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Greater Than Caesar

by Thomas Thatcher, reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

“John’s act of writing a gospel, what he claims about Christ, and how he makes these claims, all represent fundamental rejection and subservience of Caesar’s power. . . . John believed that Christ is in every way superior to Caesar. . . . He reverses the normal public meaning of Jesus’ encounter with the agents of the Roman Empire” (p. ix).

Thatcher points out that the same story can have quite different meanings, e.g., a Jewish delegation meeting with Roman emperor, Caligula. One report, the official minutes of the encounter, shows the Jewish support of the emperor. Philo, a Jewish writer, points out what the Jewish delegation really felt.  The story illustrates the two faces every victim of imperial power must always wear. “These things happened,” Philo says, “but they didn’t mean what the people in power thought they meant” (pp. 23-25).  Thatcher develops his theory of public and “hidden transcripts,” “the little traditions,” the counter memories” (p. 26). “Every situation of conflict between Jesus and the authorities may be read at two levels: the normal public meaning of the events, and in John’s ‘little tradition,’ reinterpretation of those events as expressions of Christ’s absolute sovereignty” (p. 46).

In John’s story the Romans are not in control. The Jewish authorities, on whom Caesar depends, granting them the status of Roman prefects, are helpless, unable to stop Jesus’ mission or even protect their own interests (John 12, 18). Crucifixion was a major part of Roman policy of intimidation and control, but in John’s story fulfilled prophecy (e.g., division of Jesus’ clothing, Jesus’ death, the piercing with a spear) make the ultimate story of defeat end in conquest (p. 107). Jesus is in control to the very end. Even the Roman political order is not in final control. In John’s story, Pilate (the Roman governor) appears in seven scenes, without the results he wishes (28 verses; in the synoptics, Pilate gets a combined total of 37 verses), and  the Roman governor “is afraid” (19:8). Even after his vicious scourging, Jesus continues his words coherently against Pilate (19:12). Rome’s victims followed Rome’s script; Jesus has his own script (even washing his disciples’ feet—a sharp retort to Roman imperial practise).

In fact, even the very act of writing a gospel in which the Romans come off so badly—simply writing that gospel is a seditious act (p. 30).

Vern Ratzlaff is pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Empire: The Christian Tradition

by Kwok Pui-lan, Don Compier, Joerg Rieger (editors), reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

This is a wonderful compilation of 29 theologians and comments on their work as seen in the empires they wrote in. They range from Paul, through Calvin, Luther, Bonhoeffer and Niebuhr, and end with several present-day African theologians. The rationale of the anthology is to see how differing imperial and cultural perspectives affected their writing. The editors point to the tensions between the Christian tradition and the empire in the infancy narratives—the presence of Caesar Augustus and of Herod.

The convening of church councils focused the tensions of the empire and the book details the intersection of theology and empire. “Without understanding how we are shaped by empire, we cannot properly identify those institutions, and insights that point us beyond the horizons of empire” (pp. 10, 13).

I will touch only on St. Paul and on east African theologian John Mbiti, but each of the people surveyed demonstrates the effect his or her particular empire had on their theology. Paul is an interesting example; Tatha Wiley points out how her readers’ perspectives, shaped by their empire, affected the interpretation of Paul, and she points out two Pauline analyses, the one reflecting the early church’s empire influence. The empire’s influence is driven not only in the writer (Paul) but in the interpretation (pp. 56, 57). Perkinson’s summary of Mbiti focuses on the concept of “time”: “present future” that extends only six months hence, and the “present” that is “yesterday” (p. 463)—time is largely two-dimensional, focused on past and present. Or how would one gain concrete perspective on the precise place where “Christianity” can be distinguished from “imperial violence” (p. 460)?

Powerful treatment of key people, pointing out the effects of imperial perspectives and their influence on theological conversations. —Vern Ratzlaff, pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

The Empathy Exams

by Leslie Jamison, reviewed by Richard Cook

In these essays, Leslie Jamison is Frida Kahlo on the printed page. Pain is her subject; her objective is to feel her way into somber communion, a common sharing.

As a medical actor Leslie works to transcend the script: "I am not just an unmarried woman faking seizures for pocket money." In her portrayal of sundry sicknesses unto death, Leslie strives to make the medical students realize "a root system of loss stretches radial and rhizomatic under the entire territory of my life." This is not an act; this is the journey.

