Christ in a Mask
When I would stay with my friend Artie for a sleepover – yeah, we probably didn’t sleep much – I can still see in my mind’s eye his picture of Jesus at the door knocking. The thing about this picture was it glowed in the dark. As Artie’s family was Roman Catholic, and he always asserted that his church was the “One True Church,” I thought it was fitting that his Jesus glowed in the dark. I didn’t even have a picture of Jesus on my wall.
In our Sunday School room was a picture of a blue-eyed, blond hair Jesus with Nordic features. Harmless as a small puppy. He certainly wouldn’t be whipping folks, yelling and screaming and turning their money tables over. In college I called it the Cocker Spaniel Jesus. Harmless as a sweet, adoring pet. AND of absolutely no consequence.
Throughout the years of Christendom, we have had many images of Jesus the Christ. Many versions of Christ Crucified, Christ Risen, Clean Cut Chamber of Commerce Capitalist Christ, Beatnik Poet Christ, Christ of the 1960s Jesus Freak. I found most intriguing that elusive figure of Flannery O’Connor in her stories of the Christ-haunted shadowed woods of the South darting from tree to tree.
In Matthew’s gospel, the Parable of the Last Judgement, we have a very different picture of the Christ, a portrait I find most compelling.
Those welcomed into the embrace of the Holy are the ones who have been in solidarity with those who suffer, those who hunger, those imprisoned, those abandoned. This Christ is one at heart with mercy, justice, forgiveness.
I remember visiting my son in New Haven, walking on Sunday morning to the Episcopal Church on the corner of the green. On the way to my church, I would pass two UCC churches, one next to the other. One always seemed so quiet that I wondered if it was even open for business. At the other I noticed a huge group of people in the back. They were serving up breakfast and engaging a bunch of folks in conversation, passing out lunches.
I asked my son about that church. He admitted that that is where he and his girlfriend had been attending. Yes, they had tried the Episcopal Church out of loyalty, but it had nothing for them, nor had it had much of anything for the community. It really was the House of the Frozen Chosen. If you weren’t already part of the tribe, there wasn’t much of a welcome mat. They were now at the church where Christ was visible, feeding the homeless, visiting the addicted, caring for the mentally challenged.
Though he didn’t say it exactly that way, what he was describing was the Compassionate Christ of Matthew 25. This is the Good Shepherd of Ezekiel, who gathers up the scattered and discouraged. The students of that congregation were in fact Christ to those who gathered each Sunday behind the Church. They were the only face of Christ some of those homeless would see.
In our day of COVID-19, this is Christ in a Mask.
This Sunday we celebrate the Reign of Christ, the conclusion to the season of Pentecost. Featured up front this Sunday is the Risen Christ of Great Compassion let loose in the world. This Christ appears wherever those, driven by his power, embody the hallmarks in Matthew’s Parable of the Last Judgement – wherever that Shepherd of Ezekiel gathers up the fallen and lost.
Yes, we celebrate Christ in a Mask in these days of pandemic.
My friend Katy writes a response to a Facebook friend who had insisted on her freedom not to wear a mask. This “freedom” is American individualism run amok. In South Dakota the governor, confronted with overflowing hospital wards, exhausted staffs and filled morgues, has finally signed a mask order. BUT refused to include any enforcement mechanism.
You can’t tell us what to do. Born Free. Free to die like rats, coughing our lungs up having swallowed the strychnine. Yes, siree, you can’t tell me what to do.
It is out of her assertion of rugged individualism that Katy’s friend strenuously objects to her freedom being curtailed. It’s her life, and if she gets sick that’s her business. This friend has no thought of who she might spread it to. It’s all about her! Sound familiar?
A weeping Christ stands at the door of this friend’s heart, patiently knocking, asking that she might have a care for the rest of us.
Katy shared this touching Tlingit story from Southeast Alaska. It’s a story of a Christ her Facebook friend would not understand, but those native people of Southeast Alaska embodied to the fullest. Katy, admonishes her friend:
“I remember a heartfelt Tlingit story of a village that got sick from a disease brought by the Europeans. Many were sick and many were dying. One family was healthy and the tribal elder told them to get into their boats and leave before they got sick too. They did so, but it was hard.
“Others whose families were sick wanted to go too. The family that left in their canoes came upon another village, one that was happy to see them. But they didn’t go ashore. They communicated with their paddles that there was a sickness in their home village and they didn’t want to bring it to the ones on shore.
“So, the people on shore built big bonfires in their honor and they sang songs across the water to one another. There was much grieving. The next day the family in canoes left to find a new place to build a home and did not visit others until they knew the sickness was gone.
“They must have felt lonely, but they also wanted to keep the sickness from spreading.
Here is a fulsome portrait of Christ in a Mask.
When did we see you isolated and lonely, cut off from friends and family? You wore a mask, you visited us in a park and kept social distance. You would not risk spreading this contagion to us or our family. We sang songs to one another across the green. Christ in a Mask.
Being part of the Jesus Movement in this time of great national upheaval and contention is a true test of faith. As a political pugilist, I fear I often fail the test. I hear from afar the Lord of all Hopefulness saying, “Fifteen minutes in the penalty box, Forney.” For I was not the least bit hopeful, but a chastening rod.
After listening to our Presiding Bishop’s message to our diocese this week, I think I finally comprehended the enormity and the difficulty of the challenge. When asked how one remained true to one’s commitment to equity and inclusion, how did one answer an opponent who was a white supremacist? How did you relate to such a person as Christ might?
First, Bishop Michael said this was not an easy task. Most difficult, one at which he often fails.
Second, Bishop Curry remembered an admonishment from an elder early on in the first days of his ministry. You need to stand tall before that person with what you believed – stand tall but also humbly kneel at the same time before the image of God in that person. Most difficult. A superhuman request for many of us.
No matter the invective and racist innuendos, the slurs and the misogyny, without accepting that verdict and holding fast to the truth within yourself — realize that deep within this most wounded human being is the image of God. Though well hidden.
His wise council caused me to remember a day, late in the afternoon when I was working for then Candidate Obama in Akron, Ohio. I had been instructing high school students how to canvass a precinct.
The students had all left for home and I had just a couple of blocks remaining to finish that tract. As the sun had set behind the trees and shadows lengthened, I came to an old battered, yellow, wood-frame house with peeling paint. To step on the front porch was a broken leg waiting to happen, as it had mostly rotted out and was sinking into the front lawn. Above the door hung both a tattered Marine Corps flag along with a very faded and threadbare American flag. Not the hallmarks of what looked to be a progressive person, I thought. But who knows?
A sign next to the doorbell said, “Deliveries Around Back.” So, I trudged around the side of the house and up the driveway and knocked on a sliding glass door. I could hear the sounds of a televised sports event as an elderly woman in a faded housedress cracked it open just a bit.
