Unto Death Do Us Part
At my first church out in the Mojave Desert, Inyokern, I learned an awful lot. One thing early on I learned from this very rural community was that many folks did not have the same opportunities as I had grown up expecting. Not much for teenagers to do in this small town of some 450 people.
I remember asking one of the girls in our youth group what kids did for entertainment out here. She, matter-of-factly responded, “We go to desert parties, get drunk, get pregnant and then get married.” That’s it.
And there wasn’t much preparation for tying the knot. I would try to get any perspective couple to go through five or six sessions of premarital counseling. I’d start off with an easy question to set them at ease. “What attracted you to this person?” I remember the first couple who came to our doorstep. To that question, the young woman got all moony-eyed and answered breathlessly, “His car.”
I’m thinking, “Lady, you’re not marrying his set of wheels!” Is this all there is? Needless to say, this marriage did not last much more than six months.
The ethic of the sacrament of marriage is mutuality. I think of FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt. He was certainly a much more successful president because of the work and influence of Eleanor. Think of Will and Arial Durant who, through their collaboration, produced volume after volume of The History of Civilization. Theirs was indeed a sacramental partnership, for many have been blessed by that great work.
I think of my friends Jim and Jean Strathdee who as a team have greatly enriched the hymnody of the church.
I think of my own partner, Jai. When one or another of us pitches in to help remember a detail or work in a common project, I often say, “That’s why there are two of us.”
When it comes to the bond that lasts, Aretha Franklin’s theme song, R-E-S-P-E-C-T is at the heart of it. Any of you who have been married or have a deep and abiding friendship know this blessing. The essence of a good marriage, of a lasting friendship: R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
The Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh gets at this through what is known as “mindfulness.” Being mindful of the other at a deep level.
He tells the story of washing the dishes. Yes, that mundane chore most of us plod through without thinking. Or thinking completely of something else and missing the rich experience of actually washing the dishes.[1]
When he was a novice monk, washing the dishes was pretty primitive. There was no soap, only ashes and rice husks to do the cleaning. And all this for over one hundred monks!
Thich Nhat Hanh tells of a visit from his friend Jim Forest, a member of the Catholic Peace Fellowship. Jim, one evening volunteered to wash the dishes. Thich Nhat Hanh asked him if he knew how to wash the dishes. Jim, a little miffed, insisted of course. He’d been washing the dishes for many years. Of course, he knew how to wash the dishes!
Thich Nhat Hanh responded, that that may not be so. For, you see, “there are two ways to wash the dishes.” Anyone can wash them in a hurry. There’s a machine that will do that. That is the first way to wash the dishes just in order to have clean dishes…”the second is to wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes.” It is to be fully immersed in the process. “If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not ‘washing the dishes to wash the dishes.’”[2]
Such mindfulness was the habit of our patron saint, the Beloved Francis. He took in moments by moments and lived in them – in relation to his followers, in relation to the natural world. He had a mindfulness that revealed relationships. I say he is the saint of “everything is connected.”
Unfortunately, we don’t always show our closest friends, our spouses, our neighbors the same R-E-S-P-E-C-T. The first several couples I married in that small desert church had not the wherewithal to live with one another in mindful relationships. I wonder if that first woman enamored with “his car” had a mindful relationship with it. Probably not.
When we come from such broken or dysfunctional homes, we never acquire the skills and practices of being mindful of the other – whether it’s a spouse or a long-time friend.
Sarah Smarsh tells of such in her family in her book Heartland.[3] Coming from rural Kansas, with many from broken families, the abuse and trauma is passed along from one generation to the next.
“I was fortunate to have a kind father in a place where women’s bodies were vulnerable for being rural, for being poor, for being women. I grew up listening to Betty console my cousins, aunts, and family friends as they sat at the kitchen table after a beating. They might have a black eye from a fist or a sticky hospital-tape residue on their forearms from an emergency-room visit after being knocked unconscious with a baseball bat. On my mom’s side of the family that sort of terror was a tradition.”[4]
No marriage, no relationship can long survive that sort of abuse.
Yes, we are all connected and marriage holds the potential of being one of the deepest connections – but too often immature partners are simply not capable of such.
Barbara Brown Taylor says this about marriage: “It’s the only opportunity most of us will ever have to become an adult.” It’s all about R-E-S-P-E-C-T grounded in mindfulness of the other.
Hillary Clinton, in her new book, Something Lost, Something Gained, reflects on a rich and full life. In the work there is a chapter on her marriage. This has been probably one of the most public marriages in recent history. Despite the ups and downs, the public betrayal and humiliation, tentative reconciliation – through a lot of hard work and soul searching, this marriage has ripened into something beautiful and nourishing. That’s the sort of connection that would warm St. Francis’ heart and bring a tear or two to his eyes as it did mine.
