Tag Archives: Jesus

The Big Release

22 Sunday Mar 2015

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Jesus answPhone Sept 2014 2052ered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

John 12:23-25

It’s easy to cling to the status quo, the wheat stalk in our midst.

It’s easy to play it safe.  It’s much simpler to allow the voices that stagnate to overrule.  It’s much less complicated to keep lives and institutions in their current shapes.

But here’s the thing: if we keep gripping to the stalk on which we grow and not allow ourselves to die to the old and be reborn, we are going to die anyway.

If we cling to our current ways of living, the unhealthy will overrule our well-being.  If we cling to a destructive friendship or relationship, our soul begins to shrink.  If we cling to a rigid way of thinking about a subject, we will cut ourselves off of a still-speaking God in our midst.

This also applies to the way we are the church.

If we try to keep people happy, preventing anything from changing and anyone from grieving, we think to ourselves “well, at least we aren’t dying.  All must be well!”  We’ll remind ourselves that we aren’t shrinking.  We’re retaining members!  Instead, we’ll foolishly affirm to ourselves and others that we’re stable.  But we’re far from stable.  We are clinging to a dying stalk of wheat.

We allow ourselves to forget about all of the others that may come our way once we shed our status quo.  We will die in the lie of stability because stability doesn’t really exist.  And people-pleasing is only an illusion.

But everyone’s “happy.”  Or so it seems.

Here’s where I fall short: being a Christian isn’t about making others happy.  Jesus refused to make others happy.  Instead, he threw over tables in the Temple, healed on the Sabbath, touched the unclean and associated with expendable people.

I’ll be honest- as I give this more thought, I no longer believe it’s really about making God happy but, instead, allowing God’s call to draw us into life.  We are called to live the Christ-filled journey by releasing the old ways we in which we exist.  It requires us to stop the people-pleasing, cease clinging to the old and let go.

The path of Christ means free-falling into the air… wondering where we will land and having faith that we will land in soil that will nourish us.

Those who love their lives exactly the way things are right now will eventually lose it sooner or later.  We will get old and our bodies and/or minds will cease to work.  As we die we’ll wonder why we didn’t take more chances in life and free-fall into the call of God.

Likewise, those who love their churches exactly how they currently are and work to keep the status quo will eventually lose their church.  Our members will age.  We won’t have the bodies and monies to continue to run our current church structures and buildings.  As we cling to the old, the life and energy stirring around the church building will drift away.

Eventually, the church will die.  Only the hollow, echoing building will stand.  No more ministries.  No more worship.  No more laughter at 9:45a.m. on a Sunday morning.

Nothing.

Now, if we are willing to throw everything to the wind – our old perspectives, our old structures, our old procedures – just as this grain of wheat that Jesus spoke of, we have the potential to grow.  In this great release of the old, we may feel like we are killing off the past.  We may be tossing away everything we know.  And, yes, this means deep grief.

Living this wild life of instability forces us to stop the rigidity and start on the winding road to who-knows-where.  But the possibilities of growth are endless.  The laughter and energy may dwindle for a bit, but then begin to build.

Remember Jack’s magic beans after he sold the cow?  Without releasing the old (and maybe sacred) cow, a beanstalk wouldn’t have blossomed.

Just like many churches will sell their buildings, merge with other churches, advocate for something new… Basically everything they are into the wind…  Selling the sacred cows for magic beans.

But most of the time, when the seed releases and falls, the ground catches it, nurses it, and allows the seed to take root…

…And the buds of resurrection break through the ground.

The Kingdom of God Is Like a Glee Club…

20 Friday Mar 2015

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By Glee (Screenshot from a Glee episode.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Kingdom of God is like a Glee club where young people of all ethnicities, races, gender identities and expressions, economic levels, religions and perspectives come together to join their voices together in song…

Where the pregnant cheerleader, the rebel misfit, the disabled student, the girl with the stutter, the girl with a larger than life ego, the gay young man and the football player who lacks direction can unite in joy and share their gifts…

…Or so Jesus would say if he was telling a 21st century parable.