What did I want? She could see my Obama T-shirt and cap. I told her I was from the campaign and would like to give her some information on Obama’s health plan. She hesitated, then turned to whomever was watching the game and yelled, “Honey, who we voting for?”
A voice came back, “The nigger.” For a moment I was speechless. That’s not how I was raised. Then it began to sink in. This was just how he was raised. Since he was willing to give Obama his vote, I guessed he didn’t mean anything offensive about it. As my pastoral counseling professor, Dr. Kemper used to say, “He’s just doing the best he can at this moment.” This fellow just didn’t realize, or want to acknowledge, how hurtful that word is, not just to black people, but to many of the rest of us
At this point, his wife was willing to take my literature and we talked a bit about where to vote and the hours of early voting.
When we encounter those who use vile, offensive language, who believe in the most bazaar conspiracy theories about Democrats drinking children’s blood in the basements of pizza parlors – while most disgusting and unbelievable — let us acknowledge that somewhere, most hidden in that soul, is the Image of Christ. How might we honor it while staying true to what we hold fast? The same for those crazy, lefty adherents of Antifa. Somewhere a wire gets crossed in too many of us. Lord have mercy.
Maybe the best we can do at the moment is to wish our interlocuter, “Have a nice day,” and admit to that person, that we presently have not enough in common for a civil conversation today. Maybe at some later time. But not now. And pray not only for them, but for patience and sufficient compassion to see beyond both our damaged exteriors. Pray for the insight to see this person, to see ourselves, as doing the best we can at the moment. And pray, trusting God to perfect the poor, pitiful results of that encounter, the bare surface the human eye presently sees
Christ is that Great and Good Shepherd who would gather all into the arms of Welcome, much as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings. Christ is that Power, living still today, leading the naive and hopeful to reach out to the homeless and hungry. Christ is the Perseverance to go through the mountain of paperwork to bring publicly supported housing into being, especially in fearful, exclusionary cities – to see beyond excuses for exclusion. “We have no homeless here.” Christ is the Foolishness to believe that we can actually make a difference. Christly love is not some vapid sentimentalism. It’s doing the right thing to keep our neighbors healthy, to save lives.
Christ in a Mask, moves us to put our neighbors first before our own prerogatives and rights. In our retirement community there’s a sign: “Behind every mask is a person who cares.”
Christ in a Mask inspires us, over the distance of time and political ideology, when this pestilence is over and done with, to sing songs back and forth to one another across the divide — to celebrate this Christ in a Mask who has shown us how to enter the eternal realm of LIFE ABUNDANT.
Amen.
November 22, 2020, Last Sunday in Pentecost
The Reign of Christ Proper 29
“Christ in a Mask”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Psalm 95:1-7a; Ephesians 1:15-23;
Matthew 25:31-46
A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
The election is over. Some may be gnashing their teeth. Some may be rejoicing. Whatever your political persuasion, it’s been a most frightful season. Is it possible that we can ever put America back together again?
I’m reminded of one of our boys’ favorite books. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.[1] Alexander knew it was going to be a terrible day when he woke up with his chewing gum in his hair. His best friend abandoned him. On top of that, his mom had forgotten to put dessert in with his lunch and, One disaster after another. Alexander knew partway through, it was going to be a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” And it didn’t get any better that evening. Yuck! There was kissing on TV. Alexander threatens to move to Australia, but nobody is listening. Australia is his favorite go-to place to escape to when the world is against him. I, myself, always consider France. They eat very well there.
As his day comes to an end, Judith Viorst concludes this sad saga:
“The cat wants to sleep with Anthony, not with me.
It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
My mom says some days are like that. Even in Australia.”
Much of Alexander’s terrible day is the scrapes and knocks a young boy goes through, especially the youngest of several siblings. Stuff happens, and when it does our immature reaction so often makes it worse.
Amos paints the picture of really bad stuff the self-satisfied, religious elite will endure. These are they who consider themselves most favored in the eyes of the Almighty, yet do not abide by the will of God when it comes to the poor and the socially marginal. The religious phonies will indeed endure some terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days, Amos predicts.
Through Amos’s thunderous excoriation, God breaks through smug self-delusion:
“Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why do you want the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, not light;
As if someone fled from a lion,
And was met by a bear;
Or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall,
And was bitten by a snake.”
And why all this grief for the favored and chosen? It is because the institutions of religion, divorced from the substance of mercy and honesty are nothing. It all rings hollow as pretense.
“I hate, I despise your festivals,
And take no delight in your solemn assemblies……
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.”
I come from the tribe of beautiful, stately worship. Incense and fine vestments. We have wonderful tracker organs and magnificent, chanting choirs. We worship in stately buildings. So why is God not pleased.
It is because too often, it’s only a Sunday morning show. And not just my tribe. When church becomes entertainment divorced from the needs of the “least of these,” it’s plastic, ersatz grace. Such self-congratulatory religious exercises are an offense to the One of the Holy Torah who commanded justice and equity in the land, the One who reminded the faithful settled in the land that at one time they were all foreigners, strangers. We are that caravan of dispossessed children at our southern border, though we don’t know it — though we dwell in fine houses and live fat on the land in splendid isolation from their desperation.
God, through Amos, promises the religiously smug a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Many such days, for they are without vision or discernment Yeah, we’re all there sometimes.
And such will be the case for the nation that does not abide by the very same standards of loving kindness and righteousness. (Remember the Hebrew word – tsaddik – that which we translate “righteousness,” should best be translated as solidarity — as one who is in SOLIDARITY with one’s fellows. It refers to a complete human being, one whose life carries the weight of doing what is right and just in the eyes of both God and all humanity. It does NOT denote a pious goody-two-shoes demeanor. It carries the full intent of the command to love the “Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
America, I believe, enfolds that commandment in our foundational documents. We know the watch-words: “Liberty and justice for all.” A “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” These intentions are the bedrock of who we are. Or who we wish to be. They are aspirational, not reality.
Unfortunately, we do not even come close to living up to that standards. For much of our history, our solemn national occasions have rung hollow. As Frederick Douglass, out of slavery in the 1800s, confronted the self-satisfied white establishment: “What is your Fourth of July to Me” is a speech Douglass was invited to give at a gathering of the well-to-do on the occasion of the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of to the Independence in Rochester, New York, July 5th, 1852.
He gave this speech as one left out of the fine promises assumed for others. This is an address which echoes Amos’s denunciations of the elites of his day, the piously indifferent.
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”
Woe to that nation which does not live up to the simple standards of decency and fairness for ALL its citizens.
We have been through one of the most contentious elections since that of Jefferson and that of Lincoln. We are now at the politics of grievance and tribe. Personalities and program matter not a wit. The only determinant is, does the candidate have a “D” or a “R” following their name.
