House of Hope – San Bernardino

That bright morning the sun pleasantly warmed the awakening world.   Another light in the sky, however, caught the attention of a stegosaurus nonchalantly munching in a grove of ferns.  The quickly moving light, flaming bright — or was it the thunderous sonic boom as it raced through the upper atmosphere that caused it to cock its head and stop its chewing. 

This cataclysmic event was the rude beginning of what would turn out to be a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day” for our gentle stegosaurus and a whole lot of other creatures on Planet Earth.  And for a bunch of plants and fishes, too.

In a flash, a mountainous wave rose up, carrying the now-deceased dinosaur and a mish mash of mud, boulders, fish, trees and animals from the usual temperate climes near the Great Gulf Water.  Inland it all rushed, petering out near what we now call Arkansas.  And in the next moment, it all went sloshing back again to the Gulf.  Reptiles, spiders, plants and all.  Along with not a few ichthyosaurs and fishes.

In the days and years to come, thick darkness hung over the planet.  Much of the vegetation died and they that dined on it were soon gone, along with those that dined on the diners.  All around the world.  Welcome to the new world of the cockroaches, opossums and a few birds.  And a spider or two.  Much of the ocean life had also died as well.  But not everything.

Whether coincidence or not, volcanic activity in the newly disturbed planet soon belched enormous clouds of toxic gasses into the darkened skies over the ensuing eons, making the survival of most anything at all highly problematic.  The greatly acidified ocean was hell on clams and oysters.  Brachiopods, crabs and lobsters. 

The greatest natural disaster to befall Planet Earth?  No, this had happened before in various configurations.  Five or so times previously.

Out of this latest cosmic disaster arose an entirely new fauna and a land teeming with a multitude of mammals and creepy crawlies.  And Humankind.

And Humankind, that wonderful humanoid, Alley Oop – or whatever his name was.  Next door neighbor to Fred and Wilma Flintstone.  There he sat, atop the heap, with a mind to comprehend it all and will to take charge.  Planted in this renewed Garden.

The earth slowly settled down.  It must have been a wonderful garden.  Up sprouted everything these new humans needed for food, clothing and shelter.  Seas bountiful with fish.   So many fish in the Massachusetts Bay it was claimed that one could walk across that body of water stepping from one codfish to the next.

It must have been a wonderful Garden, indeed.  Until men and women began to mess with it.  Soon the imperial mammoth and giant sloth were gone.  Extinct, never to be seen again.  Until dug up millions of years later by us moderns and put in a museum.

How did all this take place?  How did the destruction begin?  Our story from Genesis says it was the fault of the cleverest of inhabitants lurking in the underbrush – that damned snake.

“Who told you that you were naked?  Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”  The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit from the tree, and I ate.”

That’s right, shift the blame.  Throw her under the bus.  Of course, you had absolutely no responsibility?  Right!

However the Fall happened, we presumed to plunder the Garden until much of it was gone – the beginning of another great extinction.  We gave no thought for tomorrow.  No thought for that delicate web of life of which we are a part.

As my theology professor was wont to note, “Sin is the one theological doctrine for which we have empirical proof.”

We may chuckle at this primitive story.  We may dismiss it out of hand as a simplistic myth of our early prehistory.  But the truth remains – the God’s honest truth — we’ve really screwed up the garden.  Just about stomped it to death and paved it over. 

We humans have ushered as many of our fellow critters into extinction as did that meteor and all the attendant volcanos so many eons ago.  The “Sixth Extinction,” scientists label this present ecological disaster.[1]  

Someone once asked the great theologian Karl Barth if he believed in “original sin.”  “Isn’t that how it usually works out?” he responded.

How often it is, we let the snake have the last word.  Nothing to see here, folks.  Just keep moving.

We now stand on the brink of the next great extinction.  Our age is now being labeled the “Anthropocene.”  Earth’s destiny, now influenced by humans as the greatest geological factor, will succumb to global warming.  Caused by – us.   We humans.

“More, more, more,” hisses the snake.  In the halls of Congress, in board rooms and in shopping cart lines.

To the extent we remain in its thrall, that cunning, mesmerizing serpent gets the Last Word.  BUT NOT QUITE. 

There’s another Word, a saving Word – a Word that echoes down the ancient halls of time, through the dusty roads of Palestine.

In the midst of a convoluted theological debate with religious authorities, Jesus has become an embarrassment to his family.   In fact, they’ve come to take him away.  He’s clearly out of his mind.  Maybe demon possessed.  When told that some members of his family are outside to take him home, he cuts to the chase.

“Who are my mother and brothers?”  And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

We have agency.  We can heed that Word which life and abundance.  Yes, we are NOT God.  We are but one of the creatures, though a very clever one – often too smart for our own good.  And we can choose an alternative to that of the snake…a blessed alternative.  We will do just fine living in harmony with the flora and fauna of the Garden.  Snake needn’t have the Last Word. 

We can choose the life intended by God for ourselves, our neighbors and our planet.  Everybody and everything doesn’t have to die.  Stop listening to that hissing in the background.

Here what our brother Paul has to tell us.  He get’s it

 “Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.  So we do not lose heart.”

We do not lose heart.  We will come to our senses, our authentic selves, as a part of the great living web of life.  We do not lose heart.  There’s still time – but not much.

There’s still time for those who cherish this, our Mother Earth.  It’s time for our primitive selves to grow up.  Time for Alley Oop to put down the club and put on a suit and tie.  Time to grow into his full humanity.  And listen to God’s restorative Word.

