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Steal away to Jesus

When the pulse is imperiled, find what is needed to keep on keeping on

by Ken Sehested

        I was planning an abbreviated edition of “Signs of the Times” to allow time this week for other projects. The Pulse nightclub butchery, in a location named by many of its patrons as a “sanctuary,” sent us all tumbling into ravaging emotions of grief, horror, anger and despair.

        I’m not alone in the work of attempting to write my way out of such despondence. (See “Hate crime vs. terrorism: How our language highlights or disguises violence.”)

        In such moments, we are inevitably caught in the conflicting needs of making sense of such tragedy and mourning it. Some do these very different tasks more or less together. Others separate them. Both demand attention, both needs must be met.

        Then my friend Susan sent this note on Facebook:

        “In the thinnest grasp on hope this morning, would folks share where they have recently witnessed kindness?”

        I knew instinctively that what I needed to do was round up a collection of stories responding to Susan’s timely plea. And there were more than I imagined—see the annotated list below. (I hope you will add your own, in the “reader comments” section at the bottom of this page.)

        Among the urgent reminders needed for us enlistees in what Clarence Jordan called “The God Movement” is that pastoral nurture and encouragement is not in competition with prophetic arousal and challenge. The trick is to practice both in needed measure and sequence. The work of spiritual discernment is to figure this out in every given moment and circumstance.

        My sense is that no theme in Scripture is more consistent than the exhortation to faithful persistence. Find what is needed to keep on keeping on. In the classical refrain from the disciplined study of Christian ethics, grace is both a gift and a demand. Our task as faithful respondents is to maintain the vigorous conversation between both.

        The greatest insight I’ve gained from my eldest daughter, a bodyworker, was in her Pilates class as we practiced balancing exercises. “The secret to balance is movement,” she repeated. Not stasis, as seems commonsensical. Learning to balance on one leg does not mean cessation of effort but the reliance on different sets of muscles working in tandem.

        “Stillness”—a more familiar term in spiritual formation, and also another of Scripture’s reiterated appeals—is not inactivity but a collaboration between initiative and receptivity: When to stand at the city gate relaying Heaven’s demand that justice flow like the waters and when to take shelter under the Beloved’s wings.

        Not quite “knowing when to hold’em, knowing when to fold’em,” but you get the idea. There is a time for hallowed action and a time for holy idleness, for giving and for being given, for speech and for silence, for taking to the streets and for solitude's sequestering.

        Sensing when to do which is key. For instance, the US House of Representatives’ “moment of silence” for the victims of Orlando’s atrocity—when its members consistently refuse to extend civil protections to the queer community and approve commonsense gun control legislation—was an abdication of responsibility. When rallies in support of the LGBTQ community drone on with speechifying, rarely pausing long enough for grief and lament to do their work, is likewise irresponsible.

        What we need, in the words of one of my teachers, the German theologian Dorothee Sölle, is revolutionary patience. Not the idleness of perpetual delay—remember the harsh words Dr. King’s wrote in response to the demand for patience made by the liberal clergy of Birmingham, Alabama, in their resistance to civil rights demands. “This ‘Wait’"—King wrote in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”—"has almost always meant ‘Never.’”

        Rather, the patience needed entails a certain realism acknowledging the seemingly intractability of the forces of injustice. “Seemingly” is the operative word, for the ability to see beyond what the horizon dictates involves a capacity of knowing which the immediacy of the eye and the ear cannot yet fathom. Revolutionary patience assumes a beatific vision powerful enough to penetrate realism’s dark fog to a safe harbor and fecund fields beyond every available calculation and brute strength’s capacity.

        Legendary singer-songwriter-activist Pete Seeger spoke of defiant optimism. He was the inspiration for a movement to clean up the southern end of the Hudson River, long used as a cesspool and garbage dump by the metropolitan New York City region. Seeger liked to say, “We did it with our little teaspoons.”

        His image makes me think of modern science’s estimation that the total number of healthy bacteria in each human body—the microscopic organisms that regulate health—total around 100 trillion (give or take a few billion). By and large, this is the scale of advocacy we each supply to creation’s health on a daily basis. While occasions may present themselves when one or more of us will participate in big, bold, audacious events that have large public effect, the overwhelming number of hours we live present microscopically small opportunities, in the grand scheme of things, where we choose life over death, hope over despair, repair over retaliation, kindness over callousness.

