Sit and Eat

This Block, Our Streets: working for racial justice right here, right now

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, July 10. It was the conclusion of our "Season of Listening," a time when our congregation turns intentionally outward to listen to voices from our neighborhood. The text was Luke 10:25-27; the story of the Good Samaritan. 

 

 

 

“And who is my neighbor?”

the man asked Jesus.

This is the last week of our "Season of Listening" here at St. Lydia’s.

For the last few weeks, we’ve been hearing stories about this neighborhood from our neighbors.

We heard from Michael Higgins, Jr., an activist with FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality)

who came and taught us about the work public housing residents are doing

to keep their neighborhoods in tact as the city makes plans to build luxury units on public housing land.

 

Last week, Tracey Pinkard came and told us stories about her grandmother,

a matriarch at the Gowanus Houses who took care of just about everyone,

and the way her work is continuing

through the arts program for kids that Tracey co-founded, 

the Gowanus Houses Arts Collective. 

 

We've heard very local stories from very local people --

people who live and work right next door.


Today our country is writhing in grief.

These last few weeks have been relentless with violence and pain.

Hashtag after hashtag.

We mourn for 50 lives lost in Orlando,

We mourn for Philando Castile in St. Paul.

We mourn for Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge.

We mourn for six lives lost in Dallas.


This morning at Waffle Church the children cut out hearts for all the places in the world they wanted to pray for

and we covered a map of our nation in prayers.

God, we need them.

 

*

 

With the whole country grieving,

we might wonder how hearing stories from our neighborhood

can make any difference. 

What can a little neighborhood like Gowanus

have to do with systemic violence that is so big?

The system of racialized violence, police brutality, and mass incarceration

in our country is big. Really big. Overwhelmingly big.

Don’t we need to think big, act big, to make big changes?

Yesterday in this very room during a cop watch training that was held here,

sixty people heard a very personal story from a neighbor who lives just down the block in the Gowanus Houses.

It’s a story of this neighborhood.

Of something that happened here, right on these blocks.

 

Mr. Nicholas Heyward told us the story of his son, Nicholas Heyward, Jr.,

who was playing with his friends in the stairwell of the Gowanus Houses.

Nicholas was holding a toy gun with a orange cap on the end.

And a police officer shot him.

He was thirteen years old.

 

Nicholas was murdered in 1994. He was just a little younger than me.

He would have been 35 in August.

 

It happened right here in Gowanus, three blocks away from us, 

just like it happens in neighborhoods across the country,

needless stops and harassments of dark skinned people,

again and again,

that too often end very badly. 

My friend Kaji, a pastor I graduated with and an amazing speaker and preacher, 

just upgraded from a moderately-priced car to a Mercedes (a stretch financially)

in the hopes that she can stop getting constantly pulled over

with her baby girl in the back in a car seat. 

 

Mr. Heyward tells his story.

 

 

We need to know the stories of our neighborhoods --

the stories of our past that our present is built on. 

Here’s a story we need to hear:

St. Lydia's is a block away from the Gowanus Canal, 

a superfund site that is perhaps the most polluted waterway in the country. 

 

Before the Gowanus Canal was a canal, it was a creek.*

The area where we're sitting right now was the water basin for all of Brooklyn,

where all the streams and came together and emptied out into the sea.

The Gowanus creek meandered along about the same route the canal takes today,

and the land around it, which was marshy and covered in sea grass,

was home to one of the tribes of the Lenape Native Americans.

They farmed, hunted, and harvested shellfish from these lands.

There were oysters here that, one Dutch colonist wrote,

were the size of dinner plates.

 

The Dutch “bought” this land from the Lenape

and early on a colonist named Freek built a mill

that used the river power to grind flour.

The mill was built and installed by African slaves.

The canal was dug deeper by African slaves.

This land was built on the back of slaves,

who never saw the profits it earned.

Slowly, the Gowanus began to industrialize.

 

200 soldiers from the Maryland 400 died in or along the Gowanus river during the Battle of Brooklyn

as George Washington retreated from the British and back to Manhattan.

 

After the War, Edwin C. Litchfield purchased a huge parcel of Brooklyn land,

which included Gowanus.

He built a great villa up on the hill --

it still sits on Prospect Park West and fifth street.

It looked out on  a thriving commercial area along the canal,

ships busily moving in and out of the bay,

delivering supplies for cement factories,

gas works, brass foundries, lumber yards.

In the 1850’s the Gowanus Canal was lined with shanties,

an area called Darby’s Patch.

They were one room, one story buildings with packed dirt floors,

inhabited by mostly Irish immigrants.

You can guess what happened when it rained.

The sewers that were installed in the new city of Brooklyn

were never able to handle the rains of these low-lying flood lands.

In August of 1877, the Brooklyn Eagle published a article titled,

“Very Vile: The Disgusting Condition of the Gowanus Canal.”

The article wrote that 9,187 pounds of feces

were expelled into the canal every day.

There never seemed to be city money to make the changes the canal needed —

so the residents of Darby’s Patch stood on the tables

when the water rose to high.

Meanwhile, Mr. Litchfield, way up on the hill, had never paid a dime of taxes on his lands.

 

 

Every factory along the canal pumped their waste into the canal, untreated. 

At a certain point, a pump was installed at the head of the canal

to try and move water through, drawn from the East River. 

A few years later it broke, and it stayed that way for decades.

Then they got it working again,

but as we know, it only did so much.

It was fine though, because only poor people lived here, right?

This neighborhood still has what's called “combined sewage overflow,”

which means that when it rains hard,

the raw sewage goes straight into the canal.

Today the Gowanus is known to contain almost no oxygen.

Because of this it has almost no plant or animal life.

The only thing that lives in there are strains of viruses and parasites.

 

*

 

We all walked to church tonight on the bones of our forebears.

Soldiers who died here, slaves who worked here,

native people who once made this place their home.

The Gowanus is a living reminder of the sins of our past:

our domination of other humans and of the environment

all to make a dime.

Reading about the history of this neighborhood,

all I could think was that we can’t move forward

without dredging up the sins of the past.

Through the years, plenty of people have suggested

just paving the whole canal over.

But the land will still flood,

reminding us that we’ve usurped the natural order of things.

We can’t just bury it.

 

In the same way, we can’t just bury the cries of an entire people

because of the actions of one gunman.

Do not allow the hate-filled action of one person to distract you.

We must grieve the loss of life in Dallas. It’s heartbreaking.

And we must keep the focus on the Black lives

that are at risk in our nation every day.

 

*

 

The story of the Good Samaritan is very local story.

The Samaritan is a man who is going about his business.

He’s walking down a treacherous road on the way back from Jerusalem.

He’s probably tired out after a long trip.

And this man encounters a real person.

A Jew. Who is separated from him by belief and religious practice,

Someone who he’s been taught to see as the enemy, taught not to trust. 

He encounters this other:

a real person, in a real time, in a real place, on a real day.

And his heart is moved. 

The Spirit stirs and he is moved to action. 

God moves him to make a choice to address the real

pain and brokenness that he witnesses

and to take it on.

Not to ignore it, but to see it.

And seeing it means, in a way, owning it.

Now it belongs to him, too.

 

It is a story of a fundamental interruption:

the interruption of the Samaritan’s routine,

the interruption of his beliefs,

the interruption of his day.

His life is disrupted, upended

to help this person who is not far away

but right up close.

Right in his life, in his neighborhood.

On the street he travels.

It’s not convenient, 

helping this man, this neighbor,

takes work, time, effort, and money.

He sacrifices his life as usual

to hold another’s pain.

 

*

I believe that we are living through a critical moment in our nation’s history.

We are poised on the edge of something.

Deciding if we’re going to own up to the centuries of shit

we’ve dumped here

and dredge it all up

and face it, deal with it, 

or just pave it all over

and pretend that our black and brown citizens aren’t dying in our streets

or being funneled toward our prisons. 

 

We have a choice:

to stop and look at the suffering of our Black and brown siblings, 

or to walk on by.

Many of us in this room have the privilege to just keep on walking.

And many of us have already had our hearts changed,

and decided that we must stop,

look,

learn,

to try and hold a pain that we will never have to bear.

Allow our lives to be interrupted:

give time, give money, give energy

because this is really, really important.

 

*

 

It’s easy to look back on the movements of the past

and idealize all that took place.

We see pictures of Martin Luther King walking, arms linked, with clergy

or preaching at the March on Washington.

There are fewer pictures of the secretaries copying out notes from late night meetings,

of building data bases of phone numbers 

or trudging door to door to register voters, 

making coffee and setting out chairs and sweeping the floor after the meeting.

But that’s the stuff that movements are made of.

It’s easy to remember the organizers who led the way,

but behind them were tons of ordinary people

going to chapter meetings and writing their senators and showing up for marches.

It’s easy also, when we look at those photos,

to erase the uncertainty, the confusion,

the in-fighting and the painful decisions,

that characterized those days.

Not to mention the real, gnawing fear.

Of fire hoses and angry mobs...

bombed out churches…

I think of more names we must remember:

Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley…

Medgar Evers, James Earl Chaney…

lives that shouldn’t have been lost.

Funerals that shouldn’t have taken place.

 

Do you think the Samaritan felt certain of what he was doing?

Felt sure that he should do what the priest and Levite failed to

and take it upon himself to get involved in all this?

I feel sure he was trembling in fear.

 

*

 

My friend Austin Channing, who does incredible work for racial justice in the Church, 

recently posted advice for white allies

who hope to work toward racial justice on Facebook. 

 

“It's time to identify, call out, and uproot white supremacy

wherever you find it,” she wrote.

“You may not be a police officer who's decisions come with deadly consequences.

But don’t think you are in any way off the hook.

I guarantee somewhere in your life is a space infested with decisions being made to benefit white people

at the expense of black people and other races and ethnicities. 

Its time to be a co-laborer, to risk your body along with mine.

Its time for urgency.

Your thoughts and prayers and posts don’t mean much,

if they are only for places far away,

and never right where you live, work or worship.”

 

 

There’s not some magic place “out there”

where the movement is happening, without us.

It’s happening right here, right now, on these streets.

On the banks of this canal, made toxic with the sins of those who came before us,

which we must now reckon with. 

It’s happening in these streets, in this neighborhood,

where young men and women are aggressively policed every single day. 

And we must reckon with it. 

 

Yesterday sixty people gathered in this room to learn about how to “cop watch:”

how to video the police to create accountability

and to make sure they know that the actions they’re taking

in low income neighborhoods are being observed.

These are people who are ready to, as Austin puts it, “be a co-laborer.”

To risk their bodies and their safety in the same way

that darker skinned people risk their bodies every day.

 

Cop Watch CPU in New York has grown and organized.

They know where the police are showing up and they show up with them.

They’re relentless.

And they’re working on these streets, these neighborhoods.

 

We need massive police reform,

massive reform of the justice system,

massive reform of the prison system.

These massive reformed probably seem as impossibly distant 

as desegregated schools did in 1954. 

 

But it happened. 