That happened this past week.

In several board rooms some “Mean Greens” took back a little bit of control from Exxon/Mobile and Chevron oil giants this last week

Bill McKibben and others have been warning us for over a decade about the disastrous course on which we have set our planet – that we need to clean up our act, literally, if we are not to shove the planet into climate catastrophe.

Two environmental activists were elected to the Exxon/Mobile board of directors, maybe even four.  They’re still counting the votes.  Time for Alley Oop to take his seat at the board.  Time for Wilma Flintstone to join him.

Chevron also was the target of climate activists who forced management to cut their customers’ carbon footprint.  And in the Netherlands, the court ordered Royal Dutch Shell to slash emissions harder and faster than they had been planning for. 

Maybe a few of our Alley Oop fellows, Barney and Betty Rubble, are growing into becoming world citizens.  Maybe there’s some hope for us all yet.  The snake doesn’t get the Last Word.

As my friend George always said, “Keep your eyes on the prize and celebrate the incremental victories along the way.”  So, grab a slice of cake.

This doesn’t mean our work is done.  President Biden has appointed enough folks from the fossil fuel industries to shut out the Sunrise Movement agenda.  We still look to miss by a wide margin the goal of keeping global temperatures under a 1.5 degrees Celsius rise.  We still are on the brink of going over the cliff of more irreversible tipping points.  Kiss your polar bears goodbye.

Follow the science.  Time is running out like the grains of sand in an hourglass.

Whoever does the will of God that we might all thrive, she, he, is our authentic sister and brother.  And a true companion on our brief journey through creation.

The saving Word is that in Christ we have the power and the vision.  Oh, sure, there will still be some weeds in the garden, some loathsome creatures.

That poor stegosaurus and all the rest?  I love visiting them in museums but am thankful they are not out in the front yard munching my nasturtiums and periwinkles.

I am very thankful that more and more of us are learning to live respectfully in the Garden in which we’ve been placed.  Who are our true relatives?  Brother, Sister Lizard, among others.

On the way to lunch am delighted in seeing my lizard friends out on the walkway sunning themselves, and am happy to greet them.  I like it a lot that they are a considerably smaller and much cuter than their dinosaur relatives.

For all things bright and beautiful…for activists willing to raise heaven on the Exxon/Mobile board of directors…for Alley Oop, the Flintstones, and our paleolithic forbearers who survived the dire wolf and saber-toothed tiger to stick around to have offspring…for those willing to head back to the White House and risk arrest again in support of Planet Earth and Bill McKibben’s 350.org movement…for those doing the Will of God – It’s like weeding.  The job’s never done.  THANKS BE TO GOD for all who lend a hand (and a dollar or two).  “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  AMEN.

---

[1] Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (New York, NY: Henry Holt, 2014).

“On Not Giving the Snake the Last Word”

Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Second Sunday of Pentecost, June 6, 2021
Proper 5

Genesis 3:8-15; Psalm 130;
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1; Mark 3:20-35

When I took a church in Petersburg, Alaska, I had to head up there before my wife was able to leave California.  She taught at a year-round school and her contract didn’t end until September.  So, I and our preschool boys boarded Alaska Airlines and headed on up.

As I had already enrolled them in the day care center, I thought, “How hard can this be?  Single parents do this all the time.”  Was I in for a rude awakening — and I even had child care covered!

I still remember that fateful Sunday morning when I was sitting at the breakfast table going over my sermon when I heard the rumble of feet coming up the hallway.  Giggling and shouting, “Daddy, we made a chemical.  We made a chemical!”

That I could see.  It was all over their Sunday best.  Did I ever pay for those brief moments of peace and quiet!  They ushered me back to the bathroom – their laboratory – to see their creation. 

The novel chemical was part red and green food coloring.  Part toilet paper, part oregano, part tooth paste.  At least, those were the identifiable components.

After I got them cleaned up, picked up my prayerbook and the pages of my sermon I bundled them up in their jackets and off to church we went.  I then understood in the most real way why it was that so many harried parents came bursting through the church doors, a kid or two in tow – late.  Sometimes very late.

Up until then, my judgmental self had thought as I saw these latecomers, “Why can’t they get themselves to church on time?”  Always the same several families.  Every Sunday.

Now, after having tried single parenting, I’ll forever banish that thought.  I knew from experience that these families were lucky to have made it at all.  Experience has a way of “keepin’ it real,” as we’d say in the hood.

In the age of pandemic, congresswomen, Republicans and Democrats alike, are totally insistent on including child care as part of Biden’s proposed infrastructure package.  Read Elizabeth Warren’s new book, Persist.   When she would meet with exhausted nurses and ask them what they needed to do their jobs in the midst of COVID-19, it wasn’t more PPP or shorter hours.  Nothing like that.  It was dependable, quality childcare.

Mitch McConnell, I suspect, never had to wrap up his morning’s work and rush off to the floor of congress, only to be confronted by two boys with goop all over themselves.  Chemical, I mean.  No wonder most men just don’t get it.

Today, we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete – the One who keeps it real.  Those who insist we keep it real are her agents.

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, that one will testify on my behalf…”

“The Spirit of truth…will guide you into all truth…” 

There is our grounding.  There is our power.  There is our guidance.  Keepin’ it Real.

Those nurses, speaking at that impromptu conference spoke the truth of their hearts.  Elizabeth mentions that virtually every modern, industrial nation has state-supported childcare for women who want to, or need to, work outside the home.  Listen to them, guys.  The lion’s share of childcare falls to women.  Their stories help us keep it real – if we have the guts to hear them out.  They are anointed agents of the Spirit of Truth.  Especially in this era of a pandemic.