Now, I haven’t had much chance to watch Glee in the last couple of seasons.  But this year, I’ve revisited the show a few times and watched some of the last episodes including tonight’s finale.

Back in the fall of 2009, my group of fellow seminarians would get together each Tuesday night during our last year of seminary to watch Glee.  It was our ritual, joining with the diverse Kingdom of God to watch a show about the diverse Kingdom of God.  The weekly Sabbath hour of watching Glee became our time to fellowship together before the eventual parting of ways at the end of the year when we were called to different corners of the world to serve.

Glee was something to which many of us could identify.  Some of us had been bullied as young people.  Others had come out to their friends and family.  I think on some level, most of us felt like outsiders who came together with a common love and sense of call – just like Will Schuester and the Glee club.

In tonight’s finale, Rachel explains that Glee club is “Somewhere safe” and a place where people “learn from each other and be who we are including those who are different than us.  When we look back on our time here, we should be proud of what we did and who we included.”

Sue concluded with the following:

“It takes a lot of bravery to look around you to see the world, not as it is, but as it should be.  A world where the quarterback becomes best friends with the gay kid.  And the girl with the big nose ends up on Broadway. Glee is about imagining a world like that, and finding the courage to open up your heart and sing about it.”

The way Jesus explains the kingdom of God is this idyllic place, a place where all people are respected and given dignity.   All are experiencing the justice and peace that flows from God.  Through Rachel’s and Sue’s words, we are reminded that the ideal kingdom of God is a safe place where we learn from one another and where we appreciate each other’s gifts.  It’s a place where people who are extremely different from one another can join together to share life and build up our neighbors.

The Kingdom of God is like Glee, reflecting all of the similarities and differences between people – and the unity between them – joining together to make a melodic world.

The League of God Is Like…

02 Monday Feb 2015

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By Gerald Nino/CBP (US Customs and Border Protection archives) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Looking through social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) I saw  how various people were spending their time watching this year’s Super Bowl.  I didn’t know anyone personally who attended this year.  Most of my friends were either home watching the game and updating social media as the event progressed – few were at parties or bars watching.

But what I noticed were that celebrities were posting picture after picture of themselves in the stands of the game.  And this got me thinking of those who are able to go and who will simply never see a Super Bowl game (or any NFL game, for that matter) live and up close.

I’ve been to a couple of NFL games.  Fortunately, I was able to receive the tickets for free.  Otherwise, I would rarely, if ever, be able to afford a game.

According to a report I found from 2013, the average ticket price for an NFL game is $81.54.  With federal minimum wage at $7.25 per hour, one may need to work 11.25 hours to afford just the game ticket.  The average Super Bowl ticket was about $3,600 according to some sources.  And that means they would have to work 496 hours to purchase an average Super Bowl ticket (or 12.4 weeks of 40 hour work weeks) for a three-to-four hour game.

What I find interesting is that taxpayer money will fund the stadiums which hold the games that many taxpayers themselves can not afford to attend.  So the poor essentially pay for the benefits of the rich.

In 2001, when the Super Bowl was in Tampa, I volunteered at the Hospitality Village.  Only those who had a special ticket could get in.  Sponsored parties were held in various areas of the village.  And then those who were at parties in the village moved over to the stadium to find their seats and the privilege to watch the game live and absorb the excitement around them.

The have nots, like myself, looked upon a stadium that I could not afford to get into.  I’m also guessing that the way sponsorships and VIP passes work, I’m sure many didn’t have to pay for their ticket but they were given the ticket for free.  Often, it’s about who you know.

Yesterday, I mentioned the subversive nature of Jesus in my sermon.  Sure, he may be someone hanging out in the stands during an NFL game.  He did eat with the privileged during his time.  But he also spent time with those who were thrown away by society.  Jesus would have been hanging out near the side of the road with those begging for food and in the work areas of the stadium with those who had to work through the game.  The Hospitality Village would be open to all in Jesus’ realm.

Maybe the League of God would be an NFL game with people of every economic level in a stadium.  Maybe it would be a stadium with the poorest sitting on the sidelines watching the game in the privileged areas while the super-rich were required to have the nosebleed seats.