Too many throughout the land feel excluded from the high and lofty promises of our founders, whether they be a floor worker in a factory in the Midwest or a grocery checker in downtown East Los Angeles. They resent those who abuse their authority whether as police or as a city planning clerk.
They have had it with an economy that has loaded them up with massive student debt or cheated them in a house mortgage with fine print only a well- trained lawyer could understand.
Now, in the midst of a pandemic reminiscent of the plagues of Egypt, we, our loved ones and neighbors are dying like flies. The incompetence of our government in managing this disease staggers the mind.
Like those whom Amos addresses, like those to whom Frederick Douglas, James Madison, Jane Addams and Susan B. Anthony spoke, we have fallen far short. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy upon us.
What is the fine rhetoric or our anthem, its lofty vision — to the dejected family sitting at curbside with their worldly belongings piled up as trash? What is the vision to the mother and father with no food in the cupboard? What are the promises of this nation to that black family mourning the death of a son beaten by police at a traffic stop? What mean these promises to a mentally ill homeless person living on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles?
We Americans on the conclusion of the election of 2020, find ourselves at each other’s throats. We vilify those we judge to be responsible. We seethe with anger and boil over with plots of conspiracy.
Someone has to be responsible for this pitiful state of affairs. Are we at the dead end of Sartre’s play, “No Exit”? Are we doomed to a Hobbesian war of “all against all?”
LISTEN UP! Amos does have a saving word, a restorative word. Those with ears to hear, let them hear:
“But let justice roll down like waters,
And righteousness (solidarity) like an ever-flowing stream.”
The cure is simple. This truth is not so far away, so high that we need send someone afar to bring it to us. It is right here, planted in the heart and mind of each of us.
We know what must be done. We need only take a deep breath, accept the reality of our condition and allow the Divine Wisdom to flow through us. We know how to treat neighbor as self. This truth is not hidden or so obscure that only the smartest can discern it. We know that when one suffers, all suffer — all are diminished. We know this. We learned it in Sunday School, in kindergarten. We learned it at a parent’s knee.
As the South African saying goes, “I cannot be who I am meant to be unless you are who you are meant to be.” That’s the principle of “Ubuntu.” Call it “solidarity.” We all rise together.
Let justice roll down like waters and solidarity like an ever-flowing stream.
What will get us there? Listening, to start.
As Joe and Kamala become our next president and vice-president, I would suggest the first order of business for them would be to pack suitcases, board the bus, and embark on a national “Listening Tour.” Get out into our cities and suburbs, into our prairies and the foothills of Stone Mountain. Talk with those who make the “amber waves of grain” happen. Speak to workers on shop floors and students in the classrooms of our nation. Simply listen. Not just to the words but to the sentiments. To the aspirations. And ask that toughest question: “What are you willing to do to make it better?” Of each of us — What am I willing to do? What are you willing to do? Today, we might have to do it all by Zoom instead of on the road.
If American does climb aboard, this train is bound for glory. The glory of a reborn people fully alive. Indeed, the glory of God!
At the end of it all, I want to be accounted among the tzaddikim — The Righteous. I want to be numbered as among those abiding in Divine Solidarity with all the others. Don’t you? What greater hope?
What are we willing to do to become grounded in the reality of global warming, to become grounded in our national plight of poverty and homelessness, mental illness, addiction?
Where might we make a difference for a child in a crap school deprived of the necessary resources and good teachers? Are we willing to share and demand fairness in our tax codes that we overcome present economic realities – where just thirty some families have as many marbles as one half the nation?
America, “I set before you the ways of life and death. Choose life that you and your descendants may live.” That you may enjoy the bounty of this land.
Are we, in the face of this pestilence, willing to do our part — to wear masks and social distance? Yes, it’s a pain. So was Valley Forge and the Edmund Pettis Bridge march. So were the beaches of Normandy and the killing fields of Vietnam. So is slogging through a chemistry textbook and learning all those Latin names in a zoology class. A total pain. Citizenship is hard, requires effort. Every single day.
Matthew reminds us that the reality of this holy vision is like unto an approaching bridegroom to the wedding feast. Our sole responsibility is to be ready to celebrate the feast. We are simply asked to rejoice in the happiness of the couple soon to be united as one.
We are summoned to embrace opportunity before us, lying fallow in fields of despair and anger. We but must ready hearts to greet it, like an approaching bridegroom. Like a bride anticipated at the altar as she approaches down the center aisle. Christ only enters the open door of the heart and mind. Love does not force.
Look at the promise, as the feast is ready and the band strikes up the beat.
“Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul. I want to get lost in your rock-n-roll and drift away, drift away.” Drift away into the delicious imagination of God’s glorious possibility. Set before us. Always approaching, never quite arriving.
Such a nation will flourish. Such a people so grounded are like a mighty tree planted by a living stream. Such a people will flourish and be a blessing to the nations. Such a nation will do its part.
Let our God’s honest truth and mercy flow through us. Today, tomorrow – we need it more than ever.
Yes, there are terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. Even in Australia. Even in America. Sometimes an adder hidden on the wall.
But we are not left as orphans with no hope. Let God’s ever Loving-Kindness, God’s Justice, God’s Truth, God’s Liberty – a vision already implanted in our very being — flow through us. Amen.
[1] Judith Viorst, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1987).
November 8, 2020, Pentecost 23
Proper 27
“A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Amos 5:18-24; Psalm 70; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18;
Matthew 25:1-13
Sometimes We Do the Right Thing
Any number of quotes come to mind as we move towards All Saints Day, Halloween, and perhaps the most consequential election in a lifetime. All in the midst of the scourge of the greatest pandemic since the so-called Spanish Influenza of 1917-18.
While the White House declared that the virus has been defeated, that we have “turned the corner,” I’m remembering the favorite quips of my grandpa, “He’s gone round the bend.” “Mission Accomplished?” — when we’re spiking new infections at the rate of over 90,000 last Thursday? One sixth of these will end up needing hospitalization. I don’t think so. The cruel trick’s on us. And no treat.
One survivor of COVID-19 writes of her recent recovery. Heather Sellers, in The Sun, a literary magazine of essays, poetry, journaling and personal biography, narrates the onslaught of her infection:[1]
“March 28, 2020: This Afternoon, for the first time in what feels like a long time but has only been a week, I step outside my Florida home and into my garden, a small shady space ringed by a high wood fence. I’m hidden from the world. Barefoot in my damp nightgown, I walk slowly across the pavers. One step, one breath. I have one hand on my throat. I’m not sure why, but somehow this feels absolutely necessary.
“The virus is hidden inside of me. I feel its force and power. My body aches. Cold knots snarl in my calves and my thighs; my back feels frozen; shivers ripple up my arms. By the time I reach the birdbath, I’m sweating in the soft breeze.