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth …The Spirit of truth…will guide you into all truth…” 

This very same Spirt spoke loudly through my own experience of those months of being a single parent.  This Spirit spoke loudly through the voices of those exhausted nurses.  And the truth of the matter is, we’ve simply got to do better for all when it comes to child care.

Let the Spirit of Truth speak with a firm, insistent voice – Keepin’ It Real.

There are a number of folks I absolutely depend on to “Keep it Real.”  One I’ve come to rely on concerning the preservation of our democracy, is Liz Chaney and that group of Republicans who know that Joe Biden really, really, really is the President of these United States.

Though, on policy issues, I would most likely disagree with her on virtually everything, we do agree on one central core issue.  Our democracy is at stake.  It is being undermined by a pernicious lie that the election was stolen.

Liz Chaney is an agent of the Holy Spirit, insisting that this nation keep it real.  The Spirit will lead us into all truth.  Listen to her agent!

Yes, for some people, for some true believers in QAnon, this will not be easy.  But our democracy, if we care about it all, depends on rational Republicans taking control of their party. 

It’s said that the truth will set you free, but, as my friend Ed Bacon, would add: “First it will hurt like hell.”  Cognitive dissonance can be very disconcerting.  AND…it’s the work of the Holy Spirt.  It’s Keepin’-It-Real territory.  And Keepin’ it real can be painful.

The other day on the floor of Congress, Representative Tim Ryan, full of the Spirit of Truth, full of fury, spoke for Reality, the last and only hope for saving this republic — the only hope for saving our own souls as citizens:

“Benghazi!” he shouted.

“You guys chase the former Secretary of State all over the country, spent millions of dollars, we have people scaling the Capitol, hitting the Capitol Police with lead pipes across the head, and we can’t get bipartisanship!” Ryan screamed.

“What else has to happen in this country?”

“Cops. This is a slap in the face to every rank-and-file cop in the United States, if we’re going to take on China, if we’re going to rebuild the country, if we’re going to reverse climate change, we need two political parties in this country that are both living in reality, and you ain’t one of them.”[1]

You go, Spirit of Truth.  Preach it!  Our democracy urgently needs you.

At the end of May we come to the hundredth anniversary of the Greenwood Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Sometimes referred to as the Greenwood Race Riot.  The Greenwood District has been known as the “Black Wall Street” of Tulsa.

On May 31, 2021 one of the few living survivors of this slaughter, at 107 years old, gave her testimony before Congress.  If ever there was the incarnation of the Spirit of Truth, it was Viola Fletcher. 

“On May 31, of ‘21, I went to bed in my family’s home in Greenwood,” she said. “The neighborhood I fell asleep in that night was rich, not just in terms of wealth, but in culture … and heritage. My family had a beautiful home. We had great neighbors. I had friends to play with. I felt safe. I had everything a child could need. I had a bright future.”

“Within a few hours,” Fletcher said, “all of that was gone.”

“The night of the massacre, I was awakened by my family. My parents and five siblings were there. I was told we had to leave and that was it. I will never forget the violence of the White mob when we left our home,” she said, “I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams.”

“I have lived through the massacre every day. Our country may forget this history, but I cannot. I will not. And other survivors do not. And our descendants do not.”[2]

This Black community was burnt to the ground, some forty blocks of businesses, homes, churches.  Hundreds were killed, slaughtered in their homes, shot down in the streets.  Only one of the several mass graves has so far been discovered. 

The State National Guard joined the White mob in the killing and looting.  “The city, sheriff, chamber, and county targeted Black community leaders and victims of the massacre—despite knowing who were truly responsible.”[3]

There are times that the Spirit of Truth morphs into the hysterically funny, comical, if the consequences weren’t so dire.  But maybe a bit of humor is the only thing that will carry us through the farce.  Trust the wisdom of the Spirit.

In Arizona the Republican senate has insisted on yet another recount.  Amidst charges that part or all of the Maricopa County digital data base has been erased or gone missing, they have hired a Florida outfit to conduct one more recount.  This time without Democratic participation.  Florida?  Election recount?  What could possibly go wrong?

You’d better be sitting for what comes next—are you sitting?  I don’t want you to hurt yourself laughing.  The group hired – a group that has absolutely no, zero, none, experience in conducting a recount of anything – are you ready? – It’s called “Cyber Ninjas.” 

No, I’m not making this up!  They’ve never even done a recount of a piggy bank, let alone an entire cache of a couple million ballots from Maricopa County.

I keep looking for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Where’s Donatello?  Michelangelo?  Has anyone here seen any terrapins with nunchucks?

This wackadoodle outfit – the Cyber Ninjas – has caused the entire state to be the laughing stock of several news cycles.  So much so that, now, a lot of state Republicans have banded together to object.  To shout, “STOP!”

Holy Moly!  Does the Spirit of Truth ever have a raucous sense of humor!  Descend upon us this Day of Pentecost.  We’re in desperate need down here.

Elliot Hannon of Slate writes:

“No election fraud theory is too insane for the Cyber Ninjas, such that every cockamamie conspiracy is treated credulously. The team of voter fraud sleuths say they are using UV lights to investigate a far-right conspiracy theory that ballots—cast in the state of Arizona—were actually smuggled in from Asia ahead of the election and that these ballots are detectable by traces of bamboo in their composition. This is real stuff.” [4]

Laughable if not so tragic.