As a teachers/tourist in Nicaragua, Leslie is accosted by a purse snatcher in Granada, who smashes her in the face with his fist. "My nose was broken. The bones of the bridge got shifted. The flesh swelled like it was trying to hide the fracture beneath. This is how speech swells around memory. How intellect swells around hurt."

Jamison, suspicious of sentimentality, invokes David Foster Wallace: "An ironist at an AA meeting is like a witch in church." But she refuses to discard sentimentality; it can chauffeur you into the neighborhood of deeper feelings.

After an abortion, Leslie wanted to hear from the man and told him so. "I'd be lying if I wrote that I remember exactly what he said. I don't. Which is the sad half-life of arguments—we usually remember our side better."

This is a book filled with flairs Leslie Jamison sends up into a threatening sky.

—Richard Baldwin Cook, Baltimore County Maryland, writes poetry and the occasional book review and is working to end the military occupation of Palestine by the State of Israel.

Texts that Linger, Words that Explode

by Walter Brueggemann, reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

Brueggemann emphasizes the force of words in molding the nation: Words generate a cultural/historical movement, words are advocates for specific tasks, words identify the central features of the community’s story and self awareness, words are warnings against ignoring consequences. Sometimes words explode in remarkable imagination (e.g., the impact of Rachel, whose story is told in Genesis but which comes again in Jeremiah and in Matthew), and to the community of faith today. Brueggemann cites the Holocaust as a point along Rachel’s story, but her weeping goes well beyond even that, to the homeless of our cities, and to the tragedies of children caught in Syria and Iraq (or in the treatment of aboriginal cultures faced by forced abduction of their children as a result of assimilationist ideologies). The text keeps surfacing as a weapon of the weak (p. 9).  It is a powerful reminder that the “prophetic tradition preserves for us those staggering enactments of redemptive madness” (p. 19). And that’s only the first chapter of the book.

Brueggemann deals equally devastatingly with other texts. He draws attention to Amos 9:7, where Amos confronted his listeners with the pointed reference that Yahweh was not really just a tribal god; Ethiopians, Philistines, Arameans and Israelites are all part of Yahweh’s redeeming act, a radical pluralism (p. 97). And he emphasizes the task of words in Israel (in their liturgy, in their festivals) in remaining an intentional, distinctive country in the world dominated by Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and Persia, and of how Israel maintained its identity in and under the empire with the gifts of texts and words.  The church needs to keep its identity vibrant through the “daily discipline and practises” of our Christian faith story (p. 87).  Wow!  What a book! —Vern Ratzlaff, pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Anxious About Empire

by Wes Avrum (editor), reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

This collection of 13 essays was compiled when the United States was still the virtually unchallenged player on the world political scene, in the aftermath of Bush and 9/11; today, sharply reduced political and military influences puts these essays into a different perspective.  But some of the essays remain remarkably prescient, speaking to the issues of “loving neighbours in a globalized world,” “international justice,” “being Christian in an Age of Americanism” and emphasizing the “transnational nature of Christian discipleship.”  The essays still raise the basic issues of what the church’s message is and what discipleship urges on us.

Two essays especially focused my agenda. (Mennonite) Arthur Paul Boers draws on pastoral leadership as a component of counter-empire living, emphasizing the contribution of worship and of community; underscoring the need for mentors, saints and models, of testimonies of those who have stood against the empire and its war making preoccupation; the need for strategies in dealing with media (including the personal aspects of fasting and abstinence, p. 168).  Lillian Daniel outlines how the ordo (the typical Sunday morning order of worship), through text and liturgy, focuses on how “many of the questions about empire get hit upon with frightening regularity (p. 174).”  Through, e.g. the psalms, we in the empire are reminded that “we come from a long lineage of life’s losers” (p. 175).  The announcements, prayer requests, confession, passing of the peace, the offertory, the communion table—remind us that in the “bones of worship each Sunday we find the tools with which to recognize blasphemy when we walk the streets on Monday or watch the news on Tuesday. . . . Our salvation lies in the practices of worship that subverts the paltry promise of empire” (p. 182).

