, our captivity to the cycles of revenge and retribution, our allegiance to the idols of nation, race, blood and soil. These are the sins that harden our hearts, turn us against one another and distort the image of God within us. Thus, the liberation of the poor from injustice and oppression will be our salvation as well. Seeking to see the world through the eyes of the poor is perhaps the best way for the likes of us to “stay awake” (dare I say wok?) for signs of the coming reign of God.

Here is a poem by Harriet Beecher Stowe speaking to the new creation lying hidden in the old.

Think Not all is Over

Think not, when the wailing winds of autumn

Drive the shivering leaflets from the tree,—

Think not all is over: spring returneth,

Buds and leaves and blossoms thou shalt see.

Think not, when the earth lies cold and sealed,

And the weary birds above her mourn,—

Think not all is over: God still liveth,

Songs and sunshine shall again return.

Think not, when thy heart is waste and dreary,

When thy cherished hopes lie chill and sere,—

Think not all is over: God still loveth,

He will wipe away thy every tear.

Weeping for a night alone endureth,

God at last shall bring a morning hour;

In the frozen buds of every winter

Sleep the blossoms of a future flower.

Source: This poem is in the public domain. Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) was an American author and abolitionist. She was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, one of 11 children. Her father was the outspoken Calvinist preacher Lyman Beecher. Harriet enrolled in the Hartford Female Seminary run by her older sister Catharine. There she received a traditional academic education with a focus in the classics, languages and mathematics. In 1832, Harriet moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. Cincinnati’s trade and shipping business on the Ohio River drew numerous migrants from different parts of the country, including many escaped slaves and the bounty hunters seeking them. At about this time, Lane Theological Seminary opened to students who in 1834 organized a series of debates about slavery. The students voted overwhelmingly that slavery should end immediately. Harriet was present at many of these encounters and was heavily influenced by them. In 1836 she met and married Rev. Calvin Ellis Stowe, a widower who was a professor of Biblical Literature at the seminary. The Stowes were fierce critics of slavery and supported the Underground Railroad, temporarily housing several fugitive slaves in their home.

In 1851 Harriot wrote the first installment of what was to become her most famous and influential work, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The book was first published in serial form in the newspaper The National Era and later in book form. You can read more about Harriot Beecher Stowe and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation Website.

Christ the King and the Religion of America

November 18, 2024UncategorizedBible, christianity, Church, faith, jesusrevolsen

SUNDAY OF CHRIST THE KING

Prayer of the Day: Almighty and ever-living God, you anointed your beloved Son to be priest and sovereign forever. Grant that all the people of the earth, now divided by the power of sin, may be united by the glorious and gentle rule of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’” John 18:36.

The celebration of Christ the King on the last Sunday of the church year is a relatively new addition to the liturgical calendar. It was instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI in response to what he characterized as growing secularism. The old monarchies governing Europe had been dissolved or relegated to mere ceremonial functions by this time. Power and governance had passed to the modern nation state. As Pius saw it, the new order was turning into a breeding ground for dangerous and dehumanizing ideologies elevating loyalty to the nation state and its rulers over all other claims. This exaltation of the nation state amounted to idolatry in his view, constituting a threat both to Christian faith and human worth and dignity. Sadly, the horrific events that unfolded in the following decades proved him right. Sadder still is our generation’s failure to learn from this history the dark places to which nationalistic idolatry invariably leads. Saddest of all is the American church’s failure to address the godless ideology of nationalism as it rears its ugly head once again, not only within our nation, but within the very heart of our congregations.

My first encounter with Christian nationalism did not come from the far right. It occurred within what I would characterize as a moderately liberal congregation in my progressive Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). I was serving then as the assistant to the pastor. One Sunday I arrived with my alb and stole ready to serve as liturgist to the presiding senior pastor, who informed me that this Sunday had been designated Girl Scout Sunday. I was to introduce the scout leaders and offer up a short prayer, after which a troop of young girl scouts would march up bearing the flag of the United States. The flag would be posted in front of the altar and the scouts were to lead the congregation in the Pledge of Allegiance. I have to tell you that, on a scale of conflict avoidance from one to ten, I am a fifteen. I am very much inclined to go along to get along. But I just could not bring myself to take part in this ritual.