“I close my eyes. The hardest part is taking the next breath. I must breathe very, very slowly, in a very specific way.
“Breathing has become like remaining steady on a balance beam over a dark pit.
“I’m stunned to find I cannot take another step. I don’t have the breath.
Thus, begins Heather’s nightmare odyssey through her infection. A month later she closes her journal, expressing gratitude in her trailing convalescence for the small gifts she does have – electricity, fresh water, cotton sheets, a car, a bottle of Tylenol, a washing machine.
‘I can’t see the virus, but feel its seeds in me. I can’t see my faith, but feel its seeds in me, too.
We Christians in the Episcopal tradition have tended to give the book of Revelation short shrift. It’s phantasmagorical imagery, looking like something out of a Halloween apocalypse, is too bizarre. It’s like a scene out of “Ghostbusters.” The symbols and metaphors are too distant from our time to be comprehended by us moderns.
But this is not a book of doom and destruction, though some churches use it as did Tim LaHaye to express their most twisted, distorted versions of the faith. Projecting the anxieties of their damaged souls onto the message of the life-affirming Jesus Movement, they do great harm.
Revelation, more than anything, is a message of hope. Hope for those who have endured great tribulation. The saints are those of the entire community of faith who have persisted in the face of enormous evil. These are they who stand in solidarity with one another, with all humanity, and with the natural world, to be the harbingers of a new, “Beloved Community.” The saints are those who have confessed the name of Jesus through deeds big and small. Acts of justice and mercy, knitting up the Church one halting stitch at a time.
“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.”[2]
Today we celebrate the Saints of God, known and mostly known to God alone. These saints are the entire company of the faithful, and not-so-faithful, who look to Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The exemplar and head of the Jesus Movement. The chief Cornerstone of the “Blessed Community.”
We “little saints” – “we feebly struggle, they in glory shine; yet all are one in thee, for all are thine…” Revelation is a book of hope for those of us who strive to sometimes do the right thing. And trust the results to God.
In bearing witness, Heather Sellers is one in my compendium of that Blessed Company, one who inspires and fortifies the soul. She is a member of the Hallelujah Chorus boldly making her confession of faith.
One of my Facebook friends, looking with despair at the long lines of voters being suppressed by indifference and massive incompetence posted, “Jesus help us. Or someone help us. I don’t care.” To which I responded, “Jesus has already given us the power and the grace to help ourselves. We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
Let me tell you about some of us others we’ve been waiting for.
In hours at bedsides and in sweeping floors, way beyond human endurance, in countless unselfish acts, unacknowledged saints confess the name of Jesus. Around the bedsides of the dying, they gather, as around the throne of God. Though their white lab coats and PPEs be stained with blood, they are spotless in the reckoning of all that is Holy.
Clasping the hand of the dying at the moment of death, nurses, orderlies and doctors fill in for missing family members not allowed to be present. The hand of that nurse, that doctor, that janitor – is indeed the Hand of God.
As even one patient is wheeled down the hallway to go home – surrounded by cheering staff lining both sides of their exit – that is the best Hallelujah Chorus ever. These “indispensable” workers have left nothing on the field.
Accompanying Heather are countless nurses, doctors, therapists and “essential workers” to tend the victims of this pandemic in overloaded hospitals across the land. These acts of solidarity, big and small are witness to the ethic of the Jesus Movement. These are the Saints of God we celebrate this day.
Mopping up filthy hospital floors and cleaning soiled linens, saints at work. Those who assist the navigation of mountains of paperwork – saints indeed. And those who prepare the dead for burial, they are counted among that holy assemblage.
This pandemic has brought out the worst, and also the best of who we are. This virus has dipped deep into ancient fears and concocted a toxic brew of the most bizarre conspiracy theories and magical thinking. It has brought out denial and complacency. We are not learning to “live with it, we are dying from it.”
But it has also brought out sacrifice and humility.
A favorite hymn[3] reminds us that the saints of God are just folks like you and me. You can see them at tea (read coffee, and over a beer). You can see them on trains or at sea. These days, you will find them on ICU wards and stocking shelves in grocery stores. They will be at computer screens teaching by Zoom. And they will be at home learning third grade history on the internet. They will be delivering the mail and answering calls at church offices.
Matthew’s “Beatitudes” is a window into the souls of these saints. We’re talking humility, patience, kindness, endurance, sacrifice. If ever there were cardinal virtues, we know those who show forth these in abundance. In ways big and small these gifts abound in the saints of God.
One man of such virtue is a politician. A politician! And a Muslim, to boot. Imagine that!
I tell you the story of Qasim Rashid, a Democrat (Alert! This is NOT intended as a partisan story) running for Congress in Stafford Virginia. He writes of a recent outdoor campaign event with about 30 supporters:[4]
“Today, Trump supporters crashed our event.
“With a large RASHID FOR CONGRESS sign behind me, it wasn’t long before Trump supporters began driving by, honking, and waving their flags.
“Soon a few Trump supporters showed up on foot, waving their flags. Perhaps it was an attempt to interrupt or intimidate, or, just to exercise their free speech. After all we respect the First Amendment. In any case, I had a decision to make. Do I ignore them or do I tell them to leave?
“I decided neither. Instead, I called them over.
“I had the mic and called out, “Hey y’all, you don’t have to stand over there waving that flag. You can come join us. Our events are open to all. We’re expanding our tent, not closing it down.”
“To their credit, they came and joined our group and listened in.
“What’s your name?” I asked one of the gentlemen. “Chad,” he responded.
“The Q/A continued with our supporters. Eventually, Chad asked about the Supreme Court and the claim that Democrats want to ‘Pack the Court.’
Qasim explained his view that, if they were to have an honest conversation about “packed” – that hundreds of appointees submitted by President Obama had been held up for no reason whatsoever; then, after the 2016 election, replacements were rushed through blindly by the new administration by a compliant Senate.
“You can’t accuse Democrats of a hypothetical event that never happened while ignoring the actual court packing done by Republicans.”
“Chad, the Trump supporter, was silent and finally responded, “Yeah, I agree that’s hypocritical.”
“I gave Chad credit for being honest and calling out the GOP hypocrisy and responded to Chad, ‘Thank you. Here’s the truth. I’m running as a Democrat because I believe the Democratic platform is more aligned with justice. But if you’re looking for me to say that Democrats can do no wrong, and Republicans can do no right, then you’ve found the wrong guy because I don’t believe that. I’m committed to upholding justice as the supreme standard. You have my word.’
“Chad responded, “I can agree with that.”
“The tone changed from one of hostility and distrust to one of recognizing that we as Americans truly want the same things—justice and fairness. Soon after Chad left the gathering on his own, but not before sharing with our host that he walked in viewing us as the enemy, and left realizing we actually have a lot in common in wanting to uplift our nation.