        Random acts of kindness add up.

        Saying so is not in opposition to the need for structural analysis and patient labor designed to undermine the very foundations of oppression. But never make the best an enemy of the good. In the words often attributed to John Wesley, we each do all the good we can, by all the means we can, in all the way we can, at all the times we can, to all the people we can, and for as long as we can.

        To stay present—to not lose heart, to remain steady and not faint, to carry on in the face of pulsing atrocity—requires, in the language of that great spiritual, that we find time to “steal away to Jesus” for refreshment, perspective, sustenance, and instruction.

        To “steal away to Jesus” is not submission to injustice or passivity in the face of evil. Rather, it represents a strategic retreat to gather the weapons of the Spirit needed to reengage enemies in ways they fail to fathom and ultimately cannot thwart. Enemies are destroyed, by and by, when enmity itself is swallowed in death.

        Steal away to Jesus, sisters and brothers, when the pulse is imperiled. Steal away home, to find the sustenance needed to carry on, for love is coming, to us all.

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Hate crime vs. terrorism

How our language highlights or disguises violence

by Ken Sehested

            Headlines about the Orlando nightclub slaughter regularly include the phrase “largest (or worst) mass shooting in U.S. history.” (See some of the photos and all of the names of those killed in this ABC News post.)

            Hardly. Not by a long shot.

            •There were dozens of attacks against Native Americans by white colonists that tallied higher body counts before and after the Revolutionary War up into the final decade of the 19th century. In one of those incidents, when the Pilgrims torched a Pequot village on the Mystic River, Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford wrote:

            “It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and [we] gave the praise thereof to God.” That’s not a part of U.S. Christian history we hear much about. Things got so bad that dissenting Pastor Roger Williams wrote that it is “directly contrary to the nature of Christ Jesus . . . that throats of men should be torne out for his sake.”

            •At least 4 race riots targeting African Americans generated a higher death rate: New York City (1863), whose targets included an orphanage; Wilmington, N.C. (1898), which actually overthrew a democratically-elected city government; East St. Louis (1917); and Tulsa, Okla. (1921), mention of which disappeared from local and state histories until a 2001 state-commissioned report established the facts. The recommended reparations were ignored.

Right: Artwork by Meg Hess.

            •The 1862 Civil War battle at Antietam, near Sharpsburg, Md., led to over 22,000 casualties in a single day. Union General Tecumseh Sherman’s 1964 “March to the Sea” from Atlanta to Savannah, Ga., burning everything in its path, is considered by many historians the modern precedent to “scorched earth” tactics allowing the targeting of civilian in flagrant violation of anything resembling “just war” theory.

            •The designation of Orlando as “worst” completely omits that part of U.S. mass killings of civilians perpetuated outside U.S. borders. On the night of 9-10 March 1945, the military's Operation Meetinghouse, intentionally targeting the civilian population in Tokyo, killed upwards of 100,000, the deadliest bombing raid in history—nearly as many as the subsequent atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

            •It’s unlikely we’ll ever know the number of “war on terror” prisoners killed or maimed at Guantanamo prison and some 50 other secret “black” sites scattered across an estimated 28 countries. Just last month the CIA’s inspector general says it “mistakenly” destroyed its sole copy of the 6,700-page report from 2012 on tortured prisoners.

            •In the U.S. targeted assassination program using pilotless drones, one study estimates that 90% of the fatalities in Afghanistan were civilians. Another, that an estimated 1,147 were killed in strikes targeting 41 suspected militants. This, despite President Obama’s pledge that no strikes occur unless there is “near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured.” Just a month ago Chaplain 1st Lt. Chris Antal resigned his commission in protest over drone warfare carnage.

            These episodes, too, are part of “U.S. history.”

            You will (accurately) protest that several of the examples above were not limited to single-occasional events. I list them not to win an argument but to illustrate the fire-sale price put on human life when fear and hubris ignite in the bloody conflagration known as terrorism and hate crimes, inspired by one or another narrative of redemptive purpose.

            The purpose of terrorism is not killing. The purpose is instilling fear, to intimidate enemies and cower populations, for the purpose of political and economic advantage. Can you think of a better description of the role of nuclear weapons?