Needless to say, the senior pastor was more than a little upset with me. He pointed out that I could have given him notice weeks in advance if I had a problem taking part in Girl Scout Sunday. He was probably right about that. At the time, I was practicing law full time while serving as assistant pastor. I didn’t always pay close attention to the church calendar and that was on me. He also felt that I was being unreasonable, that the Girl Scouts served an important role in providing community, support and activities for young girls. He pointed out that they were partners in teaching many of the civic and moral values we also hold dear. This was an opportunity for us to engage with the larger community, show our support for an organization supportive of young girls and welcome and include in our worship many children who would never have had any contact with the church before. There was no hint of right wing jingoism in any of this. My senior pastor’s arguments were all ones to warm the cockles of a progressive’s heart. So, why not just hold my nose and do it?

To make a long story short, I held my ground. The senior pastor took over the role I was supposed to play during the first half of the service while I remained in the sacristy. I joined the service later to assist with communion. You might think me unreasonably stubborn to make such a fuss about a benign ceremony for children. Would I really want to spoil these girls’ experience for the sake of making an abstract theological point? To be clear, I do have a stubborn streak and there have been times when I have dug my heels in when I ought to have compromised. That said, this was one stand I do not regret having taken. I say that because I believe the places in which we worship are holy ground. It matters which objects we place in front of the altar, which symbols we absorb into our worship and who and what we worship and venerate. We gather on the Lord’s day to worship the Triune God, not to venerate the state. We confess our faith in that God by reciting the ecumenical creeds, not by pledging allegiance to the state. The “we” gathered about the altar to receive the Body and Blood of Christ are not gathered as fellow Americans. We are gathered as members of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church which recognizes no singular nation “under God.” To the contrary, we believe “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” Acts 10:35. There is no reconciling the God and Father of Jesus Christ confessed in the creeds and the patron deity of the United States.

I tell this story because there is much talk these days about Christian Nationalism, particularly as it pertains to conservative white evangelicalism. I have had a lot to say about it myself. However, it is important (and only fair) to recognize that the Christian right is not the sole propagator of this heresy. The religion of nationalism is deeply imbedded in the DNA of nearly all American Christianity. Enter the sanctuary of any church, protestant or catholic, liberal or conservative and the chances are very high that you will find there, usually on the same level as the altar, an American flag with its evil twin, the red, white and blue so-called “Christian flag” facing opposite. Christian clergy, including yours truly, routinely offer benedictions, prayers and blessings for celebrations of America’s wars and its casualties. Christian churches in this country provide chaplains to soldiers and sailors who, in addition to their ordination vows, swear allegiance to the armed forces. Although the United States has never had a state sponsored church with an official religion, it is itself a religion that imposes itself into the heart of congregations in numerous ways that we have come to consider part and parcel of what it means to be Christian. Thus, when we point the Christian nationalist finger at conservative evangelicals, we need to acknowledge the three pointing back at ourselves.

Perhaps we need to take a step back and question some basic assumptions typically made about states and statehood. The modern nation state is, well, modern. It has been with us only for the last couple of centuries which, in the grand historical scheme of things, is rather brief. We Americans assume, however, that constitutional democratic republics are on the precipice of a social evolutionary path from the darkness of tribalism, tyranny and autocracy. But in truth, constitutions have been as much an ally of tyranny as an opponent. The United States Constitution has been employed to uphold slavery, enable Jim Crow and legalize the dispossession of indigenous American tribal communities. The same constitution that for fifty years guaranteed bodily integrity to women is now interpreted, without amendment, to guarantee nothing of the kind. If the constitution means whatever the current make-up of the supreme court says it means with no deference to precedent, it doesn’t guarantee anything to anyone.

Faith in democracy is likewise dubious. The Union County Courthouse in Elizabeth, New Jersey, a venue I frequented in the days when I still practiced law, bears on its stone façade the Latin phrase, “Vox populi, vox dei.” Translated, it means “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” That sentiment is not born out in scripture or history. In the Bible, the voice of the people demanded a king against the advice of God’s prophet Samuel. They got their wish-along with some dire consequences. The voice of the people acclaimed the false promises of the prophet Hananiah rather than the dire warnings of the prophet Jeremiah. That did not go well. The voice of the people demanded Barabbas instead of Jesus. Historically, democracies have shown themselves quite capable of voting themselves out of existence. In short, constitutional democracies are only as sound as the wisdom, fairness, integrity and compassion of the persons they govern. Absent these virtues, democracy is simply mob rule.