“But it’s what happened after all this that truly left me in awe.
“As the event ended, at least 5 of the (Trump) attendees walked up to me and shared that they’re life-long Republicans who have never voted Democrat before, and have always voted for my GOP opponent. But now, for the first time in their life they’re voting for a Democrat—Qasim Rashid—for US Congress.
“Why?
“They’re drawn to our campaign that refuses to respond to hate with hate. They’ve seen my opponent’s attacks on my faith and see us responding with compassion and justice.
That could have been any Republican, any Democrat, but regardless of who votes for whom, civility and respect won the day. E Pluibus Unum. Out of many kind and respectful conversations, the saints of God shine brightly, Red and Blue.
Neither Chad nor Qasim will forget that day, I suspect. Yes, there are a few saints, Republican and Democratic, to be found at political rallies. We differ on many issues, but the whole is stronger than the parts. Let’s work together on what unites us and save the rest for another day.
As we head to perhaps the most contentions election of any recent history, I offer up MLK’s watchword: “It is always the right time to do the right thing.” Let us remember that this whole election thing ought to be about making the American tent bigger.
And would that we Christians live out the virtues of our faith as well as a Muslim did on that day.
This Sunday, let us celebrate the Saints of God, both living and those having entered into Glory, all across the land. In ways big and small they confess the name of Jesus. Yes, there’s a Jesus Mosque in Amaan, Jordan. You can meet them most anywhere.
“And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong. Alleluia. Alleluia.”[5]
Now, get out there and VOTE. And do what you can to bring in the vote.
Amen
[1] Heather Sellers, “Just This Breath,” The Sun, June 2020, Issue # 534.
[2] Revelation 7:9-19. New Revised Standard Version, 1989, Division of Christian Education, National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
[3] “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God,” The Hymnal 1982 (New York, The Church Hymnal Corp., 1985), p. 293
[4] I thank my friend Merrill Ring for passing this story along.
[5] “For all the Saints,” The Hymnal 1982, op.cit., p 287.
November 1, 2020, All Saints Day
“Sometimes We Do the Right Thing”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 34:1-10, 22; I John 3:1-3;
Matthew 5:1-12
We Shall Not Be Moved
I remember my geology teacher at Cal. State. Los Angeles, Dr. Ehlig. He taught optical mineralogy, a highly abstruse, conceptual subject. It required the ability to think in three dimensions all at once. And it was held after the lunch hour in a hot, stuffy classroom. When several of us had just returned from the Cabin Inn, stuffed with their huge hamburgers and French fries and a Guinness Stout. And as Dr. Ehlig droned on, it was hell trying to stay awake.
Dr. Ehlig was a tough grader and we knew that given the small size of our class – only about 15 – there would probably only be one “A” awarded, two at best. As we held the last review class before the mid-term exam, the question amongst us guys, who would get that “A”s? (No women, there in fact was only one woman student in the entire geology department at that time).
We, for sure, knew it wouldn’t be Bob Stanton. He didn’t seem to understand much of what was going on. As we filed out of the room that day at 5:00 p.m., my money was on my friend Ron.
On the following Monday, when the exams were passed back to us, were we in for a surprise! Who got the “A”? SHOCK UPON SHOCK! It was Bob Stanton.
After class, several of us clustered around him, asking how he had done it. He said that after we had all left that Friday, he went up to Dr. Ehlig and told him of his confusion about the material and the methods. He said that Dr. Ehlig had said, “Let’s start at the beginning.” And he did. He stayed until after 7:30 that evening explaining the principles and methods of optical minerology to Bob from the beginning.
That, in my book, made Dr. Ehlig the finest professor I had ever had in my college career. Dr. Ehlig was like that stout old tree in Psalm 1, planted by an ever-flowing stream of water. The water of righteousness – the righteousness of kindness, and commitment. The righteousness of devotion to both his subject and to his students.
I don’t know if all he did prospered, but that semester, Bob sure prospered. And so did we all when we discovered the quality of the human being who was our professor.
This is what the writer of Leviticus meant in his admonition for the people of faith to be a “Holy People.” A people devoted to a vision and a reality beyond and within themselves. Jesus put it correctly in his answer to a lawyer’s trick question. “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all you mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Two points about the translation of Psalm 1. Firstly, the rendering of the Hebrew “baruch,” should be “blessed” — as in “Blessed is the one…” NOT “happy,” as in our leaflet from Church Publishing for this Sunday. Happiness is an ephemeral state of being having little to do with the blessedness of God. “Happy” is to the “blessed” as a Twinkie is to hearty oatmeal. Incidentally, our last president’s first name is derivative of that concept – every child is a blessing. Including the ones locked up in cages at the border. Especially them.
Secondly, the Hebrew tsaddiq, frequently translated righteous, can convey a self-aggrandizing, stuffy piety, the appearance of being holy. My Old Testament professor, Dr. Knierim of blessed memory, insisted that a more accurate word would be “solidarity.” The tsaddiqi, the plural, are in solidarity with God and with one another. Their will and actions are in alignment with that of God and the well-being of the community. Jesus put it: Love of God and love of neighbor.
Dr. Ehlig is surely one of the tsaddiqi. His teaching prospered, and so did the geology department for his having been on staff. For those able to stay awake at one o’clock in the afternoon after a monster hamburger and a glass of suds, he was a dedicated teacher. After class Dr. Ehlig was a fount of wisdom and a refreshing delight and a true friend – though a tough grader. He was the personification of “blessedness.” He was one who stood in “solidarity” with his classes. His devotion to those of us, even the ones who nodded off, was “holy.”
That image from Psalm 1 of a mighty tree standing straight and tall, was captured in the spiritual of the 60s Freedom Summer. “We shall, we shall not be moved. We shall, we shall not be moved. Just like a tree a tree that’s standing by the water, we shall not be moved.” The tsaddiqi are that unmovable tree. So were those courageous freedom riders. Those martyrs, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, tortured and shot at close range in Meridian, Mississippi are to be accounted as among the tsaddiqi. Their sacrifice has been a blessing to every person fighting for the right to vote. It was the cowards, the racist scoffers, the chaff which the wind blows away who will be remembered only for the evil they did on that dark night.
An investigation by the FBI and local sheriff authorities would later reveal that members of the local White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Neshoba County Sheriff’s Office, and the Philadelphia Police Department were all involved in the murders. Worthless chaff.
America loses track, jumps the rails, when we fall out of solidarity with one another. David Brooks, in a recent column, “How to Actually Make America Great,” based on a new book by Robert Putnam (author of Bowling Alone) and Shaylyn Romney Garrett, dates the failing of America from the time America was more about “I” than “We.” Even the frequency of the word “I” in the titles of books published between 1965 to 2008 doubled. [1]
That’s why I tell our House of Hope team, this is a “we” project. You never begin your report with “I.” If you believe that “I” is the only one who accomplishes anything, “WE” will never accomplish anything. And the most important audience for this sermon is myself. This is a WE project. Yes, some of us will sleep through the Zoom meetings. Or miss them entirely. But, even the lackadaisical, who knows how God might use them, no matter how much they frustrate and annoy the rest.