 

Change takes place one street at a time, one block at a time, one neighborhood at a time. 

It takes place though thoroughly unromantic stuff

like meeting minutes and setting out chairs.

It happens when we encounter the pain of our neighbor —

those who may seem strange and different and “other” from us,

and allow it to move our hearts,

allow the Spirit to open our hearts, 

to disrupt our lives,

and then to fundamentally change our routines:

 our habits,

our spending,

our priorities,

and begin to take time out to do inconvenient stuff,

like take a long subway ride to a longer meeting

even though we worked an even longer day.

 

But we want to.

We’re compelled to.

We are ready.

So, so ready.

To dredge it up.

To clean it out. 

To remedy the sins of our forebears.

And make a place where something might live again.

 

*** 

 

Nicholas Naquan Heyward, Jr. 

 

***

 

Would you like to support racial justice in your streets and on your block?

Your congregation can get involved with the Live Free movement led by PICO, a national, grassroots, faith-based organizing group. You can give to the NAACP, give to Black Lives Matter, and volunteer for local chapters in your area. If you're white, you can get involved with SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice). It is a process of growth and commitment. Join this movement for the long haul. 

 

If you lead a predominantly white congregation and would like support getting started with these congregations, I offer myself as a resource. Write me, invite me to speak or preach. I want to help white congregations support this movement. 

 

***

 

*Information about the Gowanus Canal and neighborhood was drawn from Joseph Alexia's book, "Gowanus: Brooklyn's Curious Canal."

What Happens on the Inhale: The Case for Rest

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's the week of June 5, after returning home from a five week sabbatical. 

 

 

 

A few summers after I graduated from Divinity School

my friends and I decided we should have a reunion. 

Kelly suggested that we all meet up at her family’s lake house. 

Kelly’s from rural Illinois, and this is apparently the thing that lots of people do in the summers there. 

They drive up to Wisconsin, “to the lake.”

It's a whole thing. There are cheese curds involved too. 

 

So, the first day at the lake house, 

we all got in our swimming suits, 

filled a cooler with beer, and got on a pontoon boat. 

We motored out into the middle of the lake, and then, we just…

drifted. 

Kelly got out a magazine and read it from behind her sunglasses. 

Elizabeth floated in an inner tube with her eyes closed. 

And we just…lounged. 

I was…confused. 

In my family, vacation meant getting on an airplane 

and flying somewhere we had never been with lots of museums. 

It involved tours through historic houses 

and bus rides through historic neighborhoods 

and three cities in six days as we raced to soak up as much culture as possible. 

There was no lounging. 

There were no coolers filled with beer. 

There were no pontoon boats.

 

I looked at Kelly. 

“So, we’re just supposed to…sit here?”

“Yup,” she said. 

“Huh.” 

 

Later that afternoon we put on flip flops and went to the Dairy Queen 

to get the blizzard of the month. 

Then we made dinner. 

The next day, we did it all over again. 

 

*

 

It’s my opinion that resting takes…talent. 

Or at least, practice.

I certainly didn’t learn how to lounge around in my family. 

As an adult it’s been an acquired skill, developed over years, 

despite my lack of natural talent. 

 

But now, especially after a five week sabbatical, I really like resting. 

I’ve been joking that I’m now a sabbativangelist. 

I think everyone should take a sabbatical. 

Because mine was fundamentally life-changing. Really. 

 

*

 

The idea of rest is woven through the bible. 

The Hebrew word for rest is shabath, 

which is related to the words “sabbath” and “sabbatical,” 

and means, “to cease, desist, to rest.”

Basically, just, stop doing stuff. 

Just stop it!

 

And right away in the Bible, God thinks that resting is SUCH a good idea 

that God rests herself. 

 

And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Genesis 2: 2-3

 

What do we see here?

That rest as an integral part of the creative process. 

God makes something, and then God rests. 

And there’s a proportion to it as well — 

six to one. 

Work for six days, rest on the seventh.

 

If resting is something God needs, 

then it’s probably something we need to. 

And God makes that pretty clear 

by WRITING IT ON A STONE TABLET SO WE WON’T FORGET. 

That’s right — resting is the fourth commandment. 

 

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Exodus 20:8-11

 

And look at that:

it’s not just the head of the household 

or the wealthy businessman who is supposed to rest.

It’s everyone. 

The kids, the servants. 

The rich people and the poor people. 

The livestock and the guests who aren’t even of the Jewish faith!

Everyone needs to rest on the seventh day, because God did 

and also, a few chapters later the texts gives another reason. 

So that the workers will be “refreshed.”

This Hebrew word “refreshed” is related to the word “breathe in.”

The workers must rest. They must have a chance to inhale.

After all that exhaling. To pause. And inhale. 

The workers in the field deserve that. 

And so we begin to see that rest is an issue of justice. 

Rest should not just be for the privileged or the wealthy. 

 

 

Rest, it turns out, it also an environmental issue. 

 

But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.

Leviticus 25:4

 

These laws given in Leviticus are there to protect the land. 

God’s creation, God’s land, is so much a part of God

that it needs rest just like God did. 

This thought is so far from our current practices around farming…

It makes me wish that Christians in this country looked a little farther in Leviticus 

to see what more it has to offer than prohibitions on homosexuality. 

But that’s another sermon. 

 

Who else needs rest? Jesus!

Jesus needed it, and so did his disciples. 

And he made sure that they got it. 

 

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.

Mark 6:-30-32

 

With all of this emphasis on resting in the bible, 

its kind of surprising that resting — that stopping doing stuff — 

is so…hard for us so much for the time. 

You’d think it would be easy. I mean, who wants to work constantly?

But we, as a culture, are strangely resistant to rest, 

often measuring our status by how busy we are. 

Business, it turns out is a great way 

to keep from looking too hard at your life. 

If you just keep busy — you’ll have too much going on 

to notice how sad you’re feeling, 

or how lonely you sometimes are. 

You won’t have time to think about what your past held, 

or your fears for the future. 

“Busyness,” as my friend Tim Kreider wrote, 

“serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness.”

 

My favorite passage about resting is Psalm 127, 

which seems somehow written just for me. 

It makes me wonder if our tendencies 

to over-schedule ourselves into oblivion are not actually so modern, 

but haven’t changed that much over 2,000 years. 

 

Unless the Lord builds the house,

   those who build it labour in vain.

Unless the Lord guards the city,

   the guard keeps watch in vain. 

It is in vain that you rise up early

   and go late to rest,

eating the bread of anxious toil;

   for he gives sleep to his beloved. 

 

 

Eating the bread of anxious toil.

 

Sometimes it feels like that’s the only food I get. 

I shovel my food into my mouth in front of a computer working

or as I watch some show on Netflix at night. 

Why do I rise early and go to bed late, working all day, 

when often, what lies between 

are hours that are filled, but yet empty?

“A hedge against emptiness.”  

Indeed. 

 

*

So, here’s what I did on sabbatical. 

I went to Asheville, North Caroline, a beautiful small city in the mountains. 

I ate my food with no computer in front of me. 

I sat out on a porch in the morning and drank my tea and looked up at the trees. 

I read. A lot. 

I wrote too. 

A hiked through the woods on my own. 

I took riding lessons on a horse named Angel 

who was well aware that I had no idea what I was doing 

and refused to move much of the time. 

I felt tired after those lessons. 

I was learning something entirely new! 

And so I rested. 

I did what my body wanted to do. 

And I couldn’t have done any of that with out Real Time Off. 

It doesn’t work to try and force yourself to rest. 

It just takes time. 

 

Coming home, I noticed that everything feels different. 

Like the camera had been zoomed WAY out and focused, 

and I can see the whole picture, more clearly. 

I feel happy and energetic. 

 

When you're learning to sing, 

your teacher shows you how to engage your entire body. 

To breath with your diaphragm and sing from way down, from your core, 

not just from the neck up. 

Before this sabbatical, I often felt like I was just pushing through, 

singing from my neck. 

I was living from the neck up. 

But after? I feel like I’m living my life from way down, from my diaphragm. 

With my whole body. 

 

*

 

We’ve been learning about the fruit of the Spirit these last few weeks

at St. Lydia’s while I was away. 

There’s nine of them, listed in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. 

The fruit of sprit are 

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, 

faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

I think it’s really hard to live those out when we don’t have rest. 

When we don’t have that seventh day to find refreshment — to inhale.

We can fake it,

but the Fruit of the Spirit come from way down. 

From your diaphragm. From your core.  

 

*

 

So I wonder: what happens when we rob people of rest?

What happens when we take away the God-ordained day of sabbath, 

or the weekend, 

or the eight hour day workers organized and fought to receive?

 

I can tell you what happens. 

People who don’t have rest 

stand the risk of losing everything I was privileged to gain on my sabbatical:

creativity and resiliency, perspective and clarity, 

access to new experiences and education, to wondering and reading. 

To rob people of rest is to rob them of their humanity. 

 

I felt SO lucky to have those five weeks. 

It’s an opportunity a lot of people never have. 

Returning home, I feel convicted that everyone should have access to real rest. 

And in many countries, people do. 

The United States is the only developed country in the world 

without a single legally required paid vacation day or holiday. 

By law, every country in the European Union 

has at least four work weeks of paid vacation.

My understanding is that includes everyone in the workforce, 

not just salaried employees. 

 

Forbes reports that “almost 1-in-4 Americans 

do not receive any paid vacation or paid holidays, 

trailing far behind most of the rest of the world’s rich nations.”

 

Why is our country, among so many others, 

so resistant to days off?

Perhaps we fear that with too much time on their hands, 

workers will organize. 

Single mothers working two jobs, 

Nurses pulling doubles at the ICU, 

Fast food employees who have a delivery job as well, 

they have all been robbed of rest. 

If they had more time, we just might have a revolution on our hands. 

 

Rest is a human right. 

And if we don’t think of it that way, we should begin to do so. 

 

*

 

On the seventh day, God rested.

God breathed across the face of the deep 

and brought out of the formless void

a world teeming with life and activity. 

And when God had made something so beautiful, 

exhaled the world into being, 

God stopped. 

And breathed in. 

We don’t always see it, 

But there’s so much that happens on the inhale. 

Stop. Rest. Refresh. 

And breath in. 

 

 

Here I am on the top of Sam Knob in the Blue Ridge Mountains. This is what rested looks like!

God and the Cosmos

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's the first week of Advent. The theme of the week was "Beginnings" and the text was God making the stars in the heavens: Genesis 1:1-5, 14-19. 

 

*

 

My friend Tim is an agnostic

but he has a daily practice that I think is something akin to prayer. 

Every morning over his coffee, he visits a website called

“Astronomy Picture of the Day,” which is run by NASA. 

Though you wouldn’t really think it was run by NASA to look at it. 

The site looks like it’s from about 1995. 

Across the top it says, “Astronomy Picture of the Day,”

and then there’s a subheading that reads:

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

 

And then there’s a picture of something, somewhere in the universe, 

something completely mind-boggling, 

and a description. 