 

Hate crime? Terrorism? (poTAto, poTAHto)

            One of the public accounting tugs-of-war (still unfolding) in reporting and responding to the Orlando massacre is whether terrorism or homophobia was Omar Mateen’s principal motivation. Our nation’s political fracture was highlighted in the responses of political leaders, almost all Republicans naming the former, most Democrats the latter.

            This differentiation in our speech—hate vs. terror—is one of the ways our language allows us to prioritize harm, assigning greater or lesser degrees of menace. Hate crimes are mostly what we do to ourselves; terrorism is what outsiders do to us. In our national narrative, the latter is by far considered more threatening.

            •More than 30,000 die each year in traffic accidents. When was the last time, before going to the grocery, you thought to yourself, “I wonder if it’s worth the risk?”

            •The average daily rate of gun deaths in the U.S. is nearly twice the body bag count from the Pulse nightclub. No other country in the world comes near our nation’s per capita gun ownership rate—which currently is about one for every man, woman and child, even though the per household gun ownership rate has dropped dramatically in the last generation. If you define a “mass shooting” as involving four or more casualties in a single event, we now average more than one per day in the U.S.

            But Congress continues to insist there’s nothing we can do.

            I suggest this is because “faith and freedom,” hallowed words in our history, have been hijacked, emptied of their meanings, and put into service of an imperial presence in the world.

            A week ago, at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference in Washington, D.C., Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) encouraged participants to pray for President Obama in a particular way, “like Psalm 109:8 says, ‘Let his days be few.’” It was a thinly-veiled death wish (if not an actual threat), since the following verse reads “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.”

            Why the Secret Service did not interrogate him, or put him on a “watch” list, is testimony to the hysterical season we are in. No problem, though—we can handle homegrown hysteria.

 

Preparing for the “long war”

            The distinction we make between hate crimes and terrorism is fatuous. The FBI’s own definition of terrorism has two principal clauses: violence that attempts to (1) intimidate or coerce civilian populations and/or (2) influences government policy. Hate crimes, by their name, attempt one or both of these clauses.

            •On average in the U.S., every two minutes a woman is assaulted by a man. How is this not a form of terrorism? Can you honestly say that the Orlando queer community does not feel terrorized?

            •In 2015 more toddlers killed Americans than terrorists.

            •There has yet to be an instance where a transgendered person sexually assaulted someone in a bathroom.

            I did not know until minutes ago that “long war” is a “partial conversion mod for the turn-based tactics video game XCOM: Enemy Unknown and its expansion, XCOM: Enemy Within.” I confess I do not know what the previous sentence means. I was looking for a citation for something else.

            Every four years the Pentagon releases its Quadrennial Defense Review. Typically it reviews the past and says, essentially, more of that. But in 2006 the report, with its opening sentence, sounded a more ominous note.

            “The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war."

            We are, in effect, on the threshold of a permanent war footing. This is likely the only thing our two presumptive presidential nominees agree on.

            This leading sentence from a document few citizens read helps explain social media’s continuing descent into puerile trivia, on the one hand, and anonymous venom on the other. It helps explain television and movie absorption with dystopian melodramas marked by nonstop shoot-em-up special effects. We have a constantly-evolving cast of elusive targets, constantly threatening to slip by security screenings, so terrifying they are referenced as the “undead.”

            Today, there was yet another moment of silence in the House of Representatives, by now a familiar tradition after mass murders in places where mass media has easy access. House Speaker Ryan, a devoted Roman Catholic, crossed himself. Silence in my own spiritual tradition is preparation for the Spirit's storm pushing me to risky places where I might not otherwise want to go. In this case, though, it was more like the House saying, "Don't look at us—we got nothing."

            A spontaneous prayer which—oddly, for a deep-water baptist—I’ve come to love, broke from my lips.

            “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

            And also with you. To meet this day will require the fearless presence of all who live in full awareness that death does not have the last word.

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©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  10 June 2016  •  No. 76

Special edition
Sexual assault

        There is no subtle way to have a conversation about sexual assault and rape. Nevertheless, we must endure the discomfort.
        If you can read no further on this page, I urge you to read the statement by the Stanford University campus rape victim. She remains anonymous, but she had the moxie to not only write this but also to read this missive (and it is long)—in court and in the presence of her attacker and the case’s presiding judge.
        This is a modern-day epistle, a dispatch from the traumatized trenches of gender bias. See “Make a new name” below.