I am not suggesting we abandon democracy or give up on the rule of law. I am certainly not recommending autocracy. I believe, however, that the degeneration of our civil discourse, indifference to injustice and the paralysis of our government are attributable in large part to a near divinization of the state. Politics has become the new religion and our political campaigns have become holy wars. Rather than a deliberative pursuit of the common good through reasoned argument, debate and compromise, it has become a zero sum game, a contest between good and evil. Our churches have contributed to this trend by internalizing and sanctifying American mythology into our hymnody, teaching and practice. The gospel of Jesus Christ has been conflated with the American dream, manifest destiny and national exceptionalism. The narratives glorifying American wars, justifying its ruthless conquest of indiginous cultures and the exploitation of their lands have become comingled with the history of Israel’s conquest of Canaan and the martyrdom of the saints. We have made of our nation an idol which, like all idols, eventually demands a blood sacrifice, the offering of what is most precious to us. And like all idols, it fails to deliver on all of its grandiose promises.

The lessons for Christ the King Sunday pass judgment on nationalism of all kinds. The crowd of five thousand would have crowned Jesus king after he fed them. Jesus would not have it. Neither will he let Pilate pin that label on him. His kingdom, he tells us, “is not of this world.” That does not mean it is not in this world or that it exists only “way beyond the blue.” It does mean that God’s reign will not come through the instrumentality of government or the practice of politics. That is precisely why Jesus would not accept the devil’s offer to place in his hands the authority of all the world’s kingdoms. Such power is of no use in building the new creation God longs to give us. God has no interest being the sort of king the crowd desires or that Pilate imagines. God will not impose God’s reign by means of military power or political authority. God will reign through love, or not at all.

Does this mean that government is evil or that politics is inherently sinful? No. When government is not idolized, when politics is not seen as the tool for banishing evil, destroying perceived enemies or building what we imagine to be the ideal society it loses its toxicity. When the political process is understood as the means by which we corporately work together to love our neighbors and care for the most vulnerable among us, then it can be a blessing, like all of God’s good gifts. Politics cannot give us a new heaven and a new earth, but it can help us build a framework under which common ground is found and the common good pursued. It cannot reconcile all of our conflicts, but it can create forums where conflicts that might otherwise lead to violence can be mediated. Politics can curb the most destructive human instincts and make space for the breaking in of God’s reign of justice, peace and reconciliation. It can hold society together until God’s reign comes in its fullness. For that reason, it deserves our attention and participation.

To acknowledge that God alone is truly sovereign, that the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, that nations, our own included, are but a drop in the bucket and that humanly constructed systems of authority and governance are merely provisional liberates us from bondage to the destructive and hateful ideologies that make gods of nation, race, blood and soil. To acknowledge Jesus Christ as king frees politics to become merely politics once again.

Here is a poem by Ha Jin addressing the idolatry of nationalism.

All You Have is a Country

You are so poor that all you have is a country.

Whenever you open your mouth

you talk about the country

to which you can no longer return.

China is a giant shield that you use

to conceal your cowardice and to preempt

the onslaught of duties and hardships.

You dare not take these as your rights:

the warm sunlight, clean water, fresh air,

a happy mood for an ordinary day.

As long as you live, you want to grieve

for the fairy tale of patriotism.

You dare not take a country as a watchdog—

a good dog wags its tail to please its master,

becomes fierce in deterring burglars;

a bad dog ignores invaders

and only bites and barks at its master.

You dare not clasp the dog’s ear,

telling it, “You won’t have food

if you continue to misbehave like this.”

Actually, you are merely a grain of rice

that fell through China’s teeth,

but you treat it as your god,

your universe, and the source

of your suffering and happiness.