That is why the redactor of Proverbs can say of a good wife and partner, “She is better than gold, even much fine gold.” Every sermon, I am blessed to have written, Jai has read through. She picks up the errors and tells me when I’m not making sense. When I’ve gone off the rails. Better she finds this out than you, dear reader. It’s about “WE.”
But I digress. Back to Brooks, Putnam and Garrett. When it comes to our national fragmentation, Putnam and Garett focus on that issue of solidarity.
“The story of the American experiment in the 20th century is one of a long upswing toward increasing solidarity, followed by a steep downturn into increasing individualism. From ‘I’ to ‘we’ and back again to ‘I.’” [2]
Is Gordon Gekko right? Greed is good??? It’s all about MY 401(k)?
If our nation continues to pander to self-interest, to self-justifying racial stereotypes, we will have earned that reward. We will end as a nation like the “chaff which the wind blows away.” No matter how many nukes we have. No matter how the stock market is soaring.
Sometimes, laughter is the best medicine. The only medicine.
I remember one comic who ridiculed Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” and his dissembling about the racism implicit in it. In a skit portraying Nixon, the comic, mimicking Nixon’s reprise of George Wallace, portrays Nixon as saying, un that droll cadence, “Some believe in instant integration. Others believe in segregation forever. But I believe in INSTANT FOREVER.”
It’s a relief we can laugh at the folly of bigotry, laugh at ourselves as a nation. The “Saturday Night Live” opening skits have often been my saving event of the week. And, they’re often an equal opportunity pox on both political houses. Laughter brings solidarity, when we laugh at ourselves, at pretense and fake piety.
Amy Hunter is an activist out of St. Louis, MO, as well as a diversity and inclusion specialist for Boeing. Previously, she served as director of diversity and inclusion at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Before that, as director of racial justice for the St. Louis YWCA. She has written of the Black Lives Matter that originated in Fergusson, Missouri, after the killing of Michael Brown. Amy is surely one of the tsaddiqi in my book.
Amy Hunter in her TED talk lets in on the secret of those who just happen to live in the right zip codes, “lucky” zip codes she calls them. It was privilege, mostly that got them there — privilege they presently benefit from. The chances of someone from Watts or East L.A. zip code making it to a Beverly Hills zip code is about 5 in 100, if that. Forget the “Beverly Hillbillies.” Doesn’t happen.
How can people of conscience respond in good faith? Amy presents the idea of “Fictive Kinship.” It means living in solidarity with those didn’t have the good fortune to be born into these “lucky” zip codes.
Her bottom line is that America will live up to its promise only when it is as important to you that a child living in South Side Chicago or Willowbrook (you insert any underserved community across the nation here) – that it is as important to you that a child attending a crap school in that underserved zip code go to a school every bit as good as the one your child attends in Claremont or Oak Park, Piedmont, Montecito or The View.[3]
Those of us who have access, those of us who don’t have to worry about being followed around by security in a department store will only “Make America Great” when we can treat these folks as our own kin. Though not biologically related, we need to consider others living in “unlucky zip codes” as precious as our own. Our niece, our aunt, our brother. The Constitution is our birth certificate, each one of us. The Gospel mandate is what binds us together. If we don’t get that, our faith is hollow and we are but an empty, clanging cymbal.
Only if we get relationship right, only then America will be accounted among the righteous. We will be like a strong oak planted by that ever-flowing stream of righteousness.
The haters? Their works will shrivel and perish. They will come to nothing. We can vote for that kind of dissolute nation. We can make that dead-end choice. Or we can heed Amy Hunter’s wise counsel.
It’s all about LOVE OF GOD and LOVE OF NEIGHBOR. Pretty much one and the same. We rise or fall together. In America there is no “I” that is as important, as powerful as “WE.”
I give Amy the “Last Word.” What she wants, each of us wants, no matter our zip code or race. She, in daring to share this, is that strong oak tree planted by the stream of righteousness. What she does and who she is prospers. This is her testimony:
“When my son was 12, he walked home less than a mile away from our house. And he saw police officers circling. And he knew he was going to be stopped. He was about five houses away from home. And sure enough, at 12, he got stopped. So he came home to me because he was 12, and he was flustered. And he was asking all these questions about what happened and why it happened. And so he said, you know, Mom, I want to know, like, is it because I’m black? I said, I don’t know, maybe. He said, well, I knew you were home, and I actually thought about running home to you. And I said, whatever you do, don’t run.
“And he looked at me, and he said, Mommy, I just want to know how long will this last. And then I looked at my 12-year-old son, and I said to him, for the rest of your life. I want this to stop. I honestly believe that we are the right people to make a change in this community, to be role models and examples of how to get this right and create the kind of world and reality that we’d like to see, to create a more equitable society where there are no lucky ZIP codes.”[4]
Amy, indeed, gets the “last word.” It’s truly a Gospel word. Amen
[1] David Brooks, “How to Actually Make America Great,” New York Times, Op Ed Section, October 16, 2020.
[2] Op. cit.
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdX8uN6VbUE
[4] Amy Hunter, TED Talk, “Lucky Zip Codes.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdX8uN6VbUE
Dear friends in Christ
October 25, 2020, Pentecost 21, Proper 25
The Rev. John C. Forney
Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18; Psalm 1; I Thessalonians 2:1-8;
Matthew 22:34-46
“We Shall Not Be Moved”
Sixteen Tons of Number Nine Coal
I remember my dad talking about the coal industry of his boyhood home in West Virginia. And while he grew up in a rather privileged home, he did have a sympathetic heart for miners that virtually had no future in the mines. Wages were poverty level, the conditions were dangerous and the only future many miners faced was black lung disease and indebtedness to the company store, in a company town that exploited those families at every turn.
When Tennessee Ernie Ford came out with his ballad, “Sixteen Tons” in the fifties it surely resonated with the stories Dad had told us kids. The company store extorted the families in those company-owned towns unbelievably, he said.
The purpose of his morality tale was not to express sympathy for those consigned to that life of backbreaking labor and poverty, but as a warning, to stress to us the importance of getting an education so we wouldn’t endure the impoverishment his family had avoided. It meant getting the hell out of there.
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St. Peter don’t you call me ‘cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store.
Such has been the hardship of the impoverished since time immemorial who are deprived of agency. Folks ground up by predatory coal companies. Sixteen tons and a short life of misery. It meant poverty, illness, drunkenness and ignorance to my father. I call it the “sixteen tons” mentality of sweatshop and the mine. It’s work till you’re all used up and then you drop.