Above: “Heart of the Dragon” by Beth Moon. These remarkable trees grow on the island of Socotra, off the horn of Africa. See more of her duotone prints of exotic trees.

Processional. “Till it Happens to You,” Lady Gaga.

Invocation. “I was tortured in the desert / I was raped out on the plain / I was murdered by the high way / And my cries went up in vain / My blood is on the mountain / My blood is on the sand / My blood runs in the river / That now washes through their hands / I am lost unto this world.” —Emmylou Harris, “Lost Unto This World”

Call to worship. “Men: Our hearts sag with sorrow when the history of such misery is unveiled. / Women: Such truthfulness comes at a cost. But worthy is the truth. / M: What good can come from such vile remembrance? Can we not safely and silently dispose of such memory? / W: No, not safely. Heaven still hears. The roots are deep. The seeds are dormant. The brutal harvest continues.” —continue reading “Limb by limb: Repenting and repairing a legacy of violence against women,” a litany for worship

Make a new name. “What makes this particular moment uncommon is the action of one character: the victim of Brock Turner’s rape, whose name is still not publicly known but who has been anything but silent.
        “Her letter, read in court at Turner’s sentencing, is one of the most articulate pain-soaked statements I have ever read. The sheer fact that she rose above her trauma to say anything publicly is amazing by itself.
        “But her letter is not only about pain. There is an anguish-transcending majesty in her narrative.
        “What she says is must-read material.”  —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Make a new name: One unnamed woman’s contribution to confronting a culture of rape”

Hymn of praise. “All My Tears (Be Washed Away),” by Selah.

Sexual assault in the US.

        •Sexual assault occurs every two minutes.

        •1 out of 6 females will be victims of attempted or actual rape. (3% of men experience the same.)

        •Well over 60,000 children are victimized each year.

        •Each year nearly 20,000 military personnel reported unwanted sexual contact.

        •More than 80,000 inmates are assaulted.

        •It’s estimated that some 20% of women in college suffer some form of sexual assault.

        •Rape has been an intentional war tactic in places from the former Yugoslavia to the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Afghanistan, women who are raped are imprisoned.

        •It’s impossible to say accurately how many assaults are not reported. The estimate is usually around 67%. But the US Department of Justice estimates that 80% of campus rapes go unreported.

        • In 97% of sexual assaults the perpetrators never serve time in prison.

        •Approximately two-thirds of rapes occur by someone known to the victim.

        •Males and females experience sexual assault—but not alike. The overwhelming percentage of victimizers are men.

        •Many sexual assault victims remain silent because of many, often overlapping reasons: trauma, shame, fear of retaliation, disbelief by authorities.

        •In 2012 Richard Mourdock, the Republican candidate in Indiana for the US Senate, said in a debate that pregnancy after a rape was “something that God intended to happen.” (Later he issued a press statement saying that he had “misspoken.”)

        [Sources: RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network); US Department of Justice, “Raising Awareness About Sexual Abuse: Facts and Statistics” ; US Department of Justice, “Rape and Assault Among College-age Females, 1995-2013]

Right: “Gaia” by Angela Yarber,  from her book, “Holy Women Icons.”

A note to pastors. Judges 19:1-30 does not appear in the lectionary cycle. Chances are you’ve never chosen this text even when you left the lectionary reservation. I’m not at all sure children should be exposed to this story. It’s likely this is the most brutal in all of scripture. But it’s one we simply must confront.

Mission idea for groups of men. If your congregation doesn’t already have ties with a local women’s advocacy organization—attending to and/or sheltering victims of domestic violence—make this a priority. At some appropriate season (e.g., October is Domestic Violence Month), organize the men in your church to pool personal contributions to support this work in your area, challenging your local congregation to match from its mission budget an amount equal to what you as men are able to raise.

For more information on Domestic Violence Month, visit the National Network to End Domestic Violence” website.

The best book I know surveying neglected or undervalued stories of women in scripture is Joyce Hollyday’s Clothed With the Sun: Biblical Women, Social Justice & Us. This is an excellent resource for group study or personal devotional reading (particularly if you prefer devotional material that is more substance, less sentiment).