 

At a weekend away with friends in October, 

a few of us gathered around Tim with our morning coffee or tea

and took a look at the picture of the day. 

 

It was a photograph of what’s quaintly called a “star nursery” —

a place where stars are being born. 

 

 

This is Eagle Nebula. 

It’s a huge cloud of cosmic dust 

where stars form out of compressing hydrogen and helium. 

These columns of dust that you see are light years long. 

And the nebula itself, 

though it located comparatively close to us on a neighboring arm of our galaxy, 

is 7,000 light years away. 

 

So, you know what that means, right?

It means that the moment we captured an image of this nebula, 

it was already 7,000 years old. 

Because that’s how long it took the light, reflected off this nebula, 

to reach us. 

 

7,000 years ago

Europeans had just figured out how to make a plow.

Mesopotamians were kind of figuring out the wheel. 

And the stars we see in this photograph were being born. 

 

Mind blown, right?

 

Yeah, mine too. 

 

 

A close up of the Eagle Nebula

 

 

I do not work at NASA. 

I would probably not like to work at NASA.

But I wonder if I did work at NASA, my sense of my place in the world, 

my sense of my own problems and their proportions  

might feel just a little bit…smaller. 

 

In the arc of time, we are so very small. 

 

And in fact, reading our passage from Genesis next to these images, 

the ancient Israelites’ conception of the heavens: 

the sun, the moon, and the stars, 

seem sort of adorably self-centered. 

Like most people, the tellers of this story place themselves and their world

right at the middle of everything. 

All the heavens revolve around us!

The sun and the moon are here to give us light and allow us to see!

If only they had known what lay beyond that dome of the sky they imagined. 

 

*

 

Tonight is the first week of Advent. 

Advent is a season that’s sort of hard to explain. 

We could say that it’s the season that helps us prepare for Christmas, 

but somehow, that makes it too small. 

Advent is not getting ready for a baby to be born in a manger, 

although that is a part of Advent. 

 

Advent is preparing for the whole cosmos to shift.

Advent is waiting for that moment when God comes and dwells among us:

moves from the infinite of time and space, 

the vastness of a universe that is so large 

it takes light thousands of years to cross it, 

to the particularity of flesh and blood. 

When God, like a star being born, 

compresses herself into something as small and fragile and earthy 

as you and me. 

Into a Christ who breathes and weeps and bleeds. 

 

And that act of indwelling ricochets through all creation:

forward and backwards in time. 

That act changes everything about our past

and everything about our future. 

 

Horatius Bonar, pastor of the Church in Scotland, 

(and winner, by the way, of the “Best Name Award”)

wrote about Advent, 

Come, and make all things new, 

Build up this ruined earth;

Restore our faded paradise, 

Creation’s second birth.

 

Advent is our chance, every year, 

to start all over again. 

To make a place for this Christ 

who descends again and again to rescue us. 

Advent is a new beginning, 

but, I have always found, 

beginnings always have endings hidden inside them. 

 

*

 

Recently, I have felt a little lost in my life. 

It’s not that anything is terribly wrong,

or that I feel that I’m on the wrong track, particularly. 

It’s more a feeling of…suspension. 

Of being suspended in something that I don’t quite understand. 

There’s a sense that I’ve lost my bearings a little bit, 

and my compass has gone wonky. 

A lot of different directions seem like they could be good…

but then, how do I really make any choices?

 

Last week I was at the clergy retreat 

with all the other church leaders from our Synod. 

“How are you?” people kept asking me.

“How are you doing?”

I wasn’t quite sure what to say. 

At one point I think I actually told someone, 

“I’m not sure.”

She smiled uncertainly and moved on to talk to the next person. 

 

*

 

Years ago, some friends and I spend a weekend camping up in Vermont, 

way up in the middle of nowhere. 

It was August, and we camped by a lake.

One evening my friend Michael and I went down to the lake, 

him to smoke a cigarette and me to take a swim. 

It was so dark —

there was no light anywhere, except for the stars hung in the sky, 

reflected, almost perfectly, on the surface of the water.

 

I did what you do when you’re alone at a lake in the woods in the dark of night:

I took off all my clothes and waded in — 

the ripples moving out around me in circles, 

the water still warm after heating all day in the sun.

 

In the middle of the lake, 

I floated on my back,

and stared up at the constellations above me. 

There were SO

many stars, 

above me and around me, 

and each star was reflected in the water.

In the darkness, it was easy to lose track of where the sky ended and the water began. 

In the arms the cosmos

I was suspended in darkness, 

just as I had been before I was born. 

 

Did you know that all of us are made of stars?

Everything on earth is made of the carbon and elements that are made

when a supernova explodes. 

And floating there where the sky meets the earth, 

I understood that I was formed of stardust and one day would return to dust. 

 

In the dark, 

there are no directions. 

And if it hadn’t have been for my friend Michael 

smoking his cigarette on the shore,

it was possible to imagine that I would have been lost forever in the water

and never find my way to shore. 

Suspended.

 

In the beginning, 

when God created the heavens and the earth, 

the earth was a formless void, 

and darkness covered the face of the deep,

while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

 

Beginnings 

are empty. 

Beginnings mean darkness,

mean being suspended

in a place where you’re not quite sure anymore 

which way is up, and which way is down. 

Which way is sky and which way is water. 

 

In the beginning, perhaps even God didn’t know what she was going to make. 

But the wind swept over the face of the waters,

and that wind was from God. 

 

*

 

You may not be sure which way is up,

and which is down. 

But here is what you can trust:

that though the void may be overwhelming, 

there is always wind, 

and that wind is from God. 

 

Here is what you can trust:

That the God who made a vast universe, 

who hung the stars in the heavens 

and set the galaxies spinning

is not only concerned with big things. 

God is light years big, 

but chose to compress herself until she was so very small, 

that she might gestate silently 

in the womb of a woman who no one would have cared to remember. 

 

No one, that is, but God. 

 

This is a faded paradise. That’s true. 

But because of love, 

the incarnate love,

of a God who draws near, 

and draws us

to something more, something greater…

because of that 

we are never without the chance

to begin, 

begin 

again. 

 

 

***

 

We share the sermon at St. Lydia's. What is beginning in you in this season? I'd love to read responses through the comments here on the blog. 

Say Her Name: Jephthah's Daughter and Sandra Bland

I preached this sermon the week of July 27 at St. Lydia's as part of our Summer Story Series. The story of Jephthah's daughter is probably not one you heard in Sunday School. You can find it in Judges 11.  

 

 

I want to start out tonight by teaching you a word. 

It’s a seminary kind of word: “etiology” 

And etiology is a word for a story 

that tells us why something is the way it is. 

You may have head “just so” stories when you were a kid, 

like “how the tiger got its tail.”

These are stories that are passed down through generations.

You can imagine them told around campfires 

in ancient villages and towns  

to explain why the world is the way it is. 

 

Well, the bible is filled with etiologies, 

especially the Hebrew Bible. 

These stories we’ve been telling this summer at St. Lydia's are about a lot of things,

but they’re also explanations. 

Noah’s ark explains where rainbows came from. 

The story of the tower of Babel explains why there are so many languages in the world. 

And the story of garden of Eden explains how humans and animals came to be. 

 

And this story is an etiology, too. 

It gives a reason for a tradition that we hear about in this story:

of the Israelite women going up into the mountains for four days once a year. 

Scholars posit that is was probably some kind of a fertility rite, 

and that the rite most likely pre-dated 

the story we read about how it came to be. 

So the story of Jephtha’s daughter is being told in retrospect,

explaining something that was already in existence at the time. 

 

Now, one thing we know about stories

is that the way a story is told tells us a lot about the person who is telling it. 

And one thing we know about patriarchal cultures, 

like that of the Ancient Israelites,

is that they dooooon’t really love it when women gather up in big groups, 

without any men around to oversee what they’re doing. 

I mean, who knows what they might get up, right???

 

So, right away, I’m feeling a little suspicious about the voice 

telling us this story about Jephtha’s daughter. 

I feel like maybe that authors (who are most likely male) are not only explaining something, 

but trying to explain something away:

trying to explain away whatever it is 

those women are doing in the mountains for four days, 

because whatever they’re doing...is a little scary to them. 

It feels a little bit like something that they're not in control of. 

And they don't like that. 

 

So...here are some things that I, you know, noticed, 

reading this story. 

I noticed that Jephtha makes a promise to God that he doesn’t really need to make.

He’s already having all these victories:

the passage says that “the sprit of the Lord had come upon him,”

which is like biblical code that he’s not gonna be losing any battles. 

He’s winning all the way through the passage. 

And yet he takes this crazy step and makes this promise...

a "rash promise," it’s sometimes called. 

 

(I’ll say.)

 

And then, I notice that there are a lot of other stories in the Bible 

when women come out to meet the victors of war with tambourines and singing. 

Like the way they met Saul and David after battle. 

It was a custom. A tradition!  

And that makes me wonder 

just what Jephtha was expecting to happen when he made that promise. 

Who he really could have expected to be sacrificed for his military victory. 

If it wasn’t his daughter, it would have been someone else. 

Someone else’s daughter.  

 

And then, I notice that when Jephtha sees what he’s done, 

he doesn’t so much take responsibility for it. 

In fact, he sort of blames his daughter for it. 

“Oh my daughter,” he says, “you have brought me very low.”

Really?

 

And THEN I notice that if you look back earlier in the book of Judges, 

you get the feeling that, really, this whole situation the Israelites are in with all this war, 

is because they stopped worshipping God and started worshipping Baal.

And all of that, added up, 

makes me think that Jephtha’s daughter is really paying the price

for a whole lot of other people’s mistakes. 

 

And that doesn’t seem right. 

 

 

Here’s another thing that I notice. 

That whoever the folks were who wrote this text, 

they seemed to think it was important, 

really important 

to show that the right way to respond 

when you learn that your father has promised God he’ll kill you. 

And that is: to accept it implicitly. 

No, even to welcome it. 

To smile and pay the price for the sins of your father

and his father and his father, 

and head off obediently to your death. 

“Do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth,”

the writers have her say.

Somehow I don’t think that was really her reaction. 

 

But that’s the kind of woman the writers of this text want to hold up as a model. 

That when generations of ancestors try to cover their tracks, 

cover their sins, 

this woman should pay the price, and do it gladly. 

That’s the way the world should work. 

 

 

Recently, a woman in Texas named Sandra Bland refused to smile. 

Refused to be polite. 

Refused to be obedient. 

And just like Jephtha’s daughter, she ended up dead. 

 

It doesn’t matter if you submit or resist. 

If you say “yes officer, thank you officer,”

or claim and name your rights as a citizen. 

It doesn’t matter, 

because if you’re a black woman in this country, 

a black man or trans person or a child of color, 

you’ve been pre-selected to pay the price for the sins of our nation. 

 

It doesn’t matter what the alleged “crime” is, 

how well you dress, 

how educated you are, 

how politely you behave.

Just like Jephtha’s daughter,

the deal has already been made. 