As she reminisces over the years, “I’m back in New Haven, and this tall, handsome young man is holding my hand as we wander through the Yale University Art Gallery on our first date. I’m back in the living room of the little red-brick house in Fayetteville, saying ‘I do,’ as Arkansas sunlight pours through the bay window”[5]
“Bill and I have been married since 1975, and there’s still no one else I want to talk to more than him. About politics, public policy, and our foundation projects, yes.”
Most mornings find Bill and me lingering in bed, on our phones playing Spelling Bee. That’s the New York Times’ online game when you rearrange seven letters to form as many words as possible. After a few minutes, Bill will sidle over to compare lists. ‘Pizzazz’ he’ll ask.” Then he’ll call out ‘Queen Bee,’ the highest score possible. And she’s wondering how he does it so fast after a half-century at his side.[6] This is mindfulness that has blossomed into deep R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Today we will bless the animals, for all of creation was in the purview of Francis’ mindfulness. In our time of the onslaught of global warming, we objectify Mother Nature at our peril. Yes, it’s happening now. Not someplace off in some distant future. Now.
Mindfulness as we go to the polls would guide us to consider only those candidates grounded in the reality of what is going on all around us. Vote Climate.
Mindfulness grounds in the actual political realities of this world. Listening to the Vice President Debate last Tuesday, I’m with Lawrence O’Donnell’s assessment of one of the candidates, “J.D. Vance may be the only vice-presidential candidate in history who doesn’t know who the president is.” C’mon, guy…get real.
As we celebrate our patron saint, let us mindfully be connected as a part of the natural order. The earth and stars, planets and galaxies, centipedes and sow bugs…And yes, “lions, tigers and bears, O My!”
Its all a part of our glorious creation. In this garden, at the deepest level we are meant for relationship, friendship and marriage. And we are meant to be one with this splendid natural order. Sheer Grace!
Remember in the biblical story, when Adam first gazed upon Eve, he exclaimed, “this at last!” speaking of the dazzling sight before him – which should be far better translated as, “Holy Smoke!” We are indeed meant to delight on one another. It is not fitting that man, that woman should be alone.
As Martin Buber asserts, “God is relationship.” The Letter of John puts the same point a bit differently, “God is Love and those who abide in Love abide in God and God in them.” Francis was in love with all creation. His invitation daily awaits if we’re but mindful. Folks, it doesn’t get any better than this. Amen.
[1] Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975). 4-8.
[2] Op.cit., p8.
[3] Sara Smarsh, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth (New York: Scribner, 2018).
[4] Op. Cit., 78.
[5] Hillary Clinton, Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, Liberty (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2024), 277.
[6] Op. Cit., 271.
October 6, 2024
20 Pentecost, Proper 18
Blessing of the Animals
Genesis 2:18-24; Psalm 8;Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-17; Mark 10:2-16 “Unto Death Do Us Part
The First and the Last
On October 5, 2017, the New York Times published a story that would not only rock Hollywood but also the rest of the nation. It was an expose of one of the most powerful men in the film industry, Harvey Weinstein. It detailed decades of sexual abuse by a producer who promised career advancement in return for sexual favors. Several women came forward to tell their stories, among whom were actresses Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd.[1]
This was just the tip of the iceberg. Within days, Weinstein would be sacked by the board of directors of his company. Soon, more women would come forward with charges of molestation and rape.
At about the same time a liberating breeze had blown across the land, the #MeToo movement. This group of women were putting piggy, entitled males on notice that their bad behavior was not to be tolerated. These women meant business – and a good deal of that business would be conducted in a court of law.
While Anita Hill never got her due from the cavalier dismissal of her story by then Sen. Joe Biden and a bunch of other obtuse men on his committee – the Hollywood women blowing the whistle on Weinstein did.
On March 11 of 2023 Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years imprisonment for rape and sexual assault involving two of these women.[2]
The outpouring of blame against these women by many was unbelievable. Poor, poor boy. They’re just making this stuff up to get in the spotlight or squeeze money out of him. After all, he has very deep pockets.
The rich, the famous, other entitled folks who claim prerogatives over those without power – the so-called entitled First folks. You know them. They’re on TV nightly.
“If you’re famous, you can do whatever you want. Grab ‘em by the [wherever].” That from one of our most famous sexual predators – and buffoons. One without a clue!
This behavior from the entitled had even insinuated itself early on into the Jesus Movement.
“Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be the first must be the last of all and servant of all.”[3]
We see in the letter of James, a warning against showing favor to the entitled.
“My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please,’ while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there,’ or ‘Sit at my feet,’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?”[4]
God’s preference is for the poor, the shoved aside, the locked out. God meets us in our extremity. Jesus said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
Those considered Last, the “least of these,” are regularly discounted by the powerful and those claiming privilege.
Sarah Smarsh, coming from a “dirt-poor,” working class family, certainly knows the struggle to be heard, and believed. Yet she is now a college professor with another work that has also become a National Book Award Finalist, Bone of the Bone. [5]
“Today in America, for instance, a woman who accuses a celebrity of rape is presumed to be seeking money and attention, and a dark-skinned man who insists he’s minding his own business is wrestled to the ground by police officers when a White finger points his way.”[6]
When slave memoirs were written – works of the “least of these,” the “last” – they had to be published with accompanying testimonials by a White person to their veracity and the good character of the author.
When Harriet Jacobs published her memoir, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in 1861, her editor attested at the introduction to the readers that Jacobs had “lived with a distinguished family in New York and has so supported herself as to be highly esteemed by them…I believe those who know her will not be disposed to doubt her veracity, though some incidents in her story are more romantic than fiction.”[7]
These are stories of the “Last.” How shall they be first?
In this life, the Holy Spirit, that teacher, that stirrer-up-of imagination, that paraclete, advocate, comforter pulls us up to our full personhood.
Like the Black kid seen on the playground with a shirt saying, “I am Somebody, ‘cause God don’t make no junk.”[8] Also, that pride slogan serving as the title of an album by the Halo Benders, an indie rock band of the ‘70s.
This God “…raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap to sit with princes, with the princes of God’s people”[9] Blessed be the name of the Lord!
Teachers who pull out of us our best stuff, who guide us into full personhood – they are the agents of this one same Spirit. We’ve most likely encountered one or two of such guardian angels in our lives.
Mentors and friends who have guided us. Allies who have struggled alongside of us – all agents of the Spirit.
This is Sarah’s story. Raised up out of the dust and grime of poverty to amazing accomplishment. She worked in a biker bar in her twenties to complete her first book, Heartland, the story of growing up in a poor family. A National Book Award Finalist.[10] “You go girl,” prompts the Spirit!
Praise to the Spirit who lifts those of no account up out of the dust, giving them power to exercise their agency and native talent. The Last ever becoming First.
She grew up on a wheat farm in Kansas and was the first in her family to graduate from college. She knows well how class defines people.
From West Virginia comes another such story, Hill Women by Cassie Chambers.[11] Cassie grew up in the hollers of the Appalachian Mountains in one of the poorest counties in Kentucky. With the coal mining industry and tobacco farming in decline, not much was left but crumbling buildings and poverty.
“You don’t go to Owsley County, Kentucky, without a reason. You can’t take a wrong turn and accidently end up there. It’s miles to the nearest interstate, and there’s no hotel in town. It doesn’t cater to outsiders.”[12]
She tells of Granny, who had been a child bride, who raised her and gave her the values of family, hard work and faith. Her own mother, Wilma, who was married at nineteen and pregnant with Cassie and brought her into the world only months later. Moved by that God Spark of Possibility, Wilma beat the odds and managed to finish school.
Guided by her “hill women” values and the grounding of kin, Cassie would go on to graduate from Harvard Law. Yet, as her Ivy League education opened up many doors, Cassie felt that this privilege was pulling her from the reality of her home and clan. So, she moved back home to Owsley County to work with her Kentucky folks to set up free legal services. Raised up out of dust is she and the clients whom she assists.
Yes, the Last are ever being raised to sit among those who consider themselves the privileged First. And most remember their roots, the struggles that have molded their character and values – and Paying it Forward. Giving back as agents of the Spirit’s creative generativity.
Blessed be the name of the Lord who would lift us all out of the dust of that which constricts, that binds our sight, that diminishes our full personhood. The Last – a mentality which so often inhabits each one of us – becoming First in the eyes of God. Because God “Don’t make no junk.”
Praise to the Lord who lifts the weak out of dust, placing them, placing us, among those who are important somebodies in the eyes of God. Fit for Gospel service. Amen.
[1]“ Harvey Weinstein timeline: How the scandal has unfolded,” Reuters, February 24, 2023.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Mark 9:33-35, NRSV.
[4] James 2:1-4.
[5] Sarah Smarsh, Bone of the Bone: Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class (New York: Scribner, 2024).
[6] Op. Cit., 72.
[7] Op. Cit., 74-75.