I wonder how that would turn our society on it’s head…

We Still Need to Talk About Leelah

06 Tuesday Jan 2015

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Image via WCPO

This week, my friend Kevin Necessary’s editorial cartoon was published on the Cincinnati news channel website WCPO.com.  The drawing was a cartoon of Leelah Alcorn and a quote from her final letter.  In the comments under the cartoon, many responders desired the conversations to halt.  They used negative words to describe Leelah.  But thanks to the station and those monitoring the site, the conversations continued.

It reminded me of a situation from 2007.

At the time I lived in Largo, Florida.  Steve Stanton was our city manager.  I was acquainted with Stanton from my days working as a membership director for the Greater Largo Chamber of Commerce.  Stanton was a dedicated public servant, working for the city for nearly two decades.

Due to a horrific move by the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times), Stanton’s true gender identity and upcoming transition was outed to the entire Tampa Bay community.  The entire community was stunned by the news.  The media leaked this story before Stanton could tell her 13-year-old son.

Of course, people in this suburban town couldn’t allow Stanton to remain manager of the city.  Based on her ultra-conservative faith, then-city commissioner Mary Gray Black demanded for Stanton to be fired.

At the hearings, people from all perspectives came to stand for or against Stanton.  A pastor from a local church stated “If Jesus was here tonight, I can guarantee you he’d want (him) terminated. Make no mistake about it.”  I personally wrote letters to each of the commissioners urging them to continue the employment of Stanton.  Unfortunately, with a 5-2 vote, the Largo commissioners chose to fire Stanton in February 2007.  Soon after, Stanton began to publicly identify as Susan Stanton.  It was truly a very embarrassing time for the city of Largo, Florida.  (Fortunately, as of this week, LGBT persons will be able to marry in Pinellas County, Florida.)

Even in 2007, our communities knew very little about transgenderism and weren’t willing to learn more.

People like to continue to believe that our current gender is the only thing that defines us.  Boy or Girl.  Man or Woman.  Be a manly man or be a feminine lady.  Don’t identify outside of gender norms, and don’t identify with another gender.  They call people who identify differently “perverts” or “immoral.”

Here’s how much gender means to our society: if one’s genitals or reproductive organs are not in a specific order, then he or she is considered less than human.  If a person does not identify with their current physical gender, then they are less than human.  They are unclean.  A text from Deuteronomy sticks in people’s minds: “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 23:1, NRSV).

What people forget are the words of the New Testament.  Jesus came to fulfill the law, and in doing so, never condemns the eunuchs in Matthew 19 nor does he deem them unclean.  According to Jesus, some are born that way, some have become eunuchs physically or spiritually by their own accord, and some had no choice in the matter and were made eunuchs by others.

So, to answer the pastor who said that Jesus would want Susan Stanton fired: Jesus never said that nor did he allude to ridding our society of genderqueer people.

Additionally, the story of Philip and eunuch in Acts 8 gives us the powerful example that no one is excluded from the Kingdom of God.  Even though the Ethiopian eunich would have been deemed unclean, Philip was called by the Spirit to baptize this child of God.

When our society continues to consider anyone who does not fit within the boxes of gender “norms” unclean – whether they are transgender, express their gender outside of cisnormative, genderqueer, etc. – then our society contributes to the hate crimes and suicides of many of God’s children.

To those people who are “tired of hearing about it” and want to “give it a rest” and “move on”: understand that you are privileged in your gender and your physical self.  You can turn off the news and never have to think about gender identity.  But Leelah couldn’t turn this off.  Leelah couldn’t give it a rest or move on.  And that is why Leelah took her own life.

Indeed, we can’t move on yet.  We need to continue to talk about this because, someday, many of us will lose a family member or friend who is transgender – either through suicide or hate crime.  Maybe some of us already have lost a loved one because they couldn’t believe society would accept them as genderqueer.