A wonderful book. —Vern Ratzlaff, pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

News, views, notes, and quotes

30 April 2015  •  No. 19

Invocation. “In the book of love's own dream, where all the print is blood / Where all the pages are my days, and all my lights grow old / When I had no wings to fly, you flew to me, you flew to me.” —“Attics of My Life,” performed by the Levon Helm band, written by the Grateful Dead’s Robert Hunger and Jerry Garcia

In case you missed last week’s 25th anniversary commemoration of the Hubble Space Telescope, view a few of its spectacular images.

Call to worship. A seven-year-old’s recitation of “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small.”

Speaking of creatures great and small. There are an estimated 100,000,000,000 galaxies in the universe. Of those, our own—the Milky Way—is some 90,000 light years across and contains some 200,000,000,000 stars. The average human body has about 37,200,000,000 cells.
       Extra credit question: If each of these heavenly bodies housed about the same number of human beings as does Earth, calculate the total number of cells.

This is “the greatest threat to the Grand Canyon in the 96-year history of the park.” —Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Dave Uberuaga, speaking of plans for Escalade, a private developer’s massive housing development, strip malls and tourist resort near the Canyon’s southern border. The prospect of jobs and economic development has divided the Navajo Nation in that area and provoked angry responses from nearby Hopi and Zuni Nations.
        “My mother was told by my great-grandmother, ‘You don’t go to the rim without a serious reason. You don’t go there just to look. You go there to pray.’” —Renae Yellowhorse, Navajo reservation resident

Hymn of praise. John Rutter’s musical rendition of “A Gaelic Blessing” sung by Millennium Youth Choir.

Not so woolly-headed after all: Realistic thinking about nonviolent struggle. A 12+ minute talk by Erica Chenoweth at TEDxBoulder about the success of nonviolent civil resistance.

Of everything I’ve read on the death of Freddie Gray while in Baltimore police custody, “Why Freddie Gray ran,”  an editorial in the Baltimore Sun, is the best. Also recommended, “The problem with wanting ‘peace’ in Baltimore,” by Kazu Haga, Waging Nonviolence.

Why the rest of the world is incredulous at Americans grousing over the “sluggish” US economy, now in the eight year of recovery from the Great Recession. Bets on this week’s professional boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao could reach the $100 million mark. Secondary market ringside seats are averaging $10,500 each, some as high as $30,000. The single event record for Vegas betting was $119+ million for 2014’s Super Bowl between the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks.

In better sporting news. Lydia Ko, the world’s top woman golfer, announced this week she will donate all her prize money from an upcoming tournament to earthquake relief efforts in Nepal. Should she win, the contribution would be $195,000.

“2 Americans killed on Everest.” Headline in USA Today. At last count, 6,000+ non-Americans also died in the devastating earthquake in Nepal (now counting 4 US citizens). Want to contribute? Here is a site profiling numerous reputable, engaged humanitarian relief organizations if you want to contribute to relief efforts.

Lection for Sunday next. If you’re willing to jump the lectionary tracks on Mother’s Day (10 May), consider focusing on the evocative character of “Wisdom” in Proverbs 8-9.

“We are all meant to be mothers of god. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to [God’s] Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture. This then is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us.” —Meister Eckhart

Right: Design by Ken Sehested.

Speaking of Mother’s Day, see “A Brief History of Mother’s Day” and “Mother’s Day,” a litany for worship drawn from the words of Julia Ward Howe

“Bread and Roses.”  “As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days. / For the rising of the women means the rising of us all. / No more the drudge and idler, ten toil where one reposes. / But a sharing of life’s glories, bread and roses, bread and roses.” —The 1912 textile workers strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, is referred to as the “bread and roses” strike. Some say the phrase came from a James Oppenheim poem; others, from union organizer Rose Schneiderman. The poem was set to music by Carolina Kohisaat and, later, a different version by Martha Coleman.

This week marks the second anniversary of the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing 1,129, the majority of them women. It is the deadliest structural failure in modern history. Garments made there supplied numerous retailers in the US. Such costs are not factored in to calculations of “free” trade.

Song of lament. “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Discerning vocation. I recently had reason to respond to a friend’s ache and confusion over the apparent collapse of her aspired career: I think you already know there’s no getting around the discomfort—just never forget that the Discomforter’s purpose is to guide and not to punish.