Descend, O please, descend now – were hurting here – Make haste, O Spirt of Truth.  Make haste before we bust a gut rolling around on the floor with a terminal case of the giggles.

The county board that oversees elections, four of the five of whom are Republicans, is accusing the Arizona Republican senate of conducting a “sham recount” by a bunch of “grifters” who are just bilking the party faithful out of millions of dollars for this farcical exercise.  These county commissioners are the few Keepin’ It Real in Arizona.  Bonafide agents of the Spirit of Truth.

This is personal.  It is up to each one of us to renew our allegiance to the common good.  I say “good,” not “perfect.”  “Perfect” may be beyond us, but “Better” surely is not.”  Do it for George Floyd.  Do it for t Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott and all those women who gathered at Seneica Falls in 1848.  Do it for every decent officeholder who daily strives for “better,” strives to Keep It Real.

Come, Holy Spirit, Come.  Anoint us with persistence.  Anoint us with healing and reconciliation.  Anoint us with a passionate concern for neighbor.  Anoint us with Truth that burns white hot within our breasts until we get off the couch and do something.

Happy Pentecost.  Amen.

---

[1] https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/tim-ryan-speech

[2]DeNeen L. Brown, “One of the Last Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre – 107 Years Old – Wants Justice, Washington
 Post, May 19, 2021.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Elliott Hannon, Slate, “Arizona Republican Officials Call State GOP Election Audit a “Sham” and a “Con,” May 18, 2021.

“Keepin’ It Real”

Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Day of Pentecost, May 23, 2021

Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 104:25-35, 37;
Acts 2:1-21; John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Nikki King grew up in a hardscrabble hamlet in one of the hollows of Appalachia.  Like many rural communities, it was awash in drug and alcohol addiction.  She reports, “At 14 I could’ve pointed out everybody who would be dead.”

At the urging of her grandmother, who, with her grandfather had raised her, she left home with a few meager belongings at the age of seventeen and headed for the University of Kentucky. 

She remembered one day in a high school class, the teacher asking the students what they wanted to be upon graduation.  One boy said, “A drawer.”

“You mean an artist?”

“’No, a draw-er’ – someone who draws disability checks and doctor-shops for OxyContin prescriptions.”  Reselling those pills could bring in substantial cash.  This was to be his career.[1]

After her grandmother, Sue, had died, Nikki received little support or understanding from her grandfather concerning her potential.  She had a 4.0 grade point average and a high ACT score.  He thought that the AP courses on her report cards meant that she was slow, in remedial classes.  He judged that a community college would be just fine for her.  So, in the middle of the night Nikki packed some stuff and headed off to the University of Kentucky.  She had been planning the get-away in her senior year, saving up money by working in a comic book store.[2]

After a friend’s mom had relapsed while on probation, she was deathly afraid that the state would take her children.  Her drug dealer had told the woman that she could clear the drugs from her system by drinking Clorox.  It killed her.  At that point, her grandmother urged her, “Just go, and don’t come back.”[3]

Nikki had internalized her grandmother’s hope, however, that she would one day come back to help people.  And she would.

By 2017 Nikki had graduated and was making a difference.  She was the lead data cruncher on a hospital-wide task force at Margaret Mary Health, a community hospital in Batesville.  Indiana.

She had been unable to do this work in Kentucky.  Too young.  Too female.  No one would listen to her.  Now, a decade after leaving home, after 800,000 opioid deaths nationally – Nikki is now a National Rural Health Association fellow. 

Though one head of a local Kiwanis Club objected to giving addicts rides to treatment facilities, “I think when they relapse, we should let them die and take their organs” — Nikki has “figured out a way to get treatment to people in remote, underfunded areas.”[4]  With their organs intact.

Many politicians say we should do something about drug overdose.  It’s “absolutely terrible,” they say.  But most have done nothing to learn about the problem, beyond catch phrases and slogans.  They’ve brought no funding to bear on the problem.  It, for far too many is all talk.  As illusory as a phantom.

The passage from Luke’s gospel presents the risen Christ as flesh and blood reality.  The Real Deal.  He eats fish with the disciples.  He shows them his wounded hands and feet.  What ghost does that? Whatever this mystery is, and how Luke explains it, I haven’t the foggiest.  Beyond my pay grade.

So, here’s my take on this.  One way to understand what Luke might be saying, especially in the second half of his witness, the Book of Acts, is that the Church is Spirit-empowered to be the Real Deal flesh and blood Risen Christ.  The physical, actual body, blood and bones – wounds and all.  Remember, Luke and Acts are actually volumes one and two of the same work.

This is, in fact, what people seek still today.  Flesh and blood difference-making.  This is what hungry hearts seek to be a part of.  Real Deal difference-making.

How all this happens?   It’s a holy mystery.  I can’t explain it and neither can you.  All we can say is that the Resurrected Christ becomes real, as testified in the book of Acts, as the living Resurrection Community bears the wounds of the wounds of one another, the wounds of its neighbors. 

Its all there in Matthew 25.  The heartaches, the sufferings.  To paraphrase Albert Schweitzer, the Risen Christ will reveal himself in the heartaches, the despair, the doubts. They shall pass through in his fellowship.

A faithful, obedient Church surely bears the same wounds, the same ministry.  For that is what it is to let the suffering of others into your soul.  Every bit as much as Nikki bears the wounds of her friends who have died of addiction.  Every bit as much as she has borne the wounds of families rent asunder by addiction.