 

Someone has noticed you gathering up there on the mountainside, 

talking together, making plans, 

brewing up trouble, and they’re going to put an end to it 

by making you fear for your life. 

Every time you get in a car

or go to a pool party,

go to the corner store, 

or even just step out of the hallway of your public housing unit. 

 

Roxane Gay, a writer and professor who is Black, wrote this week in the New York Times, 

“Each time I get in my car, I make sure I have my license, registration and insurance cards. I make sure my seatbelt is fastened. I place my cellphone in the handless dock. I check and double check and triple check these details because when (not if) I get pulled over, I want there to be no doubt I am following the letter of the law. I do this knowing it doesn’t really matter if I am following the letter of the law or not. Law enforcement officers see only the color of my skin, and in the color of my skin they see criminality, deviance, a lack of humanity.”

 

*

 

Here’s something else I notice about this story. 

I notice that Jephtha’s daughter has no name. 

At the hands of whoever wrote this story,  

she is remembered for her perfect death, 

not her lost life. 

Virginal, pure, and nameless, 

she’s held up as an unblemished sacrifice,

one so submissive she doesn’t even require a name. 

 

Let’s not forget the names of women and girls who, like her, 

payed the price for the sin of a nation. 

We may never know her name, 

but we can be sure to remember others. 

And the terrifying truth is that there are so many names to remember. 

Each of you has a name in your hand of a Black woman or girl 

who was killed in an act of police brutality or racialized violence. 

You may know this name or it may be a name you don’t know. 

Tonight during the prayers I’d like you to pray for the person whose name is in your hand. 

And then I invite you to go home and do some research about what happened to her. 

And keep praying, for her and her family, and for change, and for justice. 

 

*

 

So, what are we to take from this?

What are we to do with a “text of terror,” as Phyllis Trible called it, 

and a nation that, like Jephtha, 

will sacrifice its own daughters for dominance and control?

 

First: 

The way we tell stories matters. 

A lot. 

 

If the writers of the bible had it their way, the story of Jephtah’s daugher 

would be titled, “Virginal daughter accepts role as sacrificial heroine.”

My headline is a little different.

Something like, “War-addled father murders daughter for political gain.”

You notice how the subject of the headline shifts 

from victim to perpetrator. 

 

We have watched the news these past weeks tell this Sandra Bland's story 

the way mainstream America wants to see it:

the headline we're being give is:

“Woman who failed to signal, was rude, and smoked pot gets what she deserves.”

It's terrible. But that's the story we're being told. 

 

What is my headline? What is your headline?

Perhaps, “Rage-filled racist cop abuses activist for insignificant infraction.”

 

What would God’s headline be?

“America continues to sacrifice innocents, rather than face the sins of its past.”

 

 

Second:

There are always the mountains. 

 

Despite the best intentions of the tellers of this story, 

one thing remains indisputable:

that Jephtha’s daughter takes her companions, women like her, 

and goes to the mountains:

that place where Moses met God in the burning bush, 

and stays there, in safety, for months. 

 

In the mountains, she and her companions create a “place away,”

where, we might imagine, they can make a community of their own, 

guided by their own intuitions and desires, 

and free from the death-dealing structures that have held them all prisoner. 

 

We all need the mountains. 

That place where we can shed the shackles keep us bound, 

whatever they might be, 

and experience the world God has in mind for us,

far away from the cries of battle and the shouts of victory 

over disputed territory. 

A place apart where we can be free, and will never be asked

to pay the price for someone else’s sin. 

 

 

And Third:

With God, we can bring the mountains home. 

This year, the mountains have felt far away. 

The stories have piled up: the names of those who’ve been lost. 

And there are so many who have gone before them. 

At times, it can feel like there’s nothing we can do. 

Our contributions seem so small in the shadow of this 

“system” that is so firmly in place. 

 

But small things add up. 

Even Jesus said that. 

He spoke about faith the size of a mustard seed, 

a tiny seed that grew into a sprawling, stubborn weed 

that just refused to stop spreading. 

And that kind of faith, he said, would move mountains. 

 

This winter was a hard one for me. 

The sins of our nation seemed so intractable 

that I felt sure nothing could ever change. 

Even when we marched among thousands, 

I wondered if those voices, raised up, would be heard. 

But every day, actually, I’m become more and more sure

that God is changing everything. 

 

One thing that has happened this year 

is that a bunch of scrappy organizers

in Ferguson sparked off a conversation that, 

like a stubborn weed, has just refused to stop spreading. 

They made it impossible for me to not see what’s happening. 

They’ve changed the story. 

They've changed the way the story is being told. 

 

My heart and my mind have shifted this year. 

I’m guessing yours has too, in some way. 

We're seeing the story differently. 

And that means change is happening: right in our midst. 

 

I believe that God is up to something in this world, 

often despite our best intentions. 

The bible contains stories of terror in its pages, 

but even in the middle of a story of the death of a woman 

whose name no one remembers, 

we find the mountains, 

that place where God comes and finds us 

and reminds of the truth: that too many lives have been lost. 

That too many have paid the price for the sins of our ancestors, 

the sins of our past and of our present. 

And that all of it, 

all of it, can change, 

must change, 

is changing. 

Right here in this place, 

around these tables,

and across this nation, 

as a different version of the story being told.

 

 

*

 

Here are the names of the women and girls we prayed for at St. Lydia's. 

You're invited to choose a name, to learn her story, to pray for her and her family, and pray for change and justice. 

If you know of other women and girls of color killed by police violence who should be added to this list, please comment. 

 

Sandra Bland

Tanisha Anderson

Yvette Smith

Miriam Carey 

Shelly Frey

Darnisha Harris 

Malissa Williams

Alesia Thomas

Shantel Davis

Rekia Boyd

Shereese Francis

Aiyana Stanley-Jones

Tarika Wilson

Kathryn Johnston 

Alberta Spruill 

Kendra James

Addie Mae Collins

Denise McNair

Carole Robertson

Cynthia Wesley

Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd

Susie Jackson

Ethel Lee Lance 

Sharonda Coleman-Singleton

Myra Thompson

Anna Brown

Alberta Spruill

Chuniece Patterson

Eleanor Bumpurs

Tarika Wilson

Shelly Frey

 

 

 

Preaching While White: This Sunday's Lectionary and Emanuel AME

"I need you to talk to the people who look like you," Rozella Haydée White, an clergy colleague who is African American recently told me. This year, I've heard this call, or a version of it, from Black colleagues around the country. You have to talk to your people. To your context. To your congregation. Most recently and most publicly, today the call came from Rev. Emma Akpan, and elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in her article in Huffington Post. 

Nine people died this week in a mass shooting carried out by a white 21 year old at a historic black church, Emanuel AME. Dylan Roof’s facebook profile picture shows him wearing two flags — one from apartheid-era South Africa, the other from white-ruled Rhodesia — that are symbols taken up by modern-day white supremacists.

This was a hate crime, committed against nine Black Christians engaged in the act of prayer, in the house of God. The horror of this crime is set against the background of the last twelve months, in which the murder of and brutality against Black people (so often children) by the police (this is not a new trend in this country, but no less horrific) have set off a season of resistance in Ferguson, New York, Baltimore. We have seen the images of Micheal Brown, left dead in the street, of Eric Garner, the life choked out of him for selling cigarettes, of Freddie Gray crying out in pain, and of Dajerria Becton, face shoved into the ground while a cop pulled a gun on her teenage friends, all for attending a pool party.

These violent events are not isolated, not unrelated incidents. Though they may not have been planned by committee or orchestrated by a task force, each violent act is rooted in the same soil, and like a grove of Quaking Aspen, in fact, all these acts share the same roots.

Racism is an illness of our country, and we are all sick with the virus. The news shared by the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) yesterday that Dylann Roof was in fact a member of an ELCA congregation only highlights the way in which we are all culpable, each one of citizens of a nation that, collectively, has failed to acknowledge the wrong we have done, repent of our sins, and work to dismantle systems that are sick with the racism that plagues each one of us, individually. Underfunded and undervalued schools, a prison and judicial system that profits off of people of color, policing that has already decided Black people are criminals…this this the illness of our nation and we, as its citizens, are all responsible.

This is why I believe it is imperative that white clergy preach to racism and privilege this Sunday, following the shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Because the awareness of racism, understanding of racism, the uncomfortable confronting of our own racism, and the finally, the dismantling of racist structures all begins on the local level. And in the congregation, it must start with you.

If you are a clergy person who preaches from the lectionary, you may sometimes find it is difficult to connect the lectionary readings with events that call to be preached on. You may have written your sermon well in advance and resist the idea of throwing it out and starting over. You may fear offending your congregation, setting off a firestorm, or worry that people will walk out. You may feel that, never having lived through the pain and misery of racism, you don’t have the right or the voice to speak to these issues. But you are still called to speak, with care and humility. "I need you to talk to people who look like you." 

Racism is our sin, and as clergy, God calls us in no uncertain terms to name it, to call it what it is, to be a part of taking it apart. Throw out the sermon you had written for this Sunday. Start again. Search the lectionary for God’s word for your people today. And if you don’t find the word there, maybe the Holy Spirit has a different text in store for you. Face the certainty that you will offend someone. Allow the Holy Spirit to draw you in to the deep water. It won’t be comfortable, but generations upon generations of Black people in this nation have been a whole lot more than uncomfortable for far, far too long.

Though this work may begin for you today, it must not end after Sunday. You are called to build a culture in your congregation of conversation and engagement around race and racism. In order to do this, you must take part in educating yourself, returning to the canon of Black voices, historic and contemporary, as often as you return to the biblical canon. Listen to voices of those you resist hearing, or do not agree with. Ensure that you regularly listen to the perspectives of people of color, through any means you can discover. And throughout this process, invite your congregation into ongoing conversation, book readings, anti-racism trainings, and support of the work of activists of color working for racial justice locally and nationally.

For this Sunday, a colleague recommends reading James Baldwin's Essay, "The Uses of the Blues," for a of your practice of preparation. For this week and the weeks to come, the African American Intellectual History Society has released a syllabus to guide our conversations. "True to Our Native Land: an African American New Testament Commentary" may be kept close to the desk for continued reference. 

It’s better to do this work together, and so I’ve included below some of my own thoughts on the lectionary texts for this Sunday. This is just a beginning, and, as someone who lives inside the illness of racism just like everyone else, my offerings will be flawed. I welcome your own reflections on these texts in the comments, and will be especially grateful to hear the experiences and perspectives of clergy colleagues of color who bear the burden of racism every day. I hope my thoughts will be a helpful starting place as you follow the movement of the Holy Spirit and preach a message of liberation for the oppressed in your own context, whatever that context may be.

Here’s the thing. It’s not up to you to do this perfectly. It’s up to you to step into the deep water, and God will take it from there. It won’t be perfect, you won’t get it exactly right. But if we know anything it’s that God works with imperfect people. Trust God to open your eyes, reveal the world as it is, and, though it will be painful and uncertain, show you the way.