Language matters.

        •“El Shaddai” is one of several “names” given to God in Scripture. El Shaddai is a feminine noun, which can be translated “God of the breast,” conveying the quality of nourishing, satisfying and supplying needs. It is used seven times in Scripture (see Genesis 17:1).

        •The English translation of “El Shaddai” as “God Almighty” is misleading, because “almighty” suggests omnipotence, the capacity to overpower or destroy. Whereas “Shaddai” infers sufficiency and nourishment (i.e., “blessings of the breasts and of the womb”) and implies a certain fecudity.

        •In Hebrew the words for “compassion” and “womb” derive from the same root. God of compassion (Exodus 33:19 and 34:6) use the Hebrew word “rehem” which can be translated “womb-love.”

        •Also in Hebrew, the divine presence (“Shekhinah”) of God is feminine.

Feminine images of God.

        •The Creator God of Israel is also imaged as the shaper, maker and mother God who formed Israel in the womb and birthed Israel with labor pains: Deut 32:18; Ps 90:2; Prov 8:24-25; Isa 43:1,7,15; 44:2, 24; 45:9, 11; 51:13; 54:5.

        • From the word “womb” (rehem) comes the verb “to have compassion” (raham), and the phrase “Yahweh’s compassionate (rahum) and gracious” repeatedly appears in the Hebrew scripture to describe the merciful and saving acts of God in history.

Right: “Divine Wisdom” by Shiloh Sophia McCloud.

        •Deut 4:31; 2 Chr 30:9;  Neh 9:17; Ps 78:38; 86:16; 103:8; 111:4; 112:4; 145:8; John 4:7 – images of God who demonstrates “womb-like compassion” for her child Israel.

        • Num 11:12 – “Was it I who conceived all this people, was it I who gave them birth that you should say to me, carry them in your bosom like a nurse with a baby at the breast?”

        •Prov 7-9 –“Wisdom” (“Sophia”) who was present before the foundations of the world were created

        • John 7: 38 – From his breast shall flow the fountains of living water

        • Gen 1:2 – nesting mother

        • Ex 19:4 & Deut 32 :1-12 –  mother eagle

        • Hos 13: 8 – “I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs.”

        • Ps 17:8, 36:7, 57:1, 61:4 – Refuge in “the shadow of [God’s] wings”

        • Job 38:28-29 –  “Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?”

        • Luke 15:8 – A woman tirelessly sweeping for her lost coin, for what is important to her

        • Luke 13: 34 (Matt 23:37) – “How often I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings”

        • Gen 2:7, Ps 104: 29; John 3:8 – “Ruah” presence gives life; feminine Hebrew word meaning breath, wind, inspiration or spirit

        • Gen 3:21 – seamstress

        • Isa 4:4, Ps 51:7 – washerwoman

        • Ps 22:9 – 11, Ps 71:6; Isa 66:9 – midwife

        • Matt 13:33 – woman baking bread

        • 1 Thess 2:7 – The apostles described themselves as “nursing mothers”

(Much of the above material was drawn from “’Biblical proofs’ for the Feminine Face of God in Scripture,” Mike Morrell )

Left: Illustration of the woman of the Apocalypse in Hortus deliciarum (redrawing of an illustration dated c. 1180), depicting various events from the narrative in Revelations 12 in a single image.

¶ “In the divine economy it is not the feminine person who remains hidden and at home. She is God in the world, moving, stirring up, revealing, interceding. It is she who calls out, sanctifies, and animates the church. Hers is the water of the one baptism. The debt of sin is wiped away by her. She is the life-giver who raises men [sic] from the dead with the life of the coming age. Jesus himself left the earth so that she, the intercessor, might come.” — Jay G. Williams, “Yahweh, Women and the Trinity,” Theology Today 32 (1975) 240.