 “I remember the first time I encountered the image of God as a laboring woman. I was reading Isaiah” for a seminary class. When I got to the “middle of chapter 42, I was stopped cold: ‘For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant’ (v. 14). What came to mind was an old photograph, “grainy, black-and-white” of “a woman in a hospital bed . . . her face knotted in agony. . . . You could practically hear a low, loud groan emerging from her throat.
            “So there I was sitting on my sofa, reading Isaiah picturing . . . God’s face contorted in struggle; God groaning the way that a laboring woman groaned . . . and I felt profoundly uncomfortable. I felt disturbed.” (In addition to depicting God as a laboring woman, Isaiah also likens God to a midwife and a nursing mother.)
        These images “compel me in their suggestion of a divine body that suffers, changes, swells, and leaks. For me, a divine body that leaks is also a divine body that discomfits.” —Lauren F. Winner, “Divine contractions,” The Christian Century

Photo at right by Jennifer Loomis, from her book “Portraits of Pregnancy: The Birth of a Mother.”

“. . . and his arms were made agile . . . by El-Shaddai [“the Almighty”] who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb.” —Genesis 45:24-25

“Only those with wombs of welcome . . . can magnify God heal the earth.” —Ken Sehested, “Annunciation”

“There'll be icicles and birthday clothes / And sometimes there'll be sorrow.” Mother’s Day is not always happy. In 1964 at age 21, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell’s boyfriend left her, pregnant. She kept it a secret from her family and gave her daughter up for adoption. Her 1970 song “Little Green” speaks to that experience. This grief is also behind her song “River”: “Oh, I wish I had a river so long / I would teach my feet to fly / I made my baby say goodbye.”
       She and her daughter reunited in 1997. Sometimes joy catches up from behind.

Joni Mitchell, by Mardeen Gordon, embroidered replica of Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” cover painting.

If you buy flowers in the days leading up to Mother’s Day, there’s a 70% chance they come from Colombia, which has the dubious distinction of having the world’s longest-running civil war (since 1948, deepened further in 1964) as well as the country with the largest population of internally displaced persons. These realities sustain the paltry income of flower industry workers (about $250 per month), and the intentional removal of import duties by the US on Colombia flower imports as one element in it “war on drugs” campaign make for a thriving cash crop economy. Colombia receives more US military assistance than any other country in the western hemisphere.
        •The Mennonite Central Committee annually sponsors “Days of Prayer and Action for Colombia,” which includes extensive worship and advocacy materials for local congregations.
        •Since 2012 the government of Cuba, supported by the Norwegian government, has sponsored peace negotiations between the Colombian government and Colombia’s largest insurgent group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
        •The US war on drugs has had a host of unintended consequences, including the killing of an American missionary Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter when their plane, suspected to be smuggling drugs, was shot down over Peru. Watch this dramatic five-minute video of CIA pilots tracking the plane arguing that the Bowers plane “does not fit the profile.”

Hymn of Assurance. “All the Weary Mothers of the Earth.” —Joan Baez

Preach it. An inspiring 50-second video of Colombians saying, “La Paz de Mañana Empieza Hoy (Tomorrow’s Peace Starts Today)"

Former Wall Street slave market. “Walk down the canyon of Wall Street and you'll come across several of Lower Manhattan's 38 historical markers, most of them celebrating achievements in fields like finance and skyscraper-building. But soon a new marker will raise a more ominous subject: how New York City was built on the backs of slaves. It will be the city's first acknowledgement on a sign designed for public reading that in the 1700s New York had an official location for buying, selling, and renting human beings,” beginning in 1626. —Jim O’Grady, “City to Acknowledge It Operated a Slave Market for More Than 50 Years,” WYNC News

Harper's Magazine illustration of the New York City slave market in 1643. Harper's/Wikipedia Commons.

        The forerunners of some of the same financial institutions now ensconced in the area—like Aetna, New York Life and JPMorgan Chase—bankrolled the Southern plantation economy even after these Manhattan slave markets disappeared. (Though, one could argue, it's now just a different kind of slavery—fully as legal, morally justifiable, and socially acceptable as the other kind once was. We need a new breed of abolitionists.)