[8] “God don’t make no junk” was an empowering slogan of the Black Power movement in the seventies.
[9] Psalm 113:7-8, NRSV.
[10] Sarah Smarsh, Heartland (New York: Scribner, 2018).
[11] Cassie Chambers, Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains (New York: Ballantine Books, 2020).
[12] Op. cit., vii.
September 22, 2024
18 Pentecost, Proper 20
Jeremiah 11:18-20; Psalm 54;James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37
“The First and the Last”
The MAGA Pet Cookbook
Like many of you, we watched the debate Tuesday night. We had a group of friends over, ate a lot of pizza and a very good salad. And drank a little beer and coffee.
Several of our guests almost injured themselves when convulsed with fits of uncontrollable laughter at one of the Former Guy’s assertions – the outrageous lie that immigrants in one Ohio town were eating people’s pets. Perpetrating a lie first told by J.D Vance. I almost fell out of my seat and spilled my beer.
How is it that so many gullible folks believe such patent nonsense? Of course, none of this is true.[1]
I told Jai that I might gin up a MAGA cookbook for cats, dogs and parakeets. It would go straight to the top of Amazon’s charts.
Yes, the dog may have eaten your homework, but no immigrant has eaten your dog. Or cat. Or parakeet.
Tongue in cheek, I fault our teachers for failing to teach critical thinking. What are we educating our students for? Jai responded that in her kindergarten classes she does teach behavior and consequences. And year after year, almost all her kindergartners and first graders were reading to state standards.
My best teachers have taught me how to discern nonsense from reality. Mostly, they have succeeded. A worthy goal of all education, the power of discernment. Good teaching is also about vocation.
All three lessons and the Psalm this Sunday have to deal with teaching. This from Isaiah:
“The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning [the Lord] wakens—wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.”[2]
Teaching is a fraught responsibility we learn from the Epistle of James – as any seasoned teacher knows.
“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make many mistakes…”[3]
All of us who are parents have taught, whether or not we have a state credential. And, for one, I’ve made some glorious mistakes, which I hope haven’t resulted in too many therapy bills for my boys.
Paulo Freire, in his Pedagogy of Hope, asserts that the goal of teaching ought to be to enable us to live more fulfilling, more liberated lives in community with our fellow brothers and sister. The goal is to empower us to become more aware of what oppresses, limits, and degrades.[4]
Pedagogy as understood by Paulo Freire opens up horizons. “History is time filled with possibility.” Exactly what Jesus’ parables do. These simple stories open up a multiplicity of possibilities. They open the soul to its fuller, more complete potential – liberation.
Freire uses the term, La concientización – conscientiousness arising. It’s about developing clarity on one’s existential situation – what one truly needs, what binds and what would liberate. This should be the goal of any worthwhile education. Yes, facts, numeracy and critical thinking are good. But to what end? Only that they are tools for those who are enlightened to their true situation.[5]
Concientización prompted by the Spirit opens the eyes of both oppressed and oppressor. “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” This from a former captain of a slave ship.
Genuine teaching prepares us to understand why we are here and what we are meant to do and be. “Then he began to teach them…” He opened their eyes.
The lesson of the day was about the cruciform way of life. Concerning himself and those who would follow after, “…the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by elders, the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”
Far too extreme for Peter who begins to rebuke him. But Jesus, in turn, rebukes Peter for getting the mission all wrong. “Get behind me Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
This lesson can be summarized in the prayer we close the service with every Sunday. A prayer that in part reads,
“Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
And when it comes to those who have sacrificed their prerogatives and self-interests in service of a greater cause, there’s no thought about “what was in it for them.”
As John Lewis counseled, “This is the way another generation did it, and you too can follow that path, studying the way of peace, love and nonviolence, and finding a way to get in the way. Finding a way to get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.”
It’s the willingness to risk scorn and doubt.
Those intrepid “greens,” attempting to alert an unbelieving public to the dangers of environmental degradation and global warming were shunted aside in political considerations.
Some, under the pressure caved to the opprobrium of the skeptics, softening the rhetoric to call it “climate change,” when in reality it’s a massive, systemic dose of “global warming.”
Too many have become captive to an oppressive cultural narrative that leads to self-censorship. Softening and thus preventing a true analysis of our situation. The other day, Christopher taught me the academic term for the force of this cultural expectation, “hegemonic narrative” — the domineering story. Adhere to it or be shunted aside, or worse in some autocratic nations, be jailed or disappeared. It’s the velvet glove, and sometimes iron fist, of dehumanization.