When Jesus is asked about the lawfulness of paying taxes to the imperial state that has its boot on your neck, he slips through a most cleaver trap. If he answers “no,” he and his followers risk all the might of imperial Rome coming down on their little movement.
If Jesus answers “yes,” he will be complicit with the exploitive, demonic power of Rome. It will mean giving approval to those tax collectors roaming the land confiscating the livelihoods of those already barely able to feed their families. Not unlike those presently evicting families in the midst of this economic collapse. Paying taxes would only be feeding the insatiable greed of rapacious tax collectors.
Back then it was, as now a short life of brutality and deprivation for far too many. It was Hobbs “war of all against all.”
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St. Peter don’t you call me ‘cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store.
It’s the company store or Cesar – one and the same. Jesus asks for a coin used to pay the taxes. Whose face is on the coin? “Cesar’s,” someone answers. “Then give to Cesar what is Cesar’s, and to God what belongs to God.”
Niebuhr’s insight into human nature was spot on. He noted that most of us, when left to our own devices, usually do the right thing. We are compassionate. If we see a lost child, we attempt comfort and if we see suffering, try to get help. If a neighbor’s house had burned down or flooded, we will work with others to provide emergency clothing and a place to stay until lodging can be found. We will give to refurbish the neighborhood baseball field. That’s just human nature.
These are the duties belonging to God. Virtually every church would applaud such. Most of the world’s religions as well.
Niebuhr says that such empathy and compassion tends to break down when it comes to nation states and large organizations – a number of which are actually larger than many entire countries.
From such, we might not expect much compassion or understanding. AT&T is not going to care if you have lost your job and are being evicted. In a number of hospitals, you will not be treated without insurance. Or at least, not treated well. Even if you are bleeding on the floor, before the emergency room nurse, they’ll send you to the “Accounts” window.
Management will close ranks to protect the institution. The marginalized will be sacrificed. Those with no power sold out. That’s the story of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Look how the U.S. regarded those butchered in the My Lai Massacre. Swept under the rug. And the war criminal Lt. William Calley? Let off with a wrist slap. Nothing to see here, folks. Just move along. Stuff happens.
On the failings of large organizations, I’m reminded of one priest’s understanding of the sometimes perversity of the institutional Church. “I’m never disillusioned by the Church because I have no illusions about it.”
My dissertation was a study of clergy who had left the parish ministry over a thirteen-year period back in the seventies. I remember one former pastor, who still had much anger when relating the story of one church he had just been assigned to. This, years later.
He reported a call by the conference treasurer demanding to know where the monthly payments were. What payments? No one mentioned to him any mortgage payments. When told the treasurer in no uncertain terms that there was no way the congregation could make these payments, the treasurer told him that if he walked the neighborhood, about one in ten would be Methodist. He had a vision of his life going down the tubes at a ratio of one to ten. After a few sleepless nights, he told the treasurer what he could do with that job. Not the empathy one might hope for from Mother Church…
It’s the same story on COVID-19, the economic devastation of small businesses, and a host of other problems facing our nation. Twisting slowly in the wind we are. “Benign neglect,” Nixon counseled back then. When fifty-seven families own as much as one half the country, don’t expect much sympathy. You read it right – fifty-seven families!
But every now and then… EVERY NOW AND THEN! Someone in power does the right thing. Somehow, out of nowhere. Out of the blue. Someone does the right thing. A righteous woman, a righteous man rises up. And we say, “Thanks be to God.” A leader who’s cause for a “Glory Attack.”
This is why, in Isaiah, the foreign potentate Cyrus is called messiah. Cyrus is to be the means of freedom for the Israelites from Babylonian captivity. They would return rejoicing. “Every valley lifted up and every mountain laid low.” The path of the Lord made straight into freedom. Every now and then… Israel took it as divine providence. Out of Babylonia as out of Egypt. As, centuries later, following the drinking gourd, escaped slaves boarded the Underground Railroad made their passage to freedom in the North. Completely done with “Sixteen tons” till you dropped.
Abraham Lincoln was similarly regarded by the enslaved and the abolitionists in America – Father Abraham. Every now and then someone in the behemoth of big government does the right thing – the saving thing. A strong deliverer arises.
In Matthew the question is whether people of faith are required to pay taxes, to cooperate with what was then a despotic reign.
Whose face is on this coin. It is the faces of the American people. Yes, mostly old, dead white guys. But even now, a bit of light shines. Susan B. Anthony. Sacajawea. And, hopefully, Harriet Tubman. And more exemplary women to follow.
We can turn around the “sixteen tons” mentality that uses up men and women in sweatshops and the gig economy. Uses them up and spits them out.
In America, the discussion is more nuanced. And as we head into perhaps the most contentious election since that of Lincoln before the Civil War, we have Christians of many opinions. On both sides of the partisan divide.
There is no vigorous King Cyrus liberator figure on the ballot in this 2020 election. It is America that is on the ballot.
Jon Mecham is right, this election is for the “soul of America.” My side believes that. I’m sure the other side believes that as well. And we all have our reasons.
So where to, America? What does it mean when WE are Cesar? It is our heads on the coin of the realm.
In America, each of us is a citizen with inalienable rights and duties who are to be the strong deliverers. We are anointed, each as a “little Christ” as it were. To our families, our neighbors, our communities. Each of us is divinely empowered to leave this nation a little better than when we arrived on the scene.
All of which is to say, that if we look around, we have the opportunity to do more than just pay taxes. We are called to the joy of having skin in this game called America.
We can march for justice, we can support quality schools in our communities, serve on the school board.
As St. Augustine said, “Faithfulness in the little things is a big thing.” Our little things in the coming year will add ot a “big” thing.
But, right now, most of all, vote. Vote for candidates that are problem solvers. Vote for candidates who have a lived track record of empathy for the “least of these.” Vote for candidates who respect the opposition and can work across the aisle. Vote for those who can see beyond the interests of their own wallet.
It’s “Shinning City on the Hill” time. Away with the “sixteen tons of number nine coal” until you drop, consumed by black lung disease or polluted water.
It can be “Morning in America” if we work for it. Whose head on the coin? All of ours! WE are morning in America.
Not to vote is a sin. So, do it! Amen.
I remember my dad talking about the coal industry of his boyhood home in West Virginia. And while he grew up in a rather privileged home, he did have a sympathetic heart for miners that virtually had no future in the mines. Wages were poverty level, the conditions were dangerous and the only future many miners faced was black lung disease and indebtedness to the company store, in a company town that exploited those families at every turn.
When Tennessee Ernie Ford came out with his ballad, “Sixteen Tons” in the fifties it surely resonated with the stories Dad had told us kids. The company store extorted the families in those company-owned towns unbelievably, he said.