Seasoned Supreme Court observers report that Tuesday’s oral arguments over same-sex marriage revealed mixed opinions. Judge Anthony Kennedy wondered if the topic needs more time for public discussion, saying the consensus on one-man-one-woman marriage arrangements has been in place for millennia.
        Of course, the same is true for polygamy (not to mention slavery), a practice limited to the wealthy who could afford extensive property holdings, which included women. It’s right there in the Bible. Exodus 20-21 has multiple references to women on lists of property, including the last (20:17) of the Ten Commandments.
       But Judge Kennedy's comment illustrates what we often forget: Lasting social change requires shifts both in public policy and in public consensus. At least half of the work doesn't happen in DC. It happens on streets whose signs are familiar to you.

Call to the table. “We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure, but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of the world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil. If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down, we should give thanks that the end has magnitude.” —Jack Gilbert, “A Brief for the Defense”

Art at left ©Julie Lonneman.

Benediction. The Brooklyn Rider string quartet’s “Walking on Fire” is emotive rehearsal for what lies just outside the sanctuary door—and for which the sanctuary is not an escape but a preparation. Cf. Isaiah 43:2.

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “A brief history of Mother’s Day”

• “Mother’s Day,” a litany for worship

• “Netting the Absurd: Fishing on the other side of what we think possible,” a sermon by Nancy Hastings Sehested

 

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor. Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends.

 

Netting the Absurd

Fishing on the other side of what we think possible

Nancy Hastings Sehested
John 21:1-14

While standing in line at a bookstore a small girl in front of me turned around, looked up at me and said, “I’m scared of spiders.” I’m not accustomed to such forthright honesty in a check-out line. As far as I could tell there wasn’t a spider in sight. I thought I should be bold and confess my fears too.

“I’m scared of lightning,” I said.

“Oh, I’m not scared of lightning,” my little friend said. “I just get under my bed. You can do that too. It makes the ‘scaries’ go away.”

Don’t we wish that getting under our beds would make the “scaries” go away? Of course, how much time would we be spending under our beds if we named all our fears?

This past week we observed the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. What would you name as some of the scaries of our earth home? Climate changes and environmental disasters bring out the “scaries” in us for good reasons.

What’s next? What will happen next? What do we do next?

Maybe that was what Peter was wondering when he decided to go fishing. What’s next?

With Jesus’ appearing and disappearing like a shooting star in the night, Peter was confused, disoriented, and wondered what was next. What would become of their small band of followers in Jesus’ radical movement? And hadn’t he been a leader, even called “Rock” by Jesus? Was their movement dead in the water? What next?

Peter couldn’t sit still. He couldn’t go back. He couldn’t go forward. When all else failed, he went to the familiar…fishing. Some of the disciples joined him, “Hey wait up. We’re going with you.” They went back to the same place that they’d been called just a few years before…to the seas.

It was a long hard night of fishing. They cast the nets and hauled it in again and again. Peter stripped down for the strenuous work. Near the break of day their empty nets matched their empty hearts. Nothing.

A voice from the shoreline yelled out to them. “Hey guys! Good morning! Catch anything for breakfast? No? Try fishing on the other side of the boat.”

Who was this guy? Hadn’t they tried everything? Hadn’t they already given it all they had, tried every possible spot already? But they had nothing to lose. They tried it one more time. They threw their nets on the other side of the boat. Lo and behold….fish! So many fish they weren’t strong enough to haul it in.

One of them yelled, “It’s Jesus!” Peter threw on his clothes and jumped into the sea and swam to shore. The others pulled the haul of fish with the boat to reach shore.

Jesus had a fire going and invited them to throw some of those fish on it. Peter joined the haulers and pulled in the load of fish. One hundred and fifty-three fish in un-ripped nets.

One hundred fifty-three. It’s a number that has stumped theologians and historians trying to figure out the symbolic significance. Pope Gregory the Great was great in coming up with the idea that the sum of the numbers 1 through 17, multiplied by 3 (the number of the trinity) adds up to 51 and multiplied by 3 again makes 153. Historian Jerome thought there were 153 species of fish corresponding to the 153 known nationalities.

How about another explanation? Someone said, “Wow! Look at all this fish. I wonder how many there are?” And don’t fisherfolk count their fish? No matter how you count it, 153 was an absurd number after a night of nothing.