Euphemisms act to prevent a true understanding of the situation. “Collateral damage” disguises the reality of the mangled bodies and grief caused by indiscriminate bombing of schools, hospitals and refugee camps in Gaza. They act to soften the reality of what we are doing.
The other week the U.S. was in high dudgeon over one American killed by an Israeli soldier on the West Bank, but not much was said of the bombing of a refugee camp that killed 19 and wounded many more. We certainly did not cut off the flow of weapons and dollars funding these atrocities. Does an American life really have the same value of so many more Palestinian lives? Really?
We once were lost but now are found, were blind but now we see.
Now, these chickens of environmental destruction are coming home to roost. The eyes of many are finally being opened.
We’ve recently learned of the so called “forever chemicals,” cancer causing substances, that take centuries to degrade. The New York Times had an article alerting us to the contaminants found in fertilizer made from municipal sewage. Not only did this stuff contain many nutrients but it also contained chemicals from popcorn bags to firefighting gear and nonstick pans.[6]
“In some cases, the chemicals are suspected of sickening or killing livestock and are turning up in produce. Farmers are beginning to fear for their own health.” The state of Maine banned the use of sludge for agricultural purposes after finding contamination on at least 68 of the 100 farms checked.
Millions of tons of this stuff have been spread over millions of acres of farmland at the behest of the federal government as a way of keeping this sludge out of landfills. Now, remediation is neigh on impossible, the costs astronomical. Are our eyes opened yet? Can we see clearly now?
Our vocation is to find some trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble. To wake up, then get in the face of those still asleep as to what we are doing. Let the Spirit open our eyes that we get a true assessment of our situation.
Global warming certainly has a face in Southern California – fire. In the past couple of weeks hundreds of thousands of acres have burned, causing the loss of dozens of homes. And they’re still burning. Wakey-wakey. Time to open our eyes and smell the coffee. And avoid nonsense pretending to be reality.
Jesus sat his disciples down “then he began to teach them…” He informs us of our true cruciform vocation. It’s about living a life for others – through which we discover the meaning and purpose of our own lives.
I close with something Joan Baez said:
“You don’t get to choose how you are going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you are going to live. Now.” Today — that choice is ours. Now. Amen.
[1] Patrick Aftoora Orsagos, Julie Car Smyth, and Elliot Spagat, “An Ohio city reshaped by Haitian immigrants lands in an unwelcome spotlight, Associated Press, September 11, 2024.
2 Isaiah 50:4, NRSV.
3 James 3:1-2a, NRSV.
[4] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014).
[5] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 50th Anniversary 4th edition, 2018), 30.
[6]Hiroko Tabuchi, “Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ Turn up on Farms in U.S., New York Times, September 1, 2024.
September 15, 2024
17 Pentecost, Proper 19
Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 116:1-8;James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38 “The MAGA Pet Cookbook”
The Power of Love
Like many other people, my days are filled with things to do and places to go. Right from the get-go, I’ve got a “to do” list and the internal dialogue between my two ears is the ordering of it.
If there’s a problem, I’ll quickly jump to possible solutions before carefully assessing the nature of it in all its complexity. This is especially true, if the matter brought to my attention involves another person.
How many times have we all been that busy, hostage to the chores of the day?
In our lesson from Mark, Jesus is confronted with a personal problem on his busy journey. He also has places to go and things to do. In the midst of the busyness, he seeks some respite in a private home. He just needs a few moments of peace and quiet for himself. So, an interruption comes as a big annoyance. A thing to be dispatched with quickly. It is the story of the Syrophoenician woman who seeks healing for her demon-possessed daughter.
When the woman makes her request, Jesus abruptly dismisses her with, “’Let the children [of Israel] be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’”
Her clever response cuts him short. To listen, really hear what the other is saying and be affected by it. That’s the “Power of Love.”
A favorite from the film, “Back to the Future” by Huey Lewis and the News, “The Power of Love,” soared right to the top of the charts.
The Power of Love is deep, down really listening to what’s said and what’s not said.
The chorus nailed it:
You don’t need money, don’t take fame
Don’t need no credit card to ride this train
It’s strong and it’s sudden, and it’s cruel sometimes
But it might just save your life
That’s the power of love
That’s the power of love
The power of Jesus Love was intense, active listening. He let that women get to him. And she WAS RIGHT!
The God spark in him was changed by her plea.
In the midst of his annoyance, Jesus listened. Actively listened.
That was the first lesson of my married life. I had to learn to really listen to Jai, to let her inside and take account of her concerns. To be emotionally available. It’s taken fifty-seven years and I’m still working on it.