According to the Williams Institute and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention:

The prevalence of suicide attempts among respondents to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force and National Center for Transgender Equality, is 41 percent, which vastly exceeds the 4.6 percent of the overall U.S. population who report a lifetime suicide attempt, and is also higher than the 10-20 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults who report ever attempting suicide.

Those of us who identify with the gender in which we were born can not understand the struggle that a transgender person will endure.  Our physical, mental and spiritual selves are complex.  In some people, the physical does not match the emotional or spiritual.  The brain is an intricate organ.  As fellow humans, it’s important to recognize that when a person identifies with the opposite gender than the one in which they were born, it’s not an immoral act.  They aren’t selfish or a pervert.  They aren’t somehow more “specially depraved” than anyone else. However, they are enduring struggle that those of us who aren’t transgender will never understand.  Taking time to listen to and appreciate their journey instead of casting judgment will continue to build a community of compassion.

Leelah stated in her final note “The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was. They’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights.”  In memory of Leelah and our loved ones who have died, and in honor of Susan, let’s try to treat people of all genders, gender expressions and gender identities as humans – all made in God’s image.

I don’t know much about transgenderism or being genderqueer, and I write this out of respect of my transgender sisters and brothers.  If someone from the community knows more and any of my information is incorrect, please contact me.  

The Distraction of Justifying Our Help

14 Sunday Dec 2014

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givingThis time of year charities collect monies to help our fellow sisters and brothers in need receive food, clothing and other items they may be missing in order to have a Merry Christmas.

For many, many years, I have heard the following in conversations when collecting goods and monies:

This person deserves it because they are trying to find a job.
This person deserves it because they work 60 hours a week and still can’t buy their children gifts.
This person’s spouse died and their family needs the help.

People love to give to others who seem to be the rule-followers, who seem to behave just like they do.  On the other hand, people in generational poverty, single moms, divorced parents, addicts and others who are not working are judged for their place in this world, their “lifestyles” and their perceived lack of initiative.  When it comes down to individuals giving, people like to sort out their giving based on who deserves it more.  I suppose it’s because, according to American society, people who we can see trying to make their lives better deserve more help than the ones who seem “lazy”.

We justify our giving based on the types of hardships people have and how much work they are doing to “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.”  More often than not these days, I hear of people giving reasons why they are helping this group and not that organization, and it often has to do with the quality and quantity of the recipients’ work.  Likewise, organizations and churches will also vet who will receive toys and other care items.

Jesus once tried to justify his giving.  “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” he said to the Gentile woman who looked and acted differently than him.

But this woman wouldn’t let him justify any further: “‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’” (Mark 7, NRSV)

The one time Jesus actually tried to rationalize his giving, he was corrected.  At least in the book of Mark, this narrative seemed to be the last time Jesus ever tried to justify help.  He never claimed that some weren’t worthy of healing.  He just healed – no matter what they looked like or how they sinned.  Jesus fed the multitude without concerning himself that some didn’t deserve food.

What if we were more like Jesus, open to all and providing for others without concerning ourselves whether or not someone warrants a donation?  And yet, we still ask:

Why should we give help to the parents who don’t work instead of the parents who work three jobs?
Why should we give help to the single mom who has a cell phone or internet at home (both which are needed to find a job)?
Why should we give help to the woman with seven children at home?

When you work in non-profits, you often see the nuances in life experiences of those in need.  Just because a single mom doesn’t work does not mean that she is being lazy.  There’s a great chance that she is suffering from a physical disability that prohibits her from working on her feet 40 hours a week or the 70 hours she needs to take care of herself and her children.

Because of a broken economical system, she may not be able to afford childcare even while 40-plus hours per week.  It’s much cheaper for her to live with government assistance than trying to pay for childcare and work full-time.

I’ve met many women who had stayed at home taking care of children for many years.  After the divorce, their self-esteem was shaky and their way of living changed drastically.  Many wanted to go back into the workforce, but being a stay-at-home mom left gaps in their resume, creating a challenge when finding a job.  Thus, taking a job took longer for many of these parents.

When someone has a mental illness or an addiction, it truly makes holding a job more difficult.  It can also mean that people are forced to live without a home.