Can you imagine all those disciples pulling the fish out of the net and counting, “One, two, three, four….” And while they were putting the fish in piles, Jesus was standing there ignored. Maybe he kept tending the fire, amused by their choice of what to do next when he was standing right there among them.

In the resurrection stories Jesus had a knack for sneaking up on people, and looking not much like himself. Mary thought he was a gardener. She recognized Jesus by his voice. Thomas thought Jesus was dead man. He recognized Jesus by his wounds. Disciples on the road to Emmaus thought he was a stranger. They recognized him by his supper table blessing of bread. Disciples huddled in the upper room thought they’d seen a ghost. They recognized him by his storytelling. Peter and those disciples fishing all night long….they thought Jesus was an opinionated shore line fish consultant. They recognized him by his cooking.

With every story we see Jesus appearing as a mischief-maker…letting things play out, maybe with a twinkle and a grin….playing along with whatever the misperception seemed to be in the moment….and then doing something very simple and mundane….and ordinary….and suddenly there was a new way of seeing.

In the quest for the historical Jesus we discover the hysterical Jesus. Jesus was funny! Easter absurdities. Tragedy resurrected can become comedy. This is our story. Fish on a different side of the boat. Throw those nets out again. Net the absurdities of life that is still being hauled out of the dark nights into the dawn of a new day.

Friday April 24 was the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble telescope. Jason Kalirai, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute spoke of one image that really changed everything. In December of 1995, the telescope stared for ten days at a tiny patch of apparently empty sky. The patch was named the Deep Field, revealing more than a thousand undiscovered galaxies. It made researchers realize that earth is even smaller than we thought. “We're basically sitting on a rock orbiting a star, and that star is one of a hundred billion in our galaxy," Kalirai says. "But the Deep Field tells us that galaxy is one galaxy out of a hundred billion in the universe. I think Hubble's contribution is that we're not very special. I think it's exciting. It gives us a lot more to learn about…If we're not very special, you can continue to ask that question: 'What's next?' "  (NPR 4.24.15)

What next indeed. There’s a galaxy of difference between people who ask with resignation and despair, “What’s next?” and people of curiosity and expectation who ask, “What’s next?” It can mean the difference in netting some absurdities that we couldn’t have imagined. Just think about some of the things people once thought absurd. Abolishing slavery? Women with voting rights? Civil rights laws? State-sanctioned same gender marriages? Absurd!

We are in the midst of a community of people who throw our nets on the other side of the boat to catch the absurd. Our curious and faithful community knows how to ask, “What’s next?” We know that every day is Earth Day. We give ourselves to the small and big efforts of being merciful to our common earth home.

In the summer of 2013, eight of our members joined the Walk for our Grandchildren. It was a one hundred mile walk from Camp David to the White House. Mahan at 78 years old was the oldest walker and his 11-year-old granddaughter Leigh was the youngest walker to make the whole journey. At the rally, Mahan threw out the net with other grandparents to say, “We make it together or we don’t. We can speak out and act out with a sense of urgency…It’s not time to re-tire. It’s time to re-commit.”

One of our consistent encouragers in our community is Greg Yost. He has a gift for writing with clarity and passion about our common concern for our earth. In deciding to make the walk, he wrote these words:

I used to be isolated. I'd sit in front of a computer screen and read scientists' predictions about the consequences of carbon pollution and I'd feel so low, not just because the predictions were depressing, but also because it seemed no one was paying attention. It was difficult to talk about, to be that guy who brought it up to friends and family, at work or at church. Good, otherwise emotionally healthy people have filters in place to screen the stuff that is depressing or scary, and especially if they feel like there's nothing they can do about it, anyway. For a long time, climate change was simply getting caught in the filters.

But that's been changing. At some point in the last few years I feel like the tiny little trickle of awareness I had about the enormity of the climate challenge became one tributary to a gathering river of people. These folks aren't just worrying or wringing their hands, either. Like any good river, they're moving. We're taking action. I've even learned how to do it myself and it's actually not so hard. You just empty your hands, setting aside a few parts of your life for a moment to ready yourself for work that needs doing. Then you think about what you love and want to protect, you roll up your sleeves, and you wade in. (excerpt from “Why I am Walking,” July 12, 2013)

Greg carries pictures of his high school math students to every environmental action he participates in. He gave copies of the photos to the judge at his trial for his December arrest in the non-violent action at the construction site of the $4 billion LNG export facility of Dominion Resources in Maryland.