The same can be said for Beth Macy.  Her ongoing journalist project to being to America the full story of opioid addiction with all its ugliness and despair, She has also borne the wounds of Christ.

And as both the lives of these women testify to the hope and redemption taking place through their work, they give witness to the most profound Easter Joy.  Sobriety is a flesh and blood possibility for many.  One-day-at-a-time recovery works.  Thanks to the Nikki Kings of this world, addiction treatment is more than political promise.  Where there’s no way, Nikki King makes a way.  Even if her rant goes, what her boss calls, “going all holler.”

The other day, a friend despairing of the emptying out of the traditional, mainline churches, said that traditional Protestantism had pretty much died in Pomona.  No surprise.  Most of those churches, when they slowly emptied out, barely left a mark.  A number of congregations chose to flee that city.  The Resurrection Community finds a way to stay.

This week at our diocesan Zoom meeting of clergy and our bishops and Canon to the Ordinary, Melissa, the featured speakers were from Habitat for Humanity.  You all know this program.  They build houses for those who, by normal market standards would not be able to get into permanent housing.

Habitat grew out of Koinonia Farm, an interracial intentional community of Christians in Americus, Georgia.  The founder, Clarence Jordan, was a biblical scholar, inspired by that early community portrayed in the Book of Acts.  It was begun back in the dark days of the KKK and the night riders, lynchings and cross burnings.  This was in 1942.  Despite the intimidation, this small band was determined to live out of the model in Acts, where all was shared, goods, mission, and the sufferings.

Out of this beginning, Jordan and Habitat’s eventual founders Millard and Linda Fuller developed the concept of “partnership housing.” “The concept centered on those in need of adequate shelter working side by side with volunteers to build decent, affordable houses. The houses would be built at no profit. New homeowners’ house payments would be combined with no-interest loans provided by supporters and money earned by fundraising to create “The Fund for Humanity,” which would then be used to build more homes.”[5]

This is flesh and blood Resurrection.  Gospel reality that could only come from authentic community, gospel committed.  Just like our small band putting together House of Hope.

The purpose of Bishop John in bringing this program to the clergy was to inspire “outside-the-box thinking on ways the Real Deal Resurrected Christ through us might meet current need, today’s task.  The Real Deal.

Habitat now does much more than its original mission, though permanent housing for low-income families in need remains its central “wheel house.”  They’re into housing condominiums, tiny houses, housing rehabilitation, even sober living homes. 

Just across the street from our diocesan center, in Echo Park, have been the tents and tarps of some fifty or sixty homeless in Los Angeles.  All up and down Wilshire Blvd. are scattered encampments of the homeless.  The pandemic has only made this situation far worse.  Some would say intolerable.  About thirty to forty percent of these suffer from mental illness and addiction.  About twenty-five percent are veterans.  Right – support the troops!  Until they get shot up, become mentally ill or have PTSD.

You guessed it, I’ll be calling two of these Habitat presenters next week. 

The Risen Christ is Real Deal, housing for the dispossessed.  Flesh and blood reality.  That’s what folks want to see, to be part of.

Maybe it’s endless meetings, assuaging fearful neighbors and mountains of paperwork that are today’s Resurrection Wounds the community of faith bears today in America.

I came across an article in Sojourners Magazine this month on Fr. Daniel Berrigan.  Most know of his work as a peace activist during the Vietnam War.  Many know of his writing.  All a piece of the Real Deal Resurrected Christ.

But this article brought to light an entirely different side of Daniel Berrigan, the pastoral side.  He had an active ministry to the ill and dying during the AIDS crisis.[6]

Father Berrigan’s time with the AIDS patients at St. Rose’s Home in Manhattan, where most of the patients were Catholic, was to be among the terminally ill and dying.

St. Rose’s was simply ‘a laboratory in dying,’ a ‘ship of fools’ sailing on heroically while Berrigan and the other orderlies ‘bail, row, weep, swab the decks, change beds, ferry in the newly arrived near dead, and try to keep sane’”[7]

Surely these servants of mercy were the Real Deal Risen Christ.  This is what the gospel looks like.  Here was the true church “enveloped by the ever-present stench of cancer,” the gospel incarnate. 

The staff was dedicated to “making people’s lives bearable, comfortable, and lively for as long as they lasted.”  “No one is forced-fed…whether on religion, psycho-semantics, antics…and there are no state snoops because there is no state money.”[8]

This is the Real Deal, flesh and blood Risen Christ.  Fish and all.

Grant, O Lord, that where there is injury, we may pardon be.  Grant, O Lord, that where there is abuse of authority under the cover of a badge, that we might justice be.  Grant, O Lord, that where there is loneliness, we might companionship be.  Grant, us O Lord, where gospel is lacking, we might gospel be.  Amen

---

[1] Beth Macy, “At 14 I Could Have Pointed out Everybody Who Would be Dead,” The Atlantic, May 2020. 56.

2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.

[5] https://www.habitat.org/about/history

[6] Patrick Henry, “The Bread of Life in the Breach of Death,” Sojourners, May, 2021.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.

“The Full, Real Deal, Body of Christ”

Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

April 18, 2021, Easter 3

Acts 3:12-19; Psalm 4;
1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36b-48

I remember when I had come to my first parish out in the desert, a little town called Inyokern.  It was so small I remember driving through the main section of town and across the railroad tracks.  My wife with a quaver in her voice and tears in her eyes asked, “Is this all there is?”

Centrally located.  Two hundred fifty miles from anywhere!