Jai gets the first crack at each and every sermon. My first question to her after she’s read it, “Was it interesting?” Second, “Did it give you a better understanding of the scripture lesson?” My writing has profited immensely from simply listening to my wife. Her gift back to me is the Power of Love.
The Church also listened, realizing that its mission is far more comprehensive than to a small, select group of the “chosen”. The Gospel mandate transcended culture, race and gender. We’re still working on that lesson. Indeed, “In Christ there is no east or west, no north or south.”
The broader mission all began with truly hearing the anguished plea of this outsider, this foreigner. In hearing those on the margins, we also may learn to listen to our own lives.
Frederick Buechner points the way, “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.” Listen to the lives of those around you and see their lives as sheer grace.
And in listening to those whom we would too quickly dismiss, we stumble upon the amazing grace of who we are – renewal for ourselves and for the world. That’s the Power of Love.
When I was teaching, and had to referee a dispute between two young fellows on the playground, one of the first things I learned was to listen deeply to both sides. The matter was never so simple as it seemed to either of the disputants. My duty was to give both boys voice, let each be heard.
Recently, Nicholas Kristof had some very important advice on listening in his latest op-ed column, “Why We Shouldn’t Demean Trump Voters.” And, yes, I have to plead guilty.
Quoting Bill Clinton, he writes “’I urge you to meet people where they are,’ said Clinton, who knows something about winning votes outside of solid blue states. ‘I urge you not to demean them, but not to pretend you don’t disagree with them if you do. Treat them with respect — just the way you’d like them to treat you.’”[1]
Kristof continues, “It’s more than politically stupid – it’s difficult to win votes from people you’re disparaging.” But it’s more than that.
Kristof adds, “It has also seemed to me morally offensive, particularly when well-educated and successful elites are scorning disadvantaged, working-class Americans who have been left behind economically and socially and in many cases are dying young. They deserve empathy, not insults.”
Good politics begins with deep listening and really hearing the other.
When Kristof shared with some of his colleagues the nature of his forthcoming piece, many were aghast. “Plenty of readers replied hotly: ‘But they deserve to be demeaned!’”
Kristof counsels that we step back and all take a deep breath. He recalls FDR’s radio address, a “Fireside Chat” of April 7, 1932. His talk, “The Forgotten Man,” addressing a nation at the height of the Great Depression, roused a nation to believe in one another.
FDR did not scold, did not cast blame. He heard and empathized. I like to think that this demeanor came deep from what he had learned over the years in his Episcopal congregation. And listening to his Eleanor.
“These unhappy times call for the building of plans that rest upon the forgotten, the unorganized but the indispensable units of economic power, for plans like those of 1917 that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.”[2]
As his funeral train made its way across the nation, a man was found weeping along the route, and was asked if President Roosevelt had been a close friend. “I didn’t know him,” the man replied. “But he knew me.” This was a feeling shared by millions of Americans.
Roosevelt listened. He listened to his former colleagues in congress. He listened to the reports Eleanor brought back from her trips throughout the land. In the grace of his listening our nation was healed. That’s the Power of Love. Gospel Love.
The Power of Love is the willingness to listen, especially when the news is not good of favorable to oneself. And let that message into your soul. To be affected by it at the depths of one’s being. To risk being changed by it.
This past week, on the front cover of The Economist was the headline on Sudan.[3] This is a tragedy that has received far less coverage than the war in Ukraine and Gaza, yet it is deadlier than both combined.
“Africa’s third-largest country is ablaze. Its capital city has been razed, perhaps 150,000 people have been slaughtered and bodies are piling up in makeshift cemeteries visible from space. More than 10 million people, a fifth of the population have been forced to flee from their homes…6 to 10 million people could die from starvation.” Folks, this is not “Morning in America.” And the world stands by as a collection of bad actors – Russia, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey have played both sides to their own benefit.
We, in the West, need to impose biting sanctions on those fueling the conflict with money, weapons and soldiers. We need to hear the cries of the ignored. We must heed their call. I wonder how long we would turn our heads if these victims were white. And don’t think that this disaster will not find it’s way to our door.
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy upon us.
We have abandoned this part of the world just as we have abandoned the women of Afghanistan. As far as they are concerned Biden has been no different than Trump. They both conspired to sell these women and girls into a future of misery and abject servitude.
No education beyond the sixth grade is permitted for girls. For women, no employment in virtually any job. Women are not to be allowed in public spaces – parks, gyms, shopping areas. They are virtually restricted to the home, being housewives and having children.
We sold them out. They were not consulted in the negotiations and abandonment that extinguished their hopes. All decided by a bunch of men who cared not a whit about their future or aspirations. Colin Powell once said, “It’s Pottery Barn rules. You break it, you own it.” Apparently, not us.
Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy on us all.
A widow, Ms. Rahmani, who had worked for nonprofit groups for nearly 20 years before the Taliban seized power, cannot now provide for her four children since women were barred from employment.
“’I miss the days when I used to be somebody, when I could work and earn a living and serve my country,’ Ms. Rahmani explained. ‘They have erased our presence from society.’”[4]
This is our doing. We invaded their nation then walked away leaving a complete disaster. The men in charge took no thought for what they left behind for one half of the population, the women and girls.
Can you hear them now? Let us deeply listen to their pain. Listen as Jesus deeply listened to that Syrophoenician woman. As he listened to so many along the fraught road to Jerusalem. This is the first act of love.
Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy upon us.
Listen we must. And become aware. Support aid through whatever channel. “Your thoughts and prayers” are insufficient here if not acted upon.
The Power of Love may seem insignificant, but when infinitely multiplied by the Spirit that stimulates creative solutions, empowers our gumption and fortifies courage, who knows what the Almighty can do through those of us willing to listen and to act? For the present, perhaps the best we can do is to immerse ourselves in the spirituality of the Serenity Prayer. Ask and accept forgiveness.
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Then we’ll see the amazing Power of Love.
May it be so. Amen.
[1] Nicholas Kristof, “Why We Shouldn’t Demean Trump Voters,” New York Times, August 1, 2024.
[2] Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Forgotten Man,” Fireside Chat, April 7, 1932.
[3] “Why Sudan’s War is the World’s Problem,” The Economist, 9.
[4] Christina Goldbaum and Najim Rahim, “With New Taliban Manifesto, Afghan Women Fear the Worst,” New York Times, September 4, 2024.
September 8, 2024
16 Pentecost, Proper 18
Isaiah 35:4-7a; Psalm 146;James 2:1-10, 14-17; Mark 7:24-37
“The Power of Love”
What Defiles andWhat Builds Up
More about food this Sunday. Some religious authorities insisted that the dietary law be followed scrumptiously – washing hands. Now, even my mother insisted on that before dinner. Not that we scrupulously followed her directions about hands.
But these ultra-religious leaders insisted that dirty hands, or not sufficiently-washed hands would lead one into the outer darkness and gnashing of teeth, utter doom. You might be defiled for all eternity. Even Mom did not go that far.
In addition, there were certain foods that might defile one. Now that I could believe. At least liver and onions, rutabagas, parsnips and tomato aspic could come close to leading to eternal damnation. At least that’s what I told Mom (or something like that). She didn’t buy that either.
Now, before we shift all the blame to religious leaders long gone, maybe we should point this passage to our hearts.
Sometimes, we Episcopalians can be just as pompous and self-righteous about our traditions. Our hoity-toity attitudes can get in the way of Gospel love. We can be standoffish and aloft when it comes to working with others in the Christian family.
I remember one of our more Anglo-Catholic priests upbraiding me for having children’s sermons during worship. She asserted, “The Episcopal Church is an adult church.” To which I responded, “Jan, if we really believe that, we soon will be a cadaver church.” Do children’s sermons really defile our traditions? Really???
Some religious big shots confronted Jesus concerning all the nit-picking traditions and superstitions in the practice of their faith. “Why do your disciples not live according to the traditions of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” To which Jesus responded, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me…’”[1]
When it comes to “defile,” there are far more serious failings to consider than dietary laws. As in what defiles a nation. As in what defiles the whole community.
A while back, we passed two significant anniversaries – the conviction of Lt. William Calley in the massacre at My Lai and that of Charles Manson and his cult followers’ – “The Manson Family” — murderous rampage in Los Angeles. March 29, 1971 was the day of both convictions.
Lt. Calley gave the orders that resulted in the wanton slaughter of some 450 innocent villagers, men, women and children – many raped and brutally tortured by U.S. troops before being shot and bayonetted.
That day was a moment of complete desecration of this nation, the military and all that we as Americans hold sacred.
That very same day Charles Manson and his followers were convicted of the brutal murders of the La Biancas and those at the home of Sharon Tate. Utter Desecration.
But there’s an alternative. In the midst of our worst, many more are bending their efforts to lift us up.
Most of us will attempt to live lives of decency and compassion for both neighbor and stranger. And as Machele Obama proclaimed last week on the “contagious power of hope,” “America, hope is making a comeback. Big time!
Most of us will be good neighbors. As Oprah Winfrey said that last week’s Democratic Convention, when a house is on fire, we wouldn’t ask who the owner voted for, we don’t ask what party they are a member of, or whether they are black or white. And even if they are a “childless cat lady, we’ll try to get the cat out.”