We don’t know what it’s like to live in their shoes.  But any of these things could happen to us.  Easily.

So please, for the sake of every human on this earth and Jesus the Christ, the person in whose name we celebrate Christmas, let’s stop justifying our giving.

Let’s give to the people who seem to be “slacking,” no questions asked.
Let’s give to the people who reveal their struggles with physical issues, even though they seem well on the outside.
Let’s give to the people whose skin color or family structure looks differently than ours.
Let’s be more like Jesus – open to all – and non-discriminatory in our giving.

Because, tomorrow, we may become the people we judge today… no matter how hard we work now, no matter how much we love our spouse or children, no matter how well we play by society’s rules.

The Frightful Mask of Prejudice on Halloween

25 Saturday Oct 2014

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skeleton

“He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’”

Luke 14:12-14

Recently, I read a letter to Dear Prudence where the writer was complaining about giving candy to children from outside of their community.  The writer notes that the children are “clearly not from this neighborhood,” obviously referring to their skin color or the condition of their parent’s vehicles.  The attitude of the writer is one where he or she doesn’t want to be a social service agency and be a source of help for those less fortunate.

The attitude of exclusion doesn’t stop with the richest neighborhoods.  This story almost seems unreal until we read the comment section of the article or hear stories from our own communities where widespread exclusion is confirmed.

There is a middle-class neighborhood in the greater St. Louis area who is concerned with outsiders coming into the neighborhood to trick-or-treat.  In an online conversation, they plan how to stop people from coming inside the neighborhood.  Some will stand watch at the entrance to the subdivision as they don’t want minivans full of children coming to take their children’s candy.  One man commented on how he would take watch leading me to wonder if his biases would cause further pain and suffering on the “aliens in the land.”

People in this town often murmur in voices of concern about minorities “coming up the hill” to live in their neighborhoods.  Only miles away from this subdivision are communities of underprivileged people of color.  Some have reputations of being dangerous communities.  Often, families who live in apartment complexes do not have the opportunity to trick-or-treat, so they are forced to travel somewhere in order for their children to have the full childhood experience.

Which makes me wonder: who deserves our candy?  Who deserves safe neighborhoods to experience a happy childhood?

Is it the children we know?  Is it the children whose parents earn about as much as we do?  Is it the children whose skin looks similar to ours?  Is it the children who were born to families who could afford to purchase homes over $100,000?

People often say that Halloween is a holiday of the devil.  Frankly, I don’t believe that it’s for the reasons they think.  The Christ-like attitude of hospitality now is obliterated by attitudes of serve only those who are like me.

Luke 14:12-14 reminds us that our call is to invite those who are different.  It is not just an invitation but a mandate from Jesus the Christ to invite those who we wouldn’t normally include.  It’s stepping out in faith to interact with people whose lives are radically different from ours.

There was a time when Jesus himself felt the urge to deny a child well-being.  In Mark 7, Jesus is out of his element in Tyre, and a Syrophoenecian woman in the land asks him to heal her child of an unclean spirit.  He initially tells her that healing is for those who look and act like him.  But she challenges him, and Jesus changes his mind.  In this transformative experience for Jesus, he opens his mind to someone different, and the lives of Jesus, the woman and her child are blessed by the encounter.

Furthermore, Luke 18 notes that Jesus said “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them”.  He didn’t say “Let the children who look like me come to me.”  He didn’t request that these children have a certain economic background, and he didn’t exclude children of sinners and tax collectors.

On Halloween we have the opportunity to interact with the Christ in our midst as we extend radical hospitality to our neighbors and strangers.  Will Christ be allowed into our neighborhoods this Halloween?

Shedding My White Naiveté

18 Monday Aug 2014

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St. Louis – Maps of racial and ethnic divisions in US cities, inspired by http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?chicagodots (Bill Rankin’s map of Chicago), updated for Census 2010. Red is White, Blue is Black, Green is Asian, Orange is Hispanic, Yellow is Other, and each dot is 25 residents. Data from Census 2010. Base map © OpenStreetMap, CC-BY-SA Map of By Eric Fischer (Flickr: Race and ethnicity 2010: St. Louis) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

I am white.