There didn’t seem much for young people out there.  When I asked some of the youth what there was to do, one girl said, “You go to desert parties, get drunk, get pregnant, and then get married.”  “Wonderful,” I thought.  I was sure glad we didn’t have any children at the time.

Within a month I had the first young couple show up on my doorstep to be married.  Judging from the condition of the young lady, it seemed likely that she had attended one of those notorious desert parties.  I followed the schedule of pre-marital counseling classes that I had learned in seminary.

I stressed that what we were doing would require work on their part.  “You gotta work the program.”  That is what the community of faith is for – to provide support and encouragement, help and wise counsel.  But you gotta work the program.

One of the questions I usually asked to set the couple at ease concerned what originally had attracted them to each other.  The young, the far too young, young lady got all moony eyed and sighed, “His car.”  I knew then we were in trouble.  I could see that the “program” was in deep doo-doo.

Well, we went through the counseling sessions, and I figured that maybe they had a 50-50 chance of making it.  Of course, had I declined to marry them, I’m sure they would have found someone who would have had less compunction about it.  I also rationalized that if they were able to work things out, the child would certainly be better off in a stable home. 

At the conclusion of our sessions together I admonished the young couple to come back to me if there were any problems that I could help them work out.  Especially before they became insurmountable.  Be part of a community of faith that would nurture and support them.

After the wedding, the couple never returned; and later, I heard that they had split up.  No surprise. He was too busy with his car and friends and partying.  He couldn’t understand why he should change. She became too angry and shrill at being ignored and taken for granted.  He withdrew into a shell.  The wall of anger between the two of them became an insurmountable barrier.

The Church is Spirit-powered to help couples work the program.  But it’s not magic.

I’m not sure what they were expecting when they came to the church.  A marriage, especially when folks are this young, needs an awful lot of support.  It needs the daily spiritual discipline of forgiveness, sacrifice and active concern for the other.  These are bedrock requirements if there is to be joy and peace at home.  They seemed to have believed that having the church, or God, present through my officiating would magically make everything okay and happiness would rule ever after.

Unfortunately, the Hollywood fantasy did not come through for this ill-fated couple.  It hardly ever does. 

It would seem that none of what we had gone through for several weeks stuck.  Indeed, to make it work, you’ve gotta work the program. 

That’s also the core truth about recovery as well.  And that’s the core truth about faith.

“Peace be with you” were the first words they heard.  Frightened and guilty, huddled together in the darkness, the last person they ever thought they would lay eyes on was Jesus.   “Peace be with you.”  But this is a Jesus not bound anymore by time or place.

“Peace be with you.  He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”   Here’s the power to work the program.  You’ve got the power.

Proclaim Good News – BE the Good News.  You have the Power.  But you’ve gotta work the program.  Put that power to good purpose.

Christians, we’ve gotta work the program – every bit as much as that couple of young people needed to.

When I came to one church, an older couple greeted our family – we were a three-generation family at that point.  This middle-aged couple – a white man and a Vietnamese wife.  I found out Kim had been a war bride. 

I soon found a lot other things about Kim.  That first Sunday after church, she didn’t ask.  She told.  Told me to set aside Tuesday because I was going to be with her behind the community hall serving lunch for the homeless.  And I did.  Kim and her husband definitely worked the program.  She had seem so much privation and hunger in Vietnam, she was determined that no one should be going hungry in her new home, America, if she could help it.

And America would likewise be good to Kim.  Several years ago their daughter graduated with a PhD in psychology.

It was one of the great things about that congregation — Kim and her outreach to the homeless.  This was the program, and with Christ by her side, she was going to make sure we got with the program.  And worked it.

At one point she asked if we could invite these folks to our evening service, which we called Alternative Service.  Of course, why not?  Our music for that service was provided by a small group, piano, drums, string bass, fiddle, trumpet and a saxophone.  When the group did “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” it was pure Dixieland.  We did folk, gospel and Taizé music.  We’d take a standard hymn and set it to a beat. 

As we always began with a dinner at 6:00 o’clock, of course the homeless had a reason to be there.  Beside Kim’s prodding.  As we had a shower, they could also clean up.  And Kim would make sure folks did.

One day a fellow named Freddy asked if he could bring his mouth harp.  Of course.  The following week, I couldn’t believe the music I was hearing.  Freddy could have played that blues harmonica as a sideman in any recording studio.

I told him that from now on, he would be the prelude.  “What’s that?” he asked.  “That’s the music that gets us all started after dinner.”  That evening service was the program, Spirit propelled with JOY.  Easter Joy!  And more and more homeless and others showed up each week.  They worked the program.

Somewhere Teilhard de Chardin said that Joy is the most profound evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Working the program with unadulterated JOY.  Working the program with Easter Joy is never a drudge.

As one of my church secretaries, Kay, once told a boy who thought her parity was boring, that he could go call his mother right now to pick him up.  “We certainly wouldn’t want anyone here who’s being bored.”  His response?  “Oh… Ah…Er…Ah, I was talking about another party.” (Gulp.)

Get with the program.  Work it.  The Spirit doesn’t like boredom any better than did our church secretary Kay.

“Peace be with you.”  This was not any ordinary turn of phrase to pass the day.  Not a perfunctory “Good morning, how are you?” 

This was a profound expression of reconciliation.  It was an act of complete and utter forgiveness.  They had all fled in terror.  They were faithless friends.  Peter had denied him three times.  The Risen Lord had every reason to abandon them to their fate, whatever that might be – to have washed his hands of them.