 

1 Samuel 17:(1a,4-11,19-23)32-49
We don’t have to stretch too far this Sunday for relevance when it comes to these texts. The alternate first reading is the story of David and Goliath, the young boy who has never been to war, but spent years tending sheep, up against a trained, armored, years-of-experience professional soldier, who also happens to be a really big guy. But David has a reliance on God, cultivated through his months alone in the dessert with the sheep. He uses his own tools, not the tools of the enemy, to bring down this giant, the powerless bringing down the powerful.

This past year, we have seen young activists step forward to quite literally bring down a giant. They have staged protests against the armed vehicles of the national guard, and in doing so, have launched a national conversation on racism, and inequality that is creating change. Like David, they have used their own tools: not the tanks, guns, and riot gear of the oppressor, but art, music, video, and tweets, all tools of resistance in their hands.

The question is, how are those of us who are given power by virtue of the color of our skin, called to empower the powerless? How can we get behind David? Support him in his work, support him using his tools? Not take over or tell him how it’s done, but put down our own power as he voices his?

 

Psalm 9:9-20
The opening words of the selection of this Psalm are, “The Lord will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in time of trouble.”

Immediately we see that God places those who are oppressed and marginalized first. In verse 16, “The Lord is known by his acts of justice; the wicked are trapped in the works of their own hands.”

Well. Let’s just stop there for a moment. God, we are told, is identified by acts of justice. And so, it is in our own acts of justice that we are like God. We may assume then, that we are not acting for justice, we are separated from God. Further, the wicked are trapped in our own works. Can we not see that we as a nation are trapped? Bound up by our own sinfulness? Our country was quite literally built on the backs of the oppressed, fellow humans who we bought and sold, and continue to be treated as if their lives don’t matter. These are our sins.

“The wicked shall be given over to the grave,” the Psalmist writes, and we see that this illness which plagues our country is, in fact, death dealing.

The Psalm reminds us that those who are in need will not be forgotten. What is God up to in this text? Remembering those who are forgotten by their country, excluded from its promise. And now even their refuge: the church, a place which has, for centuries, been a place where African Americans can find safety and security, has been attacked and is not safe -- the strategy of the terrorist. 

 

2 Corinthians 6:1-13
Paul writes in the middle of some painful difficulties with the community in Corinth, urging them to be reconciled to God and one another. We do not know know the context, but we know that there has been a breach: an experience of hurt and anger that has split the community and left everyone bruised and hurting.

Two lines from this passage sing their relevance after the shooting this weekend. The first, Paul’s riff on Isaiah, “now is the acceptable time.” Today is the day, Paul exhorts the Corinthians, to set aside all that has stood in the way of being, together, the family of God. There is no time other than today to speak to the painful and difficult realities of the wounds we have inflicted upon each other.
The second line that sings through the centuries is “open wide your hearts.” Open your hearts. Open your hearts to the reality of the ways, we, as a nation, have perpetuated that pain, abuse, neglect. Open your hearts, and God will teach you to act.

 

Mark 4:35-41
*Preaching With Sacred Fire: African American Sermons 1750 to the Present includes to sermons on this text: Gilbert E Patterson's, "God's Cure for Racism and Loneliness (1998)" and Otis Moss Jr.'s sermon, "A Prophetic Witness in an Anti-Prophetic Age (2004)” offer important perspectives on this passage.

 

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

We could ask the same questions of predominantly white churches across the nation. Do you not care that we are perishing? Do you not care that children are dying? Do you not care that pregnant woman are being abused at the hands of police? Do you not care that men and woman are imprisoned at rates never seen before? Do you not care that church folk, at prayer, are massacred?

God cares, and as people of God, we must care. And we must see that a disproportionate number of these lives, stolen and lost, are Black lives.

In Biblical literature, the sea is where the great chaos monster resides, and going out upon the sea is to be subjected to that fear, that chaos — the closeness of everything we cannot control. For some Black Americans, life is lived out in the midst of that storm. Lived out in the knowledge that your life, the life of a friend, the life of a family member, could be taken in one interaction with a cop gone wrong. And this week, as we have seen, in the refuge of the sanctuary, in the midst of prayer, by a young white man who has made hatred and white supremacy the center of his belief system.

People of color live life in the midst of a storm that they cannot simply step away from our out of. As white people, we have the privilege of seeing the storm from the outside, stepping away when we choose.

But Jesus is in the midst of the storm. He’s standing next to those who have been weathering it for a long time. And our job, plain and simple, is to follow Jesus.

The Mess We're In

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's the week of December 21.  The text is Isaiah 7:10-17.  The passage has a very particular historical context.  Fred Gaiser of Luther Seminary summarizes:

“The text itself is lodged firmly in the eighth century B.C.E.. Syria and Ephraim are in league against Judah, and Judah's King Ahaz is afraid. Unwilling to trust in God's protection, he seeks an alliance with Assyria; this will eventually come back to bite him, making Judah [subordinate to] the Assyrian empire. The mice invite the protection of the cat at their peril.”

Though the passage refers to a particular political situation in Judah, it has been reinterpreted by the authors of the Gospels. 

 

 

This week I was over at a friend’s place for a little pre-Christmas celebration. 

There’s a little group of us who call ourselves the kick-ass lady pastors

(because we’re all ladies, and we’re all pastors, and we’re all, well, pretty kick-ass).

We get together about once a month.  

This time around, Jes was hosting, and she was very excited 

for us to all make some very glittery feminist Christmas ornaments 

featuring our favorite feminist icons. 

She also showed us how to make little shrines

out of an Altoids box, like this one:

 

 

My feminist icon is Mary. 

The virgin Mary, to be precise. 

And I wanted to make a little shrine with Mary and my favorite line from the Magnificat, 

the song Mary sings in the Gospel of Luke.

But I ran into a problem. 

As I looked through all the pictures of Mary

(Jes had a little book of icons she had sacrificed to our craft night)

I couldn’t find a picture that was, well, kick-ass enough. 

 

Mary was always making faces like this:

 

Or this:

 

 

She was always looking all calm and peaceful and beatific, 

surrendering herself to God’s will. 

 

I was looking for an image of Mary who looked capable of uttering 

those radical, status-quo shattering words of the Magnificat:

You have brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly;
you have filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty. 

                                                -Luke 1:51-53

 

I wanted a Mary who looked powerful. 

 

*

 

History has painted Mary, 

this young woman who gave birth to Jesus, 

as gentle, sweet, and virginal. 

We see her portrayed that way in the large majority of Western artistic depictions of her. 

And the image is reinforced through our hymns. 

When we sing of Mary we sing lines like,

“Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head.”

Another hymn refers to her as,

“Mary mother, meek and mild.”

And most of them, 

most of them, 

reference her virginity. 

Or her purity. 

 

Which is interesting. 

Because the text here in Isaiah speaks not of a virgin, but of a young woman.  

A maiden, ready to bear a child. 

The Greek  in Luke and in Matthew 

(and Matthew is a direct quote of this text in Isaiah) 

uses the word “parthenos,” to describe Mary. 

This word is ambiguous. 

It can mean a virgin, but also a maiden: 

a woman who is of marriageable age, but not yet married.

Someone who, based on the cultural norms of the time, 

would have been a virgin. 

 

Some scholars believe that the intense focus on Mary’s virginity 

emerged during the formation of the Christian church, 

as a response to detractors of Christianity

who slung accusations that Mary was a prostitute or was promiscuous,

and Jesus born out of wedlock. 

So this idea of Mary’s virginity came into sharp focus as a defense. 

 

*

 

Why is it so important to us 

that Mary be pure?

Or meek?

Or innocent?

 

Why do we want so badly 

to set her apart?

 

To make her different from us?

Brittany Wilson of Duke Divinity School 

writes of the ambivalent relationship feminism has to Mary. 

She writes, 

“One the one hand, some feminists view Mary with suspicion, 

highlighting how she has been a source of oppression for women. 

Men, in an effort to define and control female lives,

have long preached to women that they need to model themselves after Mary -- 

especially her humility, obedience, and subservience.

Mary has been held up as the ‘female ideal,’

yet as both virgin and mother, 

Mary is also the ‘great exception.’

Mary is the unsullied, privileged woman who is idealized o

ver and againstall other women; 

as Marina Warner concludes, 

Mary is ‘alone of all her sex.’”*

 

 

Alone of all her sex. 

As if, for God to be born of a woman, 

for God to take on human flesh, 

that woman must be divorced from all that is earthy, 

all that is ordinary, 

all that is, in fact, human, 

such a love, desire, intimacy, sexuality. 

 

*

 

If we know anything from this book of sacred stories, 

it is that there is nothing pure 

about Christ’s coming. 

 

Nothing pure about a child born in a stable and laid in a feeding trough. 

Nothing pure about a tyrant of a ruler 

who orders the death of innocent children 

when he hears of this new king who has been born. 

Nothing pure about fleeing to Egypt, just days after birth,

fleeing, like so many refugees had before her and so many will after her, 

to save the life of her child from the powers that be. 

 

Nothing pure about bringing up a child in poverty. 

 

Nothing pure about watching him die at the hands of the state. 

 

So why do we need so badly for Mary to be “pure?”

 

*

 

We are a mess, 

our city. 

With too many people of color dead at the hands of the police

and two police officers dead at the hands of a man who was not well. 

And rather than taking a step back 

to view larger picture:

a long history of racialized violence,

a culture obsessed with firearms, 

and a country that places too little value on the care of our citizens, 

our city is jumping for the chance to take sides. 

To make this an “us versus them.”

To allow one man, who was so ill that he took his own life,

to represent a movement that is calling for justice for all people. 

 

And we are a mess:

each of us, and me too. 

Over the years we have been a church together, 

I have had the great privilege of listening to many of your stories. 

I have heard of all you have lost 

and the pain of losing it. 

And though I have not felt what each of you have felt -- 

the pain of your own particular story, 

I have tried to witness that pain. 

To hold it. 

 

We are all so badly in need of redemption. 

Our hearts, 

and our world. 

 

There is nothing pure about any of it. 

Nothing pristine about the pain of our nation, 

or the pain of our hearts. 

 

And yet, right in the middle of it, 

right in the middle of that terrifying journey through the darkest night

to an improvised manger 

with a roof just barely over our heads, 

there is the cry of God being born among us. 

It’s a mess, 

this birth. 

This Emmanuel:

God-with-us. 

 

*

 

God is coming to dwell among us. 

And I await that coming 

with the same kind of hope-infused fear and trepidation 

with which I imagine I would await the birth of my own child.  

A baby brings with it a surge of love. 

I’ve been told it’s a love so strong 

you never even imagined you were capable of feeling that way. 

But child also brings revelation. 

Every parent I’ve talked to has told me 

that having a kid showed them things about themselves  

they wished they didn’t have to see. 

 

Fred Gaiser of Luther Seminary writes of the promise and threat inherent 

in Isaiah’s prophesy:

“On the one hand, [the prophesy tells us that the] threat 

from Syria and Ephraim will fade away, 

But then, in the verses just beyond today’s reading, things turn darker: 

the king of Assyria will come as invited, 

but bringing violence and destruction.