Source: A Distant Center (c. 2018 by Ha Jin; pub. by Copper Canyon Press). Jin Xuefei (b. 1956) is a Chinese-American poet and novelist. He publishes under the pen name Ha Jin. He was born in Liaoning, China and grew up in the chaos of early communist China. At thirteen, Jin joined the People’s Liberation Army during the Cultural Revolution. He left the army when he was nineteen and entered Heilongjiang University. There he earned a bachelor’s degree in English studies. Thereafter he earned a master’s degree in Anglo -American literature at Shandong University. He was on a scholarship at Brandeis University when the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre occurred. Jin emigrated to the United States thereafter. He currently teaches at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to that he taught at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. You can read more about Ha Jin and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

The Myth of Scarcity

November 4, 2024Uncategorizedabundance, Bible, faith, god, jesusrevolsen

TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Prayer of the Day: O God, you show forth your almighty power chiefly by reaching out to us in mercy. Grant us the fullness of your grace, strengthen our trust in your promises, and bring all the world to share in the treasures that come through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.” I Kings 17:16.

Elijah was a criminal on the run and wanted by the authorities in Samaria. He had just crossed the border into Sidon. She was a helpless widow with a child on the brink of starvation. Just a jar of cooking oil and a little flour between them. If Fox News were to finish this story, it would no doubt end in the illegal immigrant with a criminal record murdering the woman and her son, taking their meager share of bread and eating their dog for good measure. Moral of the story: Sidon should have had a border wall.

That is not the biblical story, however. Instead, the prophet on the lam requests help of the widow, promising that there will be enough bread for all three, woman, child and prophet. The woman trusts the word of the prophet and makes him a loaf of bread. Contrary to expectation, it turns out that there is bread not only for the day, but for many days to come. Here, as in the gospel lesson where another widow contributes out of her poverty, the scriptures testify that generosity knows no limits. It is not deterred by race, national boundaries, religious distinctions or class differences. Just as importantly, it is not limited by perceptions of scarcity.

The myth of scarcity animates much of our culture, religion and politics these days. Something deep inside is always whispering to us, warning us that there is not enough to go around. God’s love is not great enough to embrace people outside your faith community. The world is a shrinking pie and if you don’t get your share now, there won’t be anything left. So you had better shore up those border walls to make sure nobody else takes any of those diminishing American jobs, land and benefits to which you are entitled. Better cut taxes to eliminate social programs benefiting the most vulnerable among us to make sure there is enough for your own proverbial “kitchen table.” Better think twice about your giving to the church and its ministries because who knows how high rent, mortgage rates and the price of eggs will be in the coming year. And if some illegal comes to your door begging for bread, you had better slam it in his face and call ICE.

I have labeled this outlook a myth because it is just that. Again and again, Jesus demonstrates that there is always enough to share, even when you are down to your last few loaves of bread and fish. God will provide. God always has provided. As grievously as we have abused this earth, it is still capable of satisfying everyone’s need (though not everyone’s greed!). There is plenty of opportunity for all who seek sanctuary in our land. The best of our American traditions has always recognized this truth. Witness poet Emma Lazarus’ words engraved at the base of the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

More importantly, there are plenty of resources and lots of potential for improving life in the nations from which people feel compelled to flee. The Marshall Plan of 1947, which rebuilt Western Europe following the second world war, demonstrates what can be done where there is political will and strong, determined leadership to implement it. Scarcity is the devil’s lie. It is as old as the Garden of Eden. God can’t be trusted to provide. God cannot be trusted to be your shelter. God cannot be trusted to be your sure defense. Everyone outside your circle is out to get you, take away what you have and leave you with nothing. Nobody is going to take care of you but you.

To the mind twisted by the myth of scarcity, the actions of the women in our lessons for this Sunday appear foolish, dangerous and irrational. The myth of scarcity lends credibility to claims that immigrants are pet eating psychopaths released into our country from prisons and insane asylums. It lends credibility to claims that a vague, shadowy “deep state” is plotting to rob you of your guns, destroy your religion and change the sex of your school age children. It makes believable mad ravings about some “enemy from within” embedded in your family, lurking among your neighbors and hiding in your community bent on taking your country away from you. The myth of scarcity breeds fear and fear makes you stupid. But to the mind of Christ dwelling in people like the two biblical women, generosity is the only rational response to a neighbor in need-any neighbor of any racial, cultural, national origin with or without the right paper work and on this or the opposite side of any border. Generous people know that when you place what you have in the service of Jesus, however small and inadequate it might seem, it can accomplish more than can be imagined. God will provide.

Here is a poem by Luci Tapahonso that celebrates the giftedness of diversity in nature and humanity, calling for the response of limitless generosity and gratitude. Though grounded in Navaho faith and tradition, it parallels the biblical testimony to generosity as the foundational principle of creation.