Love doesn’t give up.  Even the Risen Christ continues to work God’s program.  He knew that his followers were better than their worst moments.  As are we – and with Spirit-assist, we often improve with age.

Anyone who has been married ten, fifteen, twenty or more years knows the need for forgiveness.  The same for long-term friendships.

The only way you make it through the years is to make an awful lot of allowances for each other.  You need a lot of forgiveness.   Marriage is sacramental, in that the selfless giving that takes place in such a relationship is exactly the power that Christ brought to those disciples huddled in that upper room of fear –the power of life made visible.  One pastor said that marriage is our one opportunity to grow up.

A long-term friendship is sacramental in the same way.  It is also an outward and visible sign of Christ’s continuing forgiveness and reconciliation.  It is godly companionship.  And as such, it is also an outward and visible sign of the joy of Christ’s presence – the blessing of Absolute Joy.

How often I am saddened by couples who so yearned for the magic of having their new, story-book beginning blessed by the Christian community, but who couldn’t quite bring themselves to be a part of Christ’s ongoing community of reconciliation, of sustenance – a community where they might just possibly have found the same reconciling Spirit-power when their marriage began to become precarious. 

It’s not magic.  Spirit-tools are available, but YOU, you’ve gotta work the program.

There’s the story a rabbi told of a father and his wastrel son.  He comes to temple every Sabbath and pours out his anguish before God about this kid whose life is going nowhere.

The story’s of the old Jewish man in New York City who enters the synagogue one morning, and in the silence of the moment pours out his heart to the Almighty.  “O God who made heaven and earth, you know that I have never asked for anything for myself.  Never!  But I’m asking you now, for my son.  He’s never done well and I’m not sure what will happen to him when I’m gone.  All I’m asking you now is to just let him win the lottery.  Not a huge amount, just enough to get by when I’m no longer here to watch over him.”  In the deep shadows of the place no answer is heard.  Dejected, the man leaves.

The next week he enters the synagogue and again fervently prays the same prayer.  Silence.  No answer.

But this fellow is one to persevere.  And so, a week later he enters and in the dim recesses of the synagogue, again he pours out his heart before God on behalf of his son.  “Just this once, O Lord.  It’s the only thing I ask.”  As he turns to leave, a brilliant shaft of light floods through a window, right on the spot on which the he is standing, with a resounding voice, “Could you help me out here and have him buy a ticket?”

The price of the ticket?  Listen to the Spirit.  She’s nearer than you’d ever think – right there in your own imagining.  With Power.  With Joy.  With Challenge.  With your Holy Assignment.  The task given for our time.  Your PROGRAM.

And sometimes when the presence is so profound, like Thomas, we can only stammer, “My Lord and my God.”  Amen.

“You’ve Gotta Work the Program”

Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

April 11, 2021, Easter 2

Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133;
1 John1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31

When we last gathered, the sun had been obscured in deep darkness.  Subterranean tremors shook the land.  All that was stuck became unstuck.  And the ghastliest spirits were let loose to roam the land.  The veil separating holy and profane was rent in two.  It was a day of terror and dereliction.

Lent concludes with the most bitter journey.  Yet, in community, we were provisioned to take the final steps.  And to receive, as did Mary, his mutilated body from the cross.  As Christ is crucified in a thousand venues, in a thousand times. Pray we be prepared to receive his crucified body — the starved, the homeless, the disrespected, the isolated, the tortured.  And let us remember that this is not the end of the story.

Crucifixion is every day.  Likewise, Resurrection.

In the simple act of receiving Christ’s mutilated body is the seed of Life Abundant – Resurrection – Living Water.  For Matthew 25 people, Easter is every day (look it up).

How this transformation takes place…who can say?  In deepest darkness are mysteries beyond comprehending.  Yet, the deathly cold tomb is empty.   And we hear our name called out, “Diane, Jim, Barbara, Pam, Faith…”  Whom do you seek?   Life renewed floods back into the void.  Like those women overflowing with         both terror and astonished hope.  We announce to the world, “We have seen him.”

In Resurrection Faith, the Church kneels down to receive Christ’s broken body – yes, the homeless, the addicted, the destitute.  And life springs forth.  HOPE and PROMISE breathe.  He comes to us, taking up residence in mind and heart in many guises.

LIVING WATER –, he is among us.  Easter refreshment quenches our thirst.  Living Water, Bread, Good Shepherd, Teacher, the Way, the Vine, the Door – The gospel of John uses many images to portray the risen Christ in all fullness.  But give me LIVING WATER.

Let me tell you about water.

I remember my first church out in the desert.  It was not the most promising place.  Only four members of the congregation remained.  My charge was to wrap up a bequest to the church and close the doors.  Forever.

This was not the most promising of assignments, not a great career move.  Only a congregation of four!  Everything was hot and dusty.  On my first visit, there was not even a glass of water to be had.  The water had been turned off months ago.  What can be more depressing than the hot desert without any water.  Not a drop.

As the few faithful. in the coming weeks, were joined by several others, the first decision made was to get the water turned back on.  It took a couple of weeks, but when the spigot was opened up and water gushed forth, Living Water, we knew we stood at the possibility of Resurrection.  The Church was living again.

From there numbers grew.  Mission grew.  A daily senior lunch program was begun at the regional community hall in the adjoining town of Johannesburg.  A breakfast program was begun on Sunday mornings before church.  We even ended up with a small youth program.   Resurrection is Living Water.  As you have given the “least of these” a cup of water, you have done so to me, Jesus tells us.  Matthew 25.