These efforts range from the minor to the sublime, from those of seemingly no consequence to those of political import.
It’s about standing up for truth and rebutting misinformation and lies. The other day at Vons in the checkout line, I was practicing what Sister Semone Campbell of “Nuns on the Bus” dubbed “checkout line evangelism.”
I had asked the clerk totaling up my bill if he had seen any of Vice President Kamala Harris’ speech. The clerk responded, “She’s anIndian.” “No,” I asserted, “she’s biracial. Her father is a Jamaican black man.” “No, she’s Indian,” he persisted. I challenged him to look it up on the Google machine. “She’s biracial.” Meanwhile, Jai was attempting to shrink into the groceries as others nearby listen in on this exchange.
This little episode might not have convinced him, but it did in some small way rebut the misinformation and ignorance that’s out and about in our political landscape.
In the aftermath of the defilement by the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on September 15,1963, one man stood tall for justice, Doug Jones.[2]
Due to the rampant violence, that city had earned the moniker of “Bombingham.” At the trial of a KKK member, the only person to have been charged with that crime, a young law student, Doug Jones, had skipped classes to sit in on all the proceedings. When a guilty verdict was announced, Doug swore in his heart that he would somehow work to bring the others to justice.
His perseverance and efforts paid off. Amost four decades after that trial, Doug had risen to become a U.S. Attorney based in Birmingham, and that bombing still haunting his days and nights.
Despite the advice of well-meaning friends, he began to dig into that case. “Let it lay. Nothing to be gained by digging all that old stuff up again.”
Doug would not allow our nation to wallow in justice denied. It would not be denied for Addie May Collins, Cynthia Morris Wesley, Carole Robertson, Denise McNair and their families. He would dig and dig.
There was a lot to cover up. The FBI was well aware of the threat the KKK posed to anyone, even their own agents and informants. There were KKK sympathizers within their own ranks.[3]
Bending Toward Justice is Senator Doug Jones’ story of how, in the midst of abject defilement, justice finally triumphed for these girls and their families. He lifted up, he restored faith in our system of laws.
On the other end of the spectrum, I came across a story of a family working to restore what is broken.
In the Los Angeles Times I read this article on the little Mojave Desert town of Amboy. I suspect many of you have never heard of the place.[4]
I knew it as a geology major. There’s an extinct volcano right outside the town. We would take trips out there to climb it and collect “bombs.” These were rocks ejected from the volcano. As they fell back to earth, the mouton lava solidified in a round form with a tail on both ends, thus a “bomb.”
The town of Amboy dried up and was abandoned when bypassed by the interstate highway. Finally, an immigrant named Albert Okura enamored by the cultural heritage and mystique of the place, purchased the entire town. Albert’s son, Kyle, upon inheriting it, has labored to restore the small café, Roy’s Motel and gas station in hopes of having a portion of Route 66 named in honor of his father, Albert Okura.
Albert, the “Chicken Man,” founder of the Juan Pollo restaurant chain, had originally purchased Amboy some twenty years ago. As a former geology major and a bit of a “desert rat,” I am overjoyed to see the restoration of Amboy and some of its iconic buildings.
Yes, “Get your kicks on Route 66,” and explore wonderful places like Amboy. Just a minor tribute to one man building up America. As Kyle, now the owner of Amboy, proclaims, “It’s unlike any other place you can visit. There’s nothing like it and no way you can replicate something like Amboy.”[5]
It is folks like Doug Jones and the Okura Family; it’s teachers and attorneys, farmers and students, all working to lift up and perfect this nation. We don’t have to deny the worst of the desecration that has been perpetrated on the body politic and our citizens, especially those on the margins – but we can accept these truths and move beyond the worst in our history. We don’t banish that part of our history but allow the better angels of our nature to lead us into greater light.
That is what most of us believe and work for – restoration, perfecting, aligning our efforts with our best vision and values. That is what will be on the ballot this November.
Again, I close with my favorite James Baldwin passage from his book of essays, The Price of the Ticket.
“For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; The earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”[6]
Amen.
[1] Mark 7:5-6, NRSV.
[2] Doug Jones, Bending Toward Justice (New York: All Points Books, 2019).
[3] Op. cit., 49.
[4] Alex Wigglesworth, “Saving a Patch of Americana,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2024.
[5] Wigglesworth, op cit.
[6] James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), 393.
September 1, 2024
15 Pentecost, Proper 17
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Psalm 15James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
“What Defiles and What Builds Up”