A Blessing

For the graduates of the University of Arizona.

This morning we gather in gratitude for all aspects of sacredness:

the air, the warmth of fire, bodies of water, plants, the land,

and all animals and humankind.

We gather to honor our students who have achieved the extraordinary

accomplishment of earning doctoral or master’s degrees.

We gather to honor their parents, grandparents, children,

family members, and friends who have traveled with them

on their path to success. They have traveled far distances to be here

this morning: we honor their devotion.

May we remember that holiness exists in the ordinary elements of our lives.

We are grateful for a homeland that has always thrived

on a glorious array of people and their diverse cultures, histories,

and beliefs. We acknowledge the generosity of the Tohono O’odham

in granting this land on which we learn, teach, celebrate

accomplishments, and sometimes mourn losses.

May we always cherish our ancestors as we prepare for the days ahead.

May we remember that we exist because of their prayers and their faith.

We are blessed with distinct and melodious tongues.

Our languages are treasures of stories, songs, ceremonies, and memories.

May each of us remember to share our stories with one another,

because it is only through stories that we live full lives.

May the words we speak go forth as bright beads

of comfort, joy, humor, and inspiration.

We have faith that the graduates will inspire others

to explore and follow their interests.

Today we reflect a rainbow of creation:

Some of us came from the east, where bright crystals of creativity reside.

They are the white streaks of early morning light when all is born again.

We understand that, in Tucson, the Rincon Mountains are our inspiration

for beginning each day. The Rincons are everlasting and always present.

Those who came from the south embody the strength of the blue

mountains that encircle us. The Santa Ritas instill in us

the vigorous spirit of youthful learning.

Others came from the west; they are imbued with the quiet, yellow glow of dusk.

They help us achieve our goals. Here in the middle of the valley, the ts’aa’,

the basket of life, the Tucson Mountains teach us to value our families.

The ones from the north bring the deep, restorative powers of night’s darkness;

their presence renews us. The Santa Catalina Mountains teach us that,

though the past may be fraught with sorrow, it was strengthened

by the prayers of our forebearers.

We witnessed the recent fires the mountains suffered,

and in their recovery we see ourselves on our own journeys.

We understand that we are surrounded by mountains, dziił,

and thus that we are made of strength, dziił, nihí níhídziił.

We are strong ourselves. We are surrounded by mountains

that help us negotiate our daily lives.

May we always recognize the multitude of gifts that surround us.

May our homes, schools, and communities be filled with the wisdom

and optimism that reflect a generous spirit.

We are grateful for all blessings, seen and unseen.

May we fulfill the lives envisioned for us at our birth. May we realize

that our actions affect all people and the earth. May we live in the way

of beauty and help others in need. May we always remember that

we were created as people who believe in one another. We are grateful,

Holy Ones, for the graduates, as they will strengthen our future.

All is beautiful again.

Hózhǫ́ nááhasdłíí’.

Source: A Radiant Curve by Luci Tapahonso (c, 2008 by Luci Tapahonso; pub. by University of Arizona Press). Luci Tapahonso (b. 1953) is a Navajo poet and a lecturer in Native American Studies. She was born on the Navajo reservation in Shiprock, New Mexico. Navajo was spoken exclusively in her home. She learned English in elementary school as a second language. Tapahonso earned her bachelor’s degree in 1980 from the University of New Mexico and her MA in Creative Writing in 1983. Thereafter, she taught, first at New Mexico and later at the University of Kansas and the University of Arizona. Tapahonso’s work has appeared in many print and media productions in the United States and internationally. She received the 2006 Lifetime Achievement award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas and a Spirit of the Eagle Leadership Award for her key role in establishing the Indigenous Studies Graduate Studies Program at the University of Kansas. She is the first poet laureate of the Navajo Nation. You can read more about Luci Tapahonso and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

Peter's Outer Cape Portico

A place where prophets, apostles and poets meet in the lessons for each Sunday of the church year

Tag Archives: jesus

Rev. Jeremiah Wright was Right

The Unwritten Word

The Body of Christ and the Vanishing Common Good

On Baptism

Divinity of Humanity

Walking With Our Neighbors through the Largest Mass Deportation in US History

Over Stuffed Refrigerators and Crowded Closets

Message of Advent: Stay Woke!

Christ the King and the Religion of America

The Myth of Scarcity

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