And, of course, both things are ‘Immanuel’ (God with us), 

for when God comes it will always mean both judgment and promise. 

God comes always to bring life and salvation; 

but God comes always to expose human sin 

and purge everything that stands in the way of justice.”

 

“God-with-us” means standing in the light. 

In that light that shines from God. 

It is not a light that cleanses or purifies. 

But it is a light that reveals. 

It is a light in which we can see clearly, 

see clearly just who it is we have become,

as individuals, and as a nation.

See clearly the lies we have told ourselves,

as individuals, and as a nation. 

See clearly the wounds of our hearts,

as individuals, and as a nation. 

 

I don’t think God comes to make us pure. 

I don’t think purity has much to do with God at all. 

 

I think God comes to make us honest. 

 

God comes to bring the truth. 

The truth of these messy lives we lead, 

that we are all, all of us,

so badly in need of redemption.

 

 

 

Madonna II, Elizabeth Catlett, 1999  

 

 

 

 

*From "Mary and Her Interpreters," Women's Bible Commentary.  

Wicked Scales, Dishonest Weights

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's the week the Grand Jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown.  Later that evening, we learned that the police officer in Darren Wilson's case would also not be indicted.  

The text is Micah 5:2-5a, and 6:9-15.  The first selection is a text commonly read during the season of Advent; the second is a later passage that I decided to include based on the events of the week. 

 

 

 

I have a friend named Heber 

(actually, his full name is the Rev. Dr. Heber Brown, III -- a very good name)

who is a pastor in Baltimore. 

 

Heber is a preacher and an activist, 

and I know him because of the work he’s doing 

starting a new project that’s called Orita’s Cross Freedom School.

Orita’s Cross is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a long time. 

Heber is creating an afrocentric Church School curriculum for middleschoolers.  

He’s teaching the bible through the lens 

of African American experience and tradition and spirituality. 

And he’s basing much of what he’s creating 

on the Freedom Schools run in the South during the Civil Rights movement. 

Through Orita’s Cross, Dr. Brown is raising up a generation of activists. 

 

*

 

This Monday, a Grand Jury released their decision 

to not to indict Darren Wilson, 

the Ferguson police office who shot Michael Brown, a black teenager, 

who Wilson approached for walking in the middle of the street. 

This means that Darren Wilson will not go on trial for what happened that day. 

There will not be a proper trial. 

 

The nation has erupted.  

While protestors took to the the streets on Monday and Tuesday

and called for an economic boycott on Friday and this Monday, 

the children in Heber’s Freedom School made their own particular kind of protest. 

 

They decided to set up a mock trial for Darren Wilson in their classroom.  

They rearranged all the furniture to resemble a courtroom 

and played all the played all the different parts.  

And then they made a video for Heber to post on facebook. 

I features three middle school girls, all African American, 

each making her own short, simple statement. 

The first young woman says, 

“I feel that the police officer shouldn’t have killed Michael Brown.”

 

The second, 

“What if it was a white person who died?”

 

The third, 

“If a black person had killed a white person, the black person would have gone to jail!”

 

*

 

Kids don’t really mess around. 

They get it. 

They get it when things aren’t fair. 

They see that justice in our country is not blind. 

That statue of Justice that stands in front of so many courthouses in our nation

may be wearing a blindfold, 

but those scales she’s holding, they’re not evenly weighted. 

These little girls know just who they're weighted to help,

and it’s not them. 

 

*

 

The prophet Micah speaks during a time of great unrest and turmoil 

for the Northern Kingdom and Jerusalem, 

not only because of the violent superpower of the Assyrian army overshadows their nation, 

but the because of the extreme corruption of those in power 

and the abuse they are heaping on the powerless. 

 

Can I forget the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked,

Micah declaims.

Can I tolerate wicked scales
   and a bag of dishonest weights?
Your wealthy are full of violence;
   your inhabitants speak lies. 

 

Micah may be speaking to the powerful leaders of eighth century Judea, 

but, it seems clear to me, he is also speaking also to us. 

To our people, to our nation, to our country 

who built our wealth on the back of both slaves and the slave trade. 

Can I forget the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked?

God asks? 

The wealthy are full of violence.

Yes, and we have been for a long time. 

 

For centuries in this country, and today, 

we have arranged for black men and women 

to be the bearers of our collective fear, shame and guilt. 

If anything is wrong, it is their fault. 

If there is crime, it is their fault.  

We used to hang black people from trees to remind ourselves that we were in charge.  

We are good and they are bad. 

And now we keep poor neighborhoods crumbling, 

keep black schools from thriving, 

and say, when we put black people in prison or shoot them on site 

that it’s okay because they brought it on themselves, 

all the while conveniently ignoring the truth:

that our scales are dishonest 

and our weights are wicked. 

A black man is 24 times more likely to be shot and killed by law enforcement 

than a white man in this country. 

This does not happen by mistake. 

The scales are not evenly weighted, 

and they have never been so. 

 

Justice is not blind in this country, 

and though we proclaim that all men are created equal 

we do not treat them that way. 

Three little girls in Baltimore already know that, plain as day. 

 

*

 

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about who this “we” is.

Or, who the “they” is.  

How it is that racism is kept so firmly in tact. 

We’ve all grown up steeped in it, and now we all act it out, in a myriad of ways. 

A black person’s opinion discounted out of hand at a staff meeting, 

darker skinned people pulled over far more often by police, 

students of color who receive harsher punishments in school,

speeding their route to prison. 

 

And then there are these systems that are in place

that work so terrifying well to keep things from changing. 

Perhaps Michelle Alexander, author of 

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

captured it best when she said, 

“A vast new system of racial and social control has emerged from the ashes of slavery and Jim Crow.  It is a system that shuttles our children from decrepit, underfunded schools to brand new, high-tech prisons. This system of mass incarceration locks poor people, overwhelmingly, poor people of color into a permanent, second class status for life, nearly as effectively as earlier systems of racial and social control once did.” 

Who is holding these systems in place?

Who is creating a pipeline from the projects to prisons?

How are these systems constructed and maintained?

They are woven so tightly into the fabric of our nation -- 

woven in to protect the “haves” from the “have-nots,” 

to protect us from losing what we so tightly cling to:

money, power, control. 

And cling to them we do, 

just as the “have’s” clung to their wealth and power 

in ancient Israel when Micah delivered his prophesy.  

Christians have a name for that kind of clinging: 

we call it sin. 

 

 

And sin takes a toll. 

Again the prophet Micah captures a truth that is cuttingly relevant 

for our day:

You shall eat, he writes, 

but not be satisfied.

There shall be a gnawing hunger within you. 

You shall sow but not reap, 

tread olives but not be anointed with oil, 

tread grapes but not drink wine.

 

Is this not a country where we eat but are never satisfied?

Do we not carry a gnawing hunger within us?

Before the table is cleared on Thanksgiving our citizens line up outside

Target and Walmart and Macy’s so we can be the first 

to buy a big screen TV

which is just a little larger and nicer 

than the big screen TV we already have. 

We get a large soda instead of a medium at the movie theatre 

for one dollar more

and fill our plates with portions that could feed a family 

all in the hope of suffocating that gnawing hunger in our hearts

that never seems to be sated. 

It is a collective addiction 

foisted on us by those who are interested in our perpetual spending, 

that keep us so dosed with commercials and immersed in the mall

that we don’t even know what we are hungry for: liberation. 

 

*

 

Advent is about the in-breaking of Christ into our world. 

It is the moment, enacted again and again 

when God comes down and meets you 

in the mess and the grime of your life. 

The angel told Mary that she would give birth to a child 

and call him “Emmanuel,”

“God with us.”

And we hear from the prophet Micah 

that he will come from Bethlehem 

and he will be a bringer of peace. 

 

Bethlehem’s a gritty sort of place. 

It’s out of the way, forgotten. 

Cast aside. 

Nothing good can come from there, people say. 

And yet the cast-aside and forgotten places

seem to be where God does her work.

She has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly, Mary sang.
She has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty.

 

Ferguson’s a gritty sort of a place too. 

Out of the way, forgotten. 

And the kids who live there, 

so many of them has been cast aside. 

But God hasn’t changed her strategy. 

Because God has been breaking into the world in Ferguson

these last months, 

coming down to meet the lowly and downhearted 

in the mess and confusion of West Florissant Avenue. 

Coming down to tear the powerful from their thrones

and lift up the lowly. 

 

This is our Advent, our Immanuel, 

our God With Us:

that the world is about to turn, 

and we can have a hand in turning it. 

So we need to go to Freedom School, 

to learn how to have a hand in turning the world. 

It may mean giving up something of what we have -- 

our wealth, our power, our illusions that all is well in this world. 

It may mean taking things down -- 

dismantling structures we have a vested interest in, 

or worked to build in the first place. 

If we are wolves we must lie down with lambs.

If we are leopards we must lie down with the kid. 

And I know three little girls in Baltimore 

who are ready to lead us.

Preaching While White: Why you need to Preach on Ferguson and Some Ways to Begin

 

 

Earlier this year, a loved and trusted colleague of mine who is black, the Rev. J. Lee Hill, Jr., posted something on facebook that changed me.  He wrote,   

 

“White colleagues preaching on Sunday (YES, I AM TALKING TO YOU!): your text of cultural context this Sunday is NOT mental illness and #RobinWilliams.

Your text is #Ferguson, #MikeBrown, and the over-militarization and justification of white town cops, policing black and brown communities---and it DOES go with your selected scripture texts."

 

“Oh.”  I thought.  “My colleague J. Lee is talking to me.  He’s really talking to me.”  I sure wasn’t planning on preaching about Robin Williams that Sunday, but I didn’t feel sure I was equipped to preach about Ferguson.  Michael Brown’s death was horrific, a sickening symptom of the rampant racism that is the primary illness of our country, causing cops, and anyone in power to treat people with dark skin as less than human.  What was happening in Ferguson was vitally important.  But until I read J. Lee’s post, I wasn’t sure it was my place to preach on it.  

 

I know for certain that I have never and will never experience anything resembling what Michael Brown and his family, or anyone else who’s black in this country, experiences every day.  How could I possibly have a voice on racial injustice when I am so far from experiencing it?  It wasn’t my voice that needed to be heard, it was the voices of those who are most profoundly effected by it.  Plus, let’s be honest.  I was terrified.  For a lot of reasons.  I was terrified that I wouldn’t do the issue justice.  I was terrified I would say something wrong headed.  I was terrified that, in attempting to speak on this issue, I’d be revealed for exactly what I am: a white girl who’s been pulled over by the cops exactly once in her life, and got away with a warning.  I thought of the African American folks in my congregation and wondered if I could really speak to this, and do it well.  In my mind, I saw them raising their eyebrows and thinking, “Wow, good try.  But she really doesn’t get it.”  