That church was no longer a desiccated tomb.  That church became a gusher of Living Water.

I was so saddened by the testimony this week of George Floyd’s girlfriend on the stand.  She spoke of their mutual addiction flowing from prescribed opioids.  She testified to the pain and difficulty in overcoming addiction, which George never did.

In her words, she touched many Americans touched by addiction – of a family member, a friend, a work colleague – or maybe they, themselves.

If ever we needed the refreshment of effective treatment, if ever these families needed help, it is now.  Those working in the field of addiction:  clinicians, doctors and nurses, administrators and funders – all are a fount of LIVING WATER.  The Risen Christ personified.  Right here in San Bernardino!

In John’s gospel the story is told of Jesus encountering a foreign woman at the village well.  Jesus asks her for some water, for a cold drink.  She upbraids him for asking.  It is unseeing for a man, especially a Jew, to speak to a foreign woman about anything.  Much less make a request.  Such are the dank tombs of convention which confine us in death.

Jesus tells her that if she knew who was asking, if she knew of the water he could draw up, she would be asking of him — for he would produce a gusher of Living Water.  Tombs, water – yes, I’m mixing the metaphors.

The Living Christ we welcome this morning can’t be contained in just one story.  This is about the power of a Great Love let loose in the world.  Just like that gusher which flowed from a little desert congregation so long ago.

Water is HOPE.  Water is LIFE brim-full with possibility.  A faithful Church is Living Water, the risen Body of Christ.  Water is life and HE and his followers are the true LIVING WATER.

That’s why those who would suppress us in voter lines have outlawed water.  No handing out of water on pain of criminal charges!  No LIVING WATER to be dispensed here.  Do not encourage the voters, especially the wrong kind of voter.  No Living Water for this democracy.  No, sir.  Let it die in the dustbin of white supremacy. 

Rest assured, there will be a joyous band of the Spirit-anointed, water bottles in hand, ready to be hauled off to jail.  With joyful hearts, singing hymns and freedom songs.  Trust me – this is what will happen all across Georgia, sweltering in heat of white supremacy. 

LIVING WATER can be dangerous to your reputation if you hand it out to the wrong voters.  But that’s precisely what Resurrection People will be doing.

I told Jai, upon hearing this news, she’d better be getting bail bond money ready.  For a whole lot of us.  Hundreds and thousands arriving in Georgia with gallons and gallons of water.  LIVING WATER flowing straight from God Almighty.

Living Water is the eternal gift – Resurrection.  In our Lenten study book, there’s the most marvelous story of a couple, Victoria and Frank, hiking the Appalachian Trail, all 2,190 miles of it.  As a result of their professional careers as writer and photographer, they had become exhausted and spiritually depleted.  So, for renewal, they hit the trail.

As they neared the end of their months-long journey, on a scorching day in Massachusetts, they became desperate to find some water to fill their canteens and quench their thirst.  Their throats were parched. 

They left the trail and headed off on a back road in their search.  Coming upon a house they spied, by the garage, a hose bib.  They, being raised to be polite, thought they should ask permission.

What they found in the guise of an elderly couple was Living Water.  Here’s what happened when they rang her doorbell:

“A woman answered, looking a little puzzled to find two sweaty, smelly backpackers on her doorstep.  Her husband joined her at the door as we explained our parched predicament.  They escorted us into their kitchen—where the plied us with cold lemonade from the refrigerator and, quite unbelievably, warm cookies.  We found ourselves in a most luxurious oasis.  Before we left, the lady and her husband topped off our canteens with fresh water and added ice cubes to keep the water cold.”[1]

“Thirteen years after we stumbled to their door, I phoned the woman that other hikers have come to know as the ‘Cookie Lady.”  She and her husband never forgot the couple who came to their doorstep in need of water.  She told me, ‘You enjoyed the cookies so much that I try to keep fresh cookies around for other hikers.’  This couple was changed by our encounter with them, and they never took the comforts of their home for granted.  By the time I phoned years later to say thank you, we too had been transformed by their hospitality.”

Living Water this couple was.  The Easter Christ present in their simple hospitality.  Resurrection is Living Water.  We are Living Water.  No dried-out Christians here. 

Resurrection eternally remains a mystery in hearts of all who are drawn to him.  I give the Last Word to Albert Schweitzer, who concluded his monumental and exhaustive search for the historical Jesus with this final paragraph – set to music by Jim Strathdee:

“He comes to us as one unknown without a name,
Without a name, without a name as of old by the lakeside he came to those men who knew him not.

He speaks to us, he speaks to us the same word: Follow me, Follow me!
And sets us to the task which he has to fulfill for our time. 

He commands and to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple,
He will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts and the sufferings. 

They shall pass through in his fellowship,
As an ineffable mystery they shall learn in their own experience who He is.”[2]

We too, shall learn in the experience of our journey through the years who he is.  For me, nothing dead and dusty.  He will be revealed as an Easter font of refreshing, LIVING WATER.  Especially in every voter-suppression state of this Union.  Amen.

---

[1] Frank and Victoria Logue, “The Journey,” Are We There Yet? (Cincinnati, Ohio: Forward Movement Press, 2017), 143-144.

[2] Jim Strathdee, Albert Schweitzer, “He Comes to Us,” There’s Still Time, Desert Flower Music, 1977.

“Resurrection is Living Water”

Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

                                           April 4, 2021, Easter Day

 Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24;
Acts10:34-43; Mark 16:1-8