The purpose of his morality tale was not to express sympathy for those consigned to that life of backbreaking labor and poverty, but as a warning, to stress to us the importance of getting an education so we wouldn’t endure the impoverishment his family had avoided. It meant getting the hell out of there.
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St. Peter don’t you call me ‘cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store.
Such has been the hardship of the impoverished since time immemorial who are deprived of agency. Folks ground up by predatory coal companies. Sixteen tons and a short life of misery. It meant poverty, illness, drunkenness and ignorance to my father. I call it the “sixteen tons” mentality of sweatshop and the mine. It’s work till you’re all used up and then you drop.
When Jesus is asked about the lawfulness of paying taxes to the imperial state that has its boot on your neck, he slips through a most cleaver trap. If he answers “no,” he and his followers risk all the might of imperial Rome coming down on their little movement.
If Jesus answers “yes,” he will be complicit with the exploitive, demonic power of Rome. It will mean giving approval to those tax collectors roaming the land confiscating the livelihoods of those already barely able to feed their families. Not unlike those presently evicting families in the midst of this economic collapse. Paying taxes would only be feeding the insatiable greed of rapacious tax collectors.
Back then it was, as now a short life of brutality and deprivation for far too many. It was Hobbs “war of all against all.”
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St. Peter don’t you call me ‘cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store.
It’s the company store or Cesar – one and the same. Jesus asks for a coin used to pay the taxes. Whose face is on the coin? “Cesar’s,” someone answers. “Then give to Cesar what is Cesar’s, and to God what belongs to God.”
Niebuhr’s insight into human nature was spot on. He noted that most of us, when left to our own devices, usually do the right thing. We are compassionate. If we see a lost child, we attempt comfort and if we see suffering, try to get help. If a neighbor’s house had burned down or flooded, we will work with others to provide emergency clothing and a place to stay until lodging can be found. We will give to refurbish the neighborhood baseball field. That’s just human nature.
These are the duties belonging to God. Virtually every church would applaud such. Most of the world’s religions as well.
Niebuhr says that such empathy and compassion tends to break down when it comes to nation states and large organizations – a number of which are actually larger than many entire countries.
From such, we might not expect much compassion or understanding. AT&T is not going to care if you have lost your job and are being evicted. In a number of hospitals, you will not be treated without insurance. Or at least, not treated well. Even if you are bleeding on the floor, before the emergency room nurse, they’ll send you to the “Accounts” window.
Management will close ranks to protect the institution. The marginalized will be sacrificed. Those with no power sold out. That’s the story of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Look how the U.S. regarded those butchered in the My Lai Massacre. Swept under the rug. And the war criminal Lt. William Calley? Let off with a wrist slap. Nothing to see here, folks. Just move along. Stuff happens.
On the failings of large organizations, I’m reminded of one priest’s understanding of the sometimes perversity of the institutional Church. “I’m never disillusioned by the Church because I have no illusions about it.”
My dissertation was a study of clergy who had left the parish ministry over a thirteen-year period back in the seventies. I remember one former pastor, who still had much anger when relating the story of one church he had just been assigned to. This, years later.
He reported a call by the conference treasurer demanding to know where the monthly payments were. What payments? No one mentioned to him any mortgage payments. When told the treasurer in no uncertain terms that there was no way the congregation could make these payments, the treasurer told him that if he walked the neighborhood, about one in ten would be Methodist. He had a vision of his life going down the tubes at a ratio of one to ten. After a few sleepless nights, he told the treasurer what he could do with that job. Not the empathy one might hope for from Mother Church…
It’s the same story on COVID-19, the economic devastation of small businesses, and a host of other problems facing our nation. Twisting slowly in the wind we are. “Benign neglect,” Nixon counseled back then. When fifty-seven families own as much as one half the country, don’t expect much sympathy. You read it right – fifty-seven families!
But every now and then… EVERY NOW AND THEN! Someone in power does the right thing. Somehow, out of nowhere. Out of the blue. Someone does the right thing. A righteous woman, a righteous man rises up. And we say, “Thanks be to God.” A leader who’s cause for a “Glory Attack.”
This is why, in Isaiah, the foreign potentate Cyrus is called messiah. Cyrus is to be the means of freedom for the Israelites from Babylonian captivity. They would return rejoicing. “Every valley lifted up and every mountain laid low.” The path of the Lord made straight into freedom. Every now and then… Israel took it as divine providence. Out of Babylonia as out of Egypt. As, centuries later, following the drinking gourd, escaped slaves boarded the Underground Railroad made their passage to freedom in the North. Completely done with “Sixteen tons” till you dropped.
Abraham Lincoln was similarly regarded by the enslaved and the abolitionists in America – Father Abraham. Every now and then someone in the behemoth of big government does the right thing – the saving thing. A strong deliverer arises.
In Matthew the question is whether people of faith are required to pay taxes, to cooperate with what was then a despotic reign.
Whose face is on this coin. It is the faces of the American people. Yes, mostly old, dead white guys. But even now, a bit of light shines. Susan B. Anthony. Sacajawea. And, hopefully, Harriet Tubman. And more exemplary women to follow.
We can turn around the “sixteen tons” mentality that uses up men and women in sweatshops and the gig economy. Uses them up and spits them out.
In America, the discussion is more nuanced. And as we head into perhaps the most contentious election since that of Lincoln before the Civil War, we have Christians of many opinions. On both sides of the partisan divide.
There is no vigorous King Cyrus liberator figure on the ballot in this 2020 election. It is America that is on the ballot.
Jon Mecham is right, this election is for the “soul of America.” My side believes that. I’m sure the other side believes that as well. And we all have our reasons.
So where to, America? What does it mean when WE are Cesar? It is our heads on the coin of the realm.
In America, each of us is a citizen with inalienable rights and duties who are to be the strong deliverers. We are anointed, each as a “little Christ” as it were. To our families, our neighbors, our communities. Each of us is divinely empowered to leave this nation a little better than when we arrived on the scene.
All of which is to say, that if we look around, we have the opportunity to do more than just pay taxes. We are called to the joy of having skin in this game called America.
We can march for justice, we can support quality schools in our communities, serve on the school board.
As St. Augustine said, “Faithfulness in the little things is a big thing.” Our little things in the coming year will add ot a “big” thing.
But, right now, most of all, vote. Vote for candidates that are problem solvers. Vote for candidates who have a lived track record of empathy for the “least of these.” Vote for candidates who respect the opposition and can work across the aisle. Vote for those who can see beyond the interests of their own wallet.
It’s “Shinning City on the Hill” time. Away with the “sixteen tons of number nine coal” until you drop, consumed by black lung disease or polluted water.
It can be “Morning in America” if we work for it. Whose head on the coin? All of ours! WE are morning in America.
Not to vote is a sin. So, do it! Amen.