 

But J. Lee’s mandate would not go away.  He had called on me to preach.  His words both called me to action and gave me permission, even if this was’t an experience that I “owned.”  And so I dove into preparations for sermon for that week to preach about what happened to Michael Brown to my predominantly white congregation, because it was so very important that my congregation hear me speak, rather than observing me remain silent.  

 

I’ve been working on preaching about race consistently at St. Lydia's for a little while.  I’m learning a lot.  And I thought it might help a few of my white clergy colleagues out there to hear about that learning process.  I am no expert on how to do this.  But I’m doing it, or at least trying to.  So here’s what I’ve got. 

 

 

Your job is to learn to be an ally.

We’re pastors, and we’re white, and we’re used to running stuff all the time.  When we’re preaching about race, it’s time to do something we should probably do more often,  and change our posture from leader to follower.  Take up a spot in the supporting cast and pay attention to what’s happening on stage.  What’s the plot line here?  Who’s saying what, and why?  How can we amplify the voices that are speaking (not just talk about what we think?)  This movement doesn’t belong to us, but we can help lift it up.  

 

Remind yourself to listen.
Always listen.  Listen to the voices of people of color around you.  Listen to the voices of those whose lives are hemmed in and defined by racism systems.  Listen to the voices of the people who are leading this movement on the ground by following them online.  Get your news from outlets run by people of color.  Start out with Urban Cusp, Colorlines, This Week In Blackness, and The Root.  Can your sermon amplify these voices?

 

Reflect on how race and racism has impacted you. 

When I was in the third grade, my mother, who was a teacher in another district, spent some time in my classroom.  She noticed that, when my teacher asked questions of the class, she would call on only the white kids.  To the black children she’d say, “sit up straight.”  “Stop fidgeting.”  They were never given an opportunity to participate academically.  My parents removed me from the school midyear.  From then on, I went to the school where my mother taught.  My new school was mostly white.  

 

I’m pretty sure that my third grade teacher was not aware that she rarely called on black children.  But think for a moment about what I learned sitting in that classroom about who “mattered” and who didn’t.  And think about what the black children learned.  My parents took me out of that school, but I’d imagine that most of the black children in the class never had that opportunity. 

 

As white people, we have not been victimized by racism, but we have been impacted, simply by virtue of living in this country.  We've soaked up the message that we're better than people with darker skin, in ways we're not even be aware of.  And then there are the ways we are aware of it.  I was aware of it last week when I saw the police scattering a bunch of black kids sitting in a public area, drinking soda because they were "loitering."  I was aware of it last month when I sailed through a red light on my bike but the brown-skinned man just behind me got pulled over.  (I stopped and asked the cop why.  They let him go without a ticket, but that didn't fix anything).  We live in a racist nation, and it’s formed our consciousness in a particular way.  Your stories are not the central stories here, but they are important stories for you to learn to tell. 

 

Focus on truth, not your emotions. 

You’re going to have an emotional reaction to the injustices woven into the fabric of our country.  It would be worrisome if you didn’t.  However, when preaching on racial injustice as a white person, I invite you to focus your preaching not on your emotional response, but on the truth of the root issues here: injustice, inequality, and the violation of the core Christian belief that all life is sacred.  So, don’t start your sermon with the words, “When I heard about Michael Brown’s shooting death, I was outraged and saddened.”  Of course you were, but what’s central here is the grief of Michael Brown’s family, and the reminder his death is to black people around the country that their lives are habitually seen as less valuable. 

 

Empathy and emotion can be a powerful tool to connect your congregation to the experience of those who live in the shadow of racial injustice, so keep emotional content focused on those who are suffering most.  Then, be sure that your preaching doesn’t allow empathy to wander toward sympathy, which can turn to pity.  As Joe Lowndes, author of "From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism," has said, “A lot of white liberals talk about empathy, when what they really need to think about is solidarity.”  Don’t let empathy be the end point of the conversation.  How does our empathetic response to these events fuel the the setting down of our own power, and the lifting up of those who are powerless?

 

Keep God at the center.

Here are the questions: what is God doing in the midst of this?  How is God calling us into response?  It’s not about preaching the issues.  It’s about preaching the gospel while standing in the world. 

 

Don't be afraid to throw out what you've already written.

This is more important.  If you wrote your sermon two weeks ago, you might need to start over. 

 

Share the pulpit and build relationships along the way. 

Invite other voices, especially voices of color, to be a part of the conversation at your church.  Try and make this as relational as possible.  Asking one black preacher to come preach about racism can be tokenizing.  Setting up a regular pulpit exchange with an African American congregation is an opportunity for relationship and transformation. 

 

Embrace feeling unsure most of the time. 

This is complicated.  There’s no such thing as getting it right.  Dismantling racism is an ongoing process, in the world and in our hearts.  When we preach on racial injustice we risk slamming into some perspective our privilege had shielded us from or being knocked on our ass by a story someone tells that indicts us.  It’s going to be messy and feel vulnerable and you’re going to see some things about yourself you didn’t want to see.  But that’s where the Holy Spirit does her thing.  This is the most important thing you can model to your congregation: wading in, because God calls us into the deep water. 

 

Give action steps and create a culture of confronting racism. 

Preach to your congregation where they are.  This will differ depending on who your congregation is and the range of races, cultures, and experiences present.  Be aware of the racial dynamics within the congregation, and don’t assume that the experiences or perspectives of people of color are uniform.  Give your congregation some concrete action steps, based on what the leaders of this movement are asking for.  If some of these can help your congregation engage racial injustice in your local community, all the better.  I’ve complied a list for our congregation here; yours might be different.  Action steps are not a checklist that, when completed, relieves us of our guilt.  Instead, they are an invitation into a new way of living.  Engaging these issues will change us. 

 

Weave a culture in your congregation around race and racial injustice.  Make it part of an ongoing conversation, one that challenges your congregation to uncover the truth of their privilege.  I’m a firm believer that relationships are redemptive.  How can you invite your congregation into building relationships across boundaries of difference that will be honest, bold, and transformative?  

 

 

Okay, so you’ve been commissioned.  Don’t be silent this Sunday.  As Rev. Hill says, "Yes, I am talking to you!"  Your congregation is waiting to hear your voice.  Preach.  And see what the Holy Spirit does.  

 

Things We Can't Get Back

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on All Saints Sundy, a day in the Christian calendar to remember those who have died.  The text is Matthew, 5:1-11, the beatitudes. 

 

 

I was the one who told my mother that her mother had died. 

It seemed backwards, somehow, 

for a daughter to deliver that kind of news to her mother. 

It felt like it should have been the other way around. 

I was living in Amsterdam; my parents had come to visit me, 

and we were on the train, 

traveling through the countryside, 

past pastures of grazing cows, 

sectioned by the blue of the canals. 

 

This was back before international cell phone plans 

and so when the call came, it came to me because I was the one who lived there. 

A family member sending word from half way around the world 

that back in Vancouver, her mother, my mother’s mother, was dead. 

 

It wasn’t unexpected. 

My mom knew by my tone of voice on the phone what had happened. 

And after I had said all the words I knew I was supposed to say 

she simply nodded 

and turned her head to the window to watch the farmland speeding past. 

 

*

 

Months later back at home, 

I found our house filled with relics from my grandmother:

side tables and paintings that I remembered from her house. 

Some of them seemed just slightly out of place in our home’s less formal aesthetic;

like artifacts that found themselves in the wrong wing of the museum. 

 

When my mother spoke of the death of her mother, 

she spoke of a loss of memory. 

I keep wondering, she told me, about these little things.

Like whether it was me or my sister who fell of the carousel in Boardman Park, 

or just how that story about Uncle Graham went.

And when she was alive, I would just call her up and ask her. 

But I can’t call her up anymore. 

And no one else remembers the stories. 

 

My grandmother was the keeper of memories in our family. 

The one who remembered the details of stories and family history

and recited them when we came for a visit, 

or when we called her up. 

 

Now, it seemed, those memories had died with her. 

 

*

  

These past few weeks we’ve had some actors in residence in our basement, 

who are doing a piece that takes place out on the Gowanus Canal. 

The piece is based on the Greek myth of the River Styx 

and it tells the story of Charon, 

the boatman in who ferries souls to Hades. 

In the myth, each of the souls who travel to the underworld

must drink from the river Lethe:

the river of forgetfulness, of oblivion, 

and in doing so, forget their lives of the world above. 

This weekend, I was lucky enough to see the production.

Together, the small audience climbs aboard a boat 

and travels down the polluted Gowanus canal, 

Charon is at the helm

and each of us is dressed in a ghostly blue hood, 

for we are the souls on our way to Hades. 

It is night and it is cold, 

and the crumbling concrete banks of the Gowanus

take on an other-worldly feel as we pass an empty concrete factory, 

a rusted out barge. 

The scene is weird and unearthly. 

And you feel like you just might forget the life you lived in the world above. 

 

 *

 

Death is awakening to the knowledge 

that there are things in this life that we can lose, and lose forever.  

Things that can never be recovered. 

 

Perhaps the myth of the river Lethe allows us to encounter that fear and that reality. 

My mother’s notion that with the slipping away of her mother, 

came the slipping away of our stories:

the things that make our family who we are. 

 

There are some things we can’t get back. 

 

*

 

Tonight is a night when we remember people who are gone. 

We write their names on slips of paper and light candles, 

and thank God for the gift of each beautiful, imperfect soul. 

 

I am always reminded on All Saints, 

of all the names we don’t remember. 

All those names of people whose lives have slipped past,

their contributions to this world perhaps lovely, 

but not kept by the pages of history. 

It’s those sort of saints that Jesus is pointing to 

in this sermon, delivered on the green grass of the hillside. 

 

Blessed are the poor. 

Blessed are the meek. 

Blessed are those who are merciful, 

who hunger and thirst for righteousness. 

Blessed are the pure in heart. 

 

The names of these blessed ones 

and perhaps even their memories 

have slipped away from us.

We tend to remember people who did things that were big. 

But God remembers those who were small. 

And calls them blessed,  

for their simplicity and the purity of the offerings they made to this world. 

They are saints.  

And they are not forgotten. 

 

*

 

Our memories are always in pieces. 

They are never complete -- we have lost names and faces, 

fragments of history and bits of our past. 

But Christ’s words on the hillside offer us a picture 

not of fragmentation, but of wholeness. 

Those who mourn are comforted. 

What is broken is mended. 

 

Death is something different in the Christian story

than the underworld of the ancient Greeks’ imagination. 

While the river of Lethe dis-members us from ourselves and our stories, 

death in the Christian context re-members us. 

Puts us back together in wholeness and restores us to God. 

 

Death may be final, but for Christians, it does not have the final word,

and we worship the one who met death on a cross: 

a cross that through that death, became the tree of life. 

 

In this story, death is not a river where we forget

or a land where we are lost, 

but a table where there is bread, 

a commonwealth where we are restored. 

 

We may have lost bits and pieces of our stories.

we may have lost bits and pieces of ourselves. 

We may have lost someone we cared for, deeply, 

or someone who was simply a piece of our life.  