I am responsible for these young people even after I clock out of my teacher job. Because the battle for their future is being waged right now in Cove Point, Maryland, I have to report for duty.

We gather here each week to remember our holy orders, to prepare ourselves to report for duty again. Whatever the call, personally or communally, it means what its always meant when Jesus is around…fishing on the other side of what we think is possible. It means casting into those same waters to discover gifts from the sea hidden just below the surface of our perception.

As we throw those nets in the waters with all the love and courage we can muster, we might just haul in some Easter absurdities. And we’re sure to see Jesus with a twinkle and a grin, smiling at the haul, offering us bread, feeding us again. It is there the question lingers, “So what’s next?”

Circle of Mercy
April 26, 2015
 

©Nancy Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

News, views, notes, and quotes

23 April 2015

“Signs of the Times” is taking a week off, to make room for springtime house and yard projects. But I have added some new material to prayer&politiks, including ”Liturgical reform and worship renewal,”  commentary from last weekend’s Alliance of Baptists Convocation; and a new litany for worship, “Adelante—Keep Moving Forward.”

In light of the upcoming “National Day of Prayer” (7 May), see “Prayer: The Intersection of Personal and Social Transformation.”

Pass it on.

—Ken

P.S. Former US President Dwight Eisenhower typically began his cabinet meetings with silent prayer. In the middle of one such meeting, after forgetting to do so, he blurted out, “Oh, g*ddamn it, we forgot the prayer.”

A brief history of Mother’s Day

by Ken Sehested

Mother’s Day is celebrated in many cultures. Although others are given credit for founding the observance, Julia Ward Howe led in establishing what some believe to be the first observance of Mother’s Day in the U.S. (2 June 1872) after witnessing the carnage of the U.S. Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War in Europe. The Mother’s Day festival, she wrote, “should be devoted to the advocacy of peace doctrines.”

Born in New York City in 1819, Howe—author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”—was a published poet, author, and advocate of better treatment for prisoners and those living with mental and physical disabilities.

Howe’s concept of Mother’s Day was considerably different from today’s celebration. Her idea was to mobilize women as agents of resistance against the policies that led to injustice and war. In her Reminiscences she wrote: “Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters, to prevent the waste of human life which they alone bear and know the cost?” Realizing it would require fundamental change to end war, she later wrote: “Let the fact of human brotherhood be taught to the babe in the cradle, let it be taught to the despot on the throne. Let it be the basis and foundation of education and legislation. . . .”

The final observance of Howe’s version of Mother’s Day was held in Riverton, New Jersey, on June 1, 1912. The printed invitation on that occasion noted that “this festival . . . is a time for women and children to come together; to . . . speak, sing and pray for ‘those things that make for peace.’”

Parallel efforts to establish a regular observance in honor of mothers were made by several others. Mary Towles Sassen, a Kentucky school teacher, started conducting Mother’s Day celebrations in 1887. Frank E. Hering of Indiana launched a campaign for the observance in 1904. Also in 1904, Anna Jarvis, regularly credited as the founder of the observance, began her campaign for a nationwide commemoration. She chose the second Sunday in May and began the custom of wearing a flower.

On May 9, 1914, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed a joint resolution of Congress recommending that Congress and the executive departments observe Mother’s Day. The next year, the President was authorized to proclaim Mother’s Day as an annual national observance.

 

Information for this history was drawn from material created by Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament Education Fund.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Mother’s Day

A litany for worship, drawn from the words of Julia Ward Howe

Women: Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears!

Men: Speak up, that all may hear!

W: Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies.

M: Say it loud, say it proud!

W: Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.

M: Oh, brothers, can you hear?

W: Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

M: Tell it straight, sisters!

W: We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

M: Don’t hold back now—make it plain!

W: From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own; it says, “Disarm, disarm!”

All together: Disarm, disarm: every heart! every nation!

 

Excerpted and adapted by Ken Sehested from Julia Ward Howe’s “Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World,” September 1870, where she called for a “Mother’s Peace Day: A time for women and children to speak for the things that make for peace.”

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org