I’m not sure that lends me to give my opinions on what is going on in Ferguson, MO.  Yet by living in the St. Louis area throughout my entire childhood and having conversations about race and reconciliation inside and outside of seminary classrooms, I have some passionate thoughts on the subject.

If you live in the St. Louis area as I did in my childhood and throughout college and seminary, you notice that many areas are either white or black.  While there are a few integrated communities, it seems though each race has their designated space to live.

My first residence was in East St. Louis for the first three months of my life.  My parents moved closer to my dad’s work in Belleville.  My grandparents, who lived in my first residence, stayed there for another decade.  Based on what I remember when visiting them, they may have been the only or one of the few Caucasian families still in their neighborhood.

I remember people often talked about this fear that the people of East St. Louis were going to “move up the hill” to Belleville.  People continued and still continue to move farther away from Belleville’s West End because of this fear.

I’m guessing other areas of St. Louis experienced white flight similar to this.  Is it because people assumed racial minority equaled dangerous?  Or did people continue to hold on to their racism from the 1960’s?

When I entered seminary in my thirties, my friends of color would talk about their fears of living in Webster Groves.  I couldn’t understand.  To me, Webster Groves was this safe suburban community filled with large homes and prestigious schools.

But that wasn’t the experience of my friends.  One told me “I couldn’t go running at night.  I just can’t do that – someone will think I did something wrong.”  She told me that our black classmates and friends feel that they would be pulled over by police based upon the color of their skin.  And then she said something to me that really opened my eyes: “I can’t fully be a whole person in Webster Groves.”

When you live in privileged areas, only some people are given the rights of being made in God’s image.  Others have to embrace a lesser form of personhood.

Hearing the words “white privilege” for the first time made me completely uncomfortable.  As a woman I don’t feel extremely privileged.  Sure, I may not be as privileged as another white person based on my gender or socioeconomic group.  There are times that being a woman does not make life easy – especially when it has to do with bodily safety.

But I am privileged beyond what I will ever realize.

I can drive in suburbs and never wonder if I will be pulled over because of my skin color.  I will be treated with greater respect at stores.  People will not assume I will cause trouble because I am white.

Some time later, I took a class on race and reconciliation.  There was one day where the conversation became extremely heated.  The pain of what was happening in predominantly black neighborhoods and the discrimination to our sisters and brothers all over St. Louis was expressed very explicitly that day.

That day still remains at the forefront of my memory, especially when watching these events unfold in Ferguson.  I recognize the pain as many march on the streets.

From all of these conversations, it was like I took the “red pill” in the movie The Matrix.  I can’t unsee the systemic racism that exists in our communities.  The flame of justice and peace that was ignited in seminary continues to burn brighter within my soul as I watch news reports of North St. Louis County.

All I can assume is that these acts of protests, riots and looting stem from this deep systemic pain.  As a white person, I can’t accurately represent their pain.  But from the gift of many conversations, I know it’s there, and they have every right to voice their deep anguish.  When people face discrimination, violence, a disproportionate number of incarcerations, lack of quality education programs as well as adequately-paid employment options, food and basic needs, there’s less hope in their communities.

As a Caucasian, I can tell you that we don’t experience what minorities and marginalized people experience.  All we can do is try our best to point to injustices that linger in our communities.

What I’m writing here is intended for a primarily white audience — to share my story of privilege awareness.  As Caucasians need to start to do our best to see it from a different angle… not from our comfy suburban coves or up on hills away from “those people.”

When a family of color moves into our neighborhood, let’s not contemplate moving to a “whiter” area.  Let’s invite our neighbors over for coffee or dinner and begin to build the relationships.  When you see the looting on TV, don’t just focus on that one piece of the situation.  Instead, focus your eyes on the people who are trying to pray over the communities and lead communities to peace.  Listen for the people who are trying to bring all sides together for dialogue, and join those conversations.  Notice the people who are trying to stop looters and clean up the messes a few hands have made.