But nothing is lost in God. 

Whatever names and faces we may fail to remember, 

God remembers every one. 

 

And look at them all here with us now, 

these saints of God,

this great cloud of witnesses. 

Those names we remember and those we have forgotten. 

All of them here at this table, 

where we break the bread apart into pieces, into fragments 

and we eat it, 

and it makes us whole. 

 

Every time we do this, 

they are with us. 

Not lost to a world of forgetfulness 

but re-membered -- put back together again 

at this table that death -- death!

has made big enough for all. 

 

 

How will we, like those before us, re-member the world?

How will we mend what is broken?

Draw together what has been fragmented?

 

With our mercy. 

With our humility. 

With our morning. 

With our poverty. 

With our meekness. 

With our hunger for what is right and good. 

 

*

 

There are things in this life that we can lose, and lose forever.  

Things that can never be recovered. 

Things we can never get back. 

 

But I have this trust 

that there is a life, a world, 

beyond this one. 

Or maybe sort of below it -- underneath. 

All these fragments, these pieces of ourselves, 

of our stories, 

the names, the faces, the memories, 

slip through the cracks of our sidewalks 

and are caught there. 

Find a home there, 

in that place beyond the river. 

And in that place

nothing is ever lost.

 

 

Worship on All Saints' Day, the names and photographs

of those we remember hanging above the table. 

In Christ there is No Male and Female

I preached this sermon the week of October 5 as part of our Fall Justice Series.  The text is Galatians, 3:23-29. 

 

 

 

In November of 1969, a man named Tom Andrews wrote a letter 

to the Editorial Board of the New York Times. 

The letter was entitled, “Why do they hate long hair?”

In it, Mr. Andrews told the story of sitting in a cab at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue

waiting for a red light to change. 

In front of the cab, a teenaged boy wearing bellbottoms and a sweater crossed the street,

his hair swinging down to his shoulders. 

 

Mr. Andrews writes,

“The driver turned to me just before the light changed, 

and with deliberate hatred in his voice, said,

‘You see that?  

Boy, if I could get outta this cab right now, 

I’d go up and whip that kid and shave his skull naked.’”

 

Mr. Andrews wrote to the Times in defense of this young men, telling not only his story,

but that of another pair of long haired young men he met who one night were thrown in jail 

for illegal possession of a very dangerous weapon: a pocketknife. 

 

This past summer Peggy Orenstein observed that the “last time classroom attire was this contentious”

was the 1970’s, when most of the high-profile cases centered on boys and hair length.

“Young men were sometimes attacked by their peers. 

In an all-too-familiar scenario, it was the victims who were blamed for such assaults,

accused of provoking classmates with their “distracting” appearance. 

By 1974, there were 150 court cases involving young men’s [haircuts].”

 

Looking back, contention over the length of a boy’s hair may seem antiquated or quaint. 

But the vitriol and violence of the cabby’s remarks are neither. 

I’d whip that kid and shave his skull naked.

 

The cabby was imagining actions intended not just to hurt the boy, 

but to put him in his place. 

There’s a sense of dominance in his words -- 

He wants to show him.

 

There’s a certain kind of anger that tends to spill out in our country 

when citizens feel that some sense of boundaries are being violated. 

That cabbie felt that the boundaries -- the borders that kept his world in tact --

that kept men in some roles in women in others, 

were somehow threatened by this young man with long hair. 

And his response was one of imagined dominance:

he imagined himself reasserting those boundaries violently. 

 

*

 

Paul writes a letter to church community in Galatia. 

They have not yet seen violence, at least not yet, 

but they too are struggling with the very real questions of boundaries and borders. 

 

Paul is writing to a group of people who are trying to figure out how to live together as a church. 

And some of those people were raised all their lives, 

with the notion that boundaries, very strict boundaries,

were what kept them holy. 

What made it possible for God to dwell with them. 

There were important rules that needed to be followed 

to keep their Jewish community in tact in the midst of a religiously diverse world. 

Circumcision, observing the Sabbath, keeping food laws -- 

these were customs and traditions that told them who they were. 

These were the ways they ordered their lives and understood themselves as faithful. 

And now there were a bunch of Pagans who didn’t do any of that stuff,

but wanted to follow their God. 

Wanted to follow their teacher, Jesus. 

It must have been very unnerving for the Jewish-born members of the community, 

to sit down to eat a meal alongside these Pagans 

who ate whatever they wanted -- all sorts of stuff that Jewish people saw as unclean. 

Maybe something like a life-long vegan watching his friend dig into a spit-roasted pig. 

Where were the boundaries?

Where were the borders?

If these Pagans wanted to follow Christ,

shouldn’t they learn at least some of the traditions that Christ followed?

Abide by at least some of the boundaries that keep life holy and sacred

and in tact?

 

Paul’s letter arrives in the midst of this roiling controversy. 

Tension is high every time the community gathers, 

but even higher that night as they read Paul’s letter at worship. 

They gather in close to hear just to see who’s side he will come down on. 

Maybe he’ll say new Christians don’t have to be circumcised 

but DO have to keep the food laws.  Or maybe the opposite! 

But Paul does something unexpected. 

He doesn’t mediate, he doesn’t compromise. 

 

He throws out all the boundaries. 

 

All those rules we followed, 

he tells us, 

those were good.  

They were important to how Jewish people lived. 

But now that Jesus has come, and given us the gift of faith, 

we don’t need those rules anymore. 

All the boundaries have disappeared. 

Now the only thing that marks us is that we are in Christ Jesus.

There is no longer Jew or Greek, 

there is no longer slave or free, 

there is no longer male and female.

We are all one in Christ. 

 

It’s a shocking pronouncement, in Paul’s time and in ours. 

Everything that keeps us separate from one another has melted away in Jesus. 

And we are one.

 

*

 

What would our angry cabbie in 1969 have to say about this passage?

Yeah, sure, that kid has long hair, 

but in Christ there is no male and female!

The boundaries that once defined us have been erased!

 

I’m not sure he would have gone for it. 

 

*

 

Paul’s bold proclamation that “in Christ there is no male or female”

raises some questions. 

Does he mean only that men and women should be treated the same?

Or that when we’ve been baptized into Christ we really don’t have gender anymore?

Or does he mean that we are who we are, 

but that our gender is reflected in Christ,  

in the same way we were each made in God’s image?

 

It’s a tangle of questions too complex to untangle tonight, 

but suffice it to say, Paul’s proclamation is bold, 

and confuses our standard boundaries when it comes to not only gender, 

but religious identity and class status. 

Those who were slaves and those who were free.

Basically everything that defines us, then and now. 

 

Looking at gender though, 

Paul’s statement opens up a lot of room for people 

who’ve felt that the boundaries we have set up around male and female, 

the containers we sort people into, if you will, 

don’t leave enough room for them to simply be the people that God made them. 

 

The unnamed boy in 1979 grew his hair long, and in doing so 

rejected a container that somebody wanted to put him in. 

He ditched the crew cut and muddied the waters around what was masculine and what was feminine.  

And it set people on edge.

 

My little friend Adam, who’s five years old and doesn’t really like soccer much, 

like the boys in his class do. 

But he really likes to play with dolls and dress up in costumes, 

like capes, and sometimes princess dresses. 

And it sets people on edge.  

 

Or Jenny, who used to be Jim, 

buy now looks pretty much like an attractive soccer mom 

as she teaches writing and shuttles her kids to fiddle lessons. 

It can set people on edge. 

 

 

You may be familiar with this idea that gender is more of a spectrum 

than a binary, 

and that we fall somewhere along that spectrum. 

Or these ideas may be new to you. 

You may be aware that some among us have stories 

of being born into bodies that never felt right, 

and yearn to wear different clothes or be called a different name, 

or make our bodies reflect the person we understand ourselves to be. 

Or these ideas may be new to you. 

 

But I don’t think you don’t have to be transgender to have an experience 

of feeling like the containers you’ve been asked to fit in 

don’t feel quite right. 

 

As a ten-year-old I cut my hair so short

that people used to mistake me for a boy.  

I decided to play trombone and spent junior high and high school 

leading sectionals with the brass players. 

I was only girl in the room most of the time. 

I climbed trees but hated sports, 

I liked to wear dresses but didn’t care about hair and makeup. 

And I always had this sneaking feeling 

that there was something about me that wasn’t quite right. 

I read the Anne of Green Gables books, 

drinking up stories of this redheaded girl 

who was all spark and imagination, never thought to be very pretty, 

and didn’t quite fit in anywhere. 

 

 

We all have a little trouble finding the right container. 

That’s because each one of us is more complicated 

than the selection available. 

 

 

Still, blurring the boundaries sets people on edge. 

 

 

The National Gay and Lesbian task force reported in 2011

that 61% of transgendered people report being the victims of physical assault, 

64% report being the victims of sexual assault, 

with even higher numbers in both these categories for people of color,

especially African Americans. 

19% were refused medical care by doctors. 

Statistics are hazy on the number transgendered people murdered in acts of hate-based violence, 

but it is clear that transgendered people, especially those who are African American, 

face extraordinarily disproportionate rates of violence.

 

 

 

Apparently blurring the boundaries 

sets people a little on edge. 

 

This is violence designed to put people back in their containers. 

 

*

 

I wonder what Jesus would have thought about a young man 

wearing bell bottoms and long hair in 1969. 

Or about my five-year-old friend Adam’s delight in princess dresses. 

I seem to remember Jesus crossing all kinds of boundaries. 

He made friends with the “loose women” he found hanging out at the well 

and ate with them too. 

Even Samaritans who the Israelites weren’t even supposed to talk to. 

He healed on the sabbath when everybody thought it was breaking the law, 

he shared supper with his friends and not his family, 

because he was creating a new kind of family. 

One that had no boundaries. 

 

The hindsight of history isn’t so kind to the boundary-keepers of our world. 

Somehow the people interested in keeping our boundaries strong and secure

seem to always be the ones who are standing behind fire hoses

or riot gear 

or guns. 

Who are building walls or staging rage-soaked protests

to try and keep some imaginary line firmly in tact. 

 

To keep Ruby Bridges out of their all white school. 

Or a couple of people who love each other from tying the knot. 

There are other boundaries we can think of. 

Other borders, other walls that, 

through the years, we’ve battled to keep high and secure, 

capped with barbed wire. 

To make sure everybody stays where they’re supposed to. 

 

There is no longer Jew or Greek, Paul writes, 

No longer slave or free, no longer male and female; 

for all you are one in Christ Jesus.

And we think, that can’t be right...can it?

 

But as the old hymn goes, the love of God is broader 

than the measure of our minds.* 

 

And perhaps the boundaries and containers we cling to 

are, for the most part, human-made. 

 

Let’s lose our interest in drawing lines, 

in building boundaries, 

and making containers. 

 

Jesus isn’t interested in any of it. 

Jesus is making a new kind of family 

and your hair can be as long or as short as you want it to be.

There are no containers here. 

 

 

 

 

*There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy, Frederick William Faber.