And let’s spend some time with our friends of various background.  Maybe we’ll hear the deep pain that resides within them from discrimination.

These are baby steps, but we need to start somewhere.

I believe it was a matter of time before this happened to a community in St. Louis.  The people of color in St. Louis have been living in pain that many of us will never understand in our lifetimes.  As a white person, I don’t know how to support them as I should, and I know I will fall short.

I will continue to make mistakes.  You will continue to make mistakes.  We’re human.  But how can we be better the next time?

When we misspeak and return to our privileged ways, we need to stand back up and continue to try to bring about God’s kingdom of peace and justice.

And I will say this: I don’t want to hear that the people who are expressing their anguish should be “whipped,” and please stop calling them “those people.”  They are part of all of us – part of the Body of Christ, part of God’s creation.  No matter what our color, we’re made in God’s image.

Yesterday, the lectionary text was Jesus encountering the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15).  Her ethnicity and set of beliefs led Jesus to group her with the “other.”  She called Jesus out on his moment of discrimination, and he changed his view of her and his process of ministry to those outside of the Jewish faith.

Let’s be like Jesus, the one who taught us how to set aside our prejudices and love our neighbors unconditionally.

 

 

Everyday Apocalypses

29 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by in Life, Poetry, Pop, Pop Culture, Religion

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From the lips of the doctor
came the earth-shaking gong
of terrifying news-
only days, only months-
unending, unceasing, unrelenting pain.

Gazing at the fresh grave of a spouse
or partner
or friend-
tomorrow doesn’t matter.

One line, not two
on the pregnancy test
for the seventh month in a row.
The empty womb weeps.

In the words
separation
divorce
his house has been destroyed.

As we wait for Jesus, or zombies, or the rapture-
water turning to blood, planets colliding-
we meet our demise in the quiet of everyday.

 

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Good Friday is Not Good

18 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by in Church Life, Life, Pop, Pop Culture, Religion

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El Greco [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

To me, Good Friday is not good.

A man that loved everyone he met is executed by the government.  According to writings, thorns are pushed into his head, he is beaten, spat upon and forced to parade through a city carrying a heavy piece of wood.  Nails were pierced into his hands and feet, and he struggled to breathe as he slowly died upon a cross.

I’m sorry… there is no good news in the expectation that one person must die so that everyone is alive and happy.

To me, Good Friday is deeply painful.

I can’t believe in a God that would expect his or her own son to receive such pain.  I can’t believe in a God that goes against the God of Psalm 139 – following us into the very depths of the earth and underworld for no other reason that God loves us.  Believing that God expected Jesus to die for humanity and then deserting Jesus in those painful last few minutes is not the God I know and love.

I can’t believe that God would force us to believe this horrific story in order for us to have some perfect afterlife or perfect relationship with the Divine.

Back in seminary, we read the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”.  The story describes paradise, the most perfect place on earth.  Yet in order for the people of Omelas to have such perfection, one person, a child, is required to suffer.  In our story, that is Jesus.

So, on this “Good” Friday, I still embrace my salvation through Christ – through his life.  When Jesus touched the unclean and stood up for the marginalized, Jesus saved humanity.  Jesus went so far to defend “the least of these” that he was executed for doing so.

Because it was through his life, not his death, that I find salvation.

And I thank Jesus the Christ for loving so extravagantly that he was willing to get arrested and find his demise on a cross.  But I refuse to claim joy because of the suffering he went through.  And I refuse to embrace a Divine Mother or Father that would require for this to happen.

Like John 3:16 states, I believe that God sent Jesus to this world to save this world.  I just don’t believe that it was through his death.  Instead, it was through his life and ministry.  Each day I find salvation through the radically loving acts of Jesus.

The cross has meaning – the significance that a person would go to the ends of the earth in order to show love.  But the cross is not joyous to me.

The cross is an electric chair, a firing squad.  It’s lethal injection.  Instead of executing someone who hurt the world, the Roman government made this huge error by executing a loving person.

But the Roman government didn’t win.  Hate didn’t win.  But that’s a story for another day…

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