¶ “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

¶ “You, beloved daughters, serve as reminders / that life cannot be had on the cheap; / that every new future foreseen in joy / will endure all tearful failures; that strength / of hand and valiance of heart must be / coupled with wombish welcome to that / unnameable (and thus unmanageable) / Promise that death’s ascendance will / be crushed. / Such vision persists; such milk flows; / and by it we are kept from perishing.” —Ken Sehested, “On the flow of tears”

Can’t make this sh*t up. “[T]he church must recover biblical manhood, Christian masculinity — what we might think of sanctified testosterone.” —Jason Allen, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Mo., Baptist News Global

Confession. “She hides her shame / Like she hides her face / Locks away the pain / In the secret place.” —Zoë Bestel, “Just Another Girl” (click the “show more” button to see all the lyrics)

Words of assurance. “All the weary mothers of the earth will finally rest; / We will take their babies in our arms, and do our best. / When the sun is low upon the field, / To love and music they will yield, / And the weary mothers of the earth will rest.” —Joan Baez, “All the Weary Mothers of the Earth”

Hymn of intercession. “Her Demon,” Hollow Hearts & Infectious ft: Callie Kathleen.

Right: Ricardo Levins Morales, ©RLM Art Studio

Preach it. “The Bible may be the original ‘reality’ show. The mess we now get on TV is there in this ancient literature. If you happen to think the Bible is loaded with uniformly nice, sweet, godly characters, you haven’t done much reading. Misogyny, among other morally-debased activities, is all over the place. I happen to think just such a body of literature is what helps us see and resist the violent and profligate culture in which we now live.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “She was not: The Bible’s most vividly violent story, and why we must read and remember it”

Call to the table. “Only those with wombs of welcome / to heaven's Annunciation / can magnify God and heal the earth.” —Ken Sehested, “Anunciation”

Altar call. “I Told Jesus (be alright if he changed my name),” Roberta Flack.

Benediction. “When wounds heal on the world’s face / and in the pits dug by shellfire we have planted trees / and in hearts scorched by conflagration hope sprouts its first buds / and the dead can turn over on their side and sleep without complaining / knowing their blood was not spilled in vain, / this is peace.  —Yannis Ritsos, “Peace”

Recessional. “The Parting Glass,” The Wailin’ Jennys.

Lectionary for Sunday next. We love to quote the first verse of Psalm 42: “As a deer longs for flowing water, so my soul longs for you, O God.” We often fail to note that it is connected with verse 3: “My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, ‘Where is your God?’”

Just for fun (and in time for summer). “Long Hot Summer Days,” Sara Watkins.

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “Make a new name: One unnamed woman’s contribution to confronting a culture of rape"

• “Limb by Limb: Repenting and repairing a legacy of violence against women"

• “She was not: The Bible’s most vividly brutal story, and why we must read and remember it,” a sermon

• “Remembering Jephthah’s Daughter,” a litany for worship inspired by Judges 11:29-40

©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. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.

She was not

The Bible’s most vividly brutal story, and why we must read and remember it

by Ken Sehested
Circle of Mercy Congregation
Text: Judges 19:1-30

      There have been two special occasions in my life when I have become agonizingly aware of the special fear women feel over the threat of sexual assault.

      The first happened when Nancy and I were counting the days before our 1973 wedding. Every couple weeks she came in from where she went to school in New Jersey to meet me in a chaplain’s office in New York City. We were doing a series of premarital counseling sessions.

      She was late that evening, and I was feeling a mixture of irritation and concern. When she finally arrived, her face—paler than ever—still bore the marks of terror. She had stopped along the highway to check what she thought might be a bad tire. And a stranger had assaulted her.

      She was lucky to get away without physical harm. But the psychic wound was deep. It’s hard—maybe impossible—for men to fully appreciate this kind of trauma unless it happens up close and personal, to someone you love as much as life itself.

      To get inside such an experience, we men have to have our hearts directed in intimate ways.

      My second such experience was more public than personal. In 1992 I was part of a group of Jews, Christians and Muslims visiting the war-torn Balkan region of southeast Europe, to the country formally known as Yugoslavia. War had previously broken out in the Slovenian and Croatian regions which were now declaring independence from Yugoslavia’s federated republic. Most of the shooting war now centered in Bosnia and Herzegovina, an ancient culture whose lands once formed the western boundary of the former Turkish Empire. Because of this, many Bosnians were Muslims. But many others were of Serbian ancestry, a culture dominated by one of the eastern Orthodox traditions of Christianity. Although their cultures had lived in relative harmony for many years, deep rivalries stretched back to the history of the Crusades a full millennium ago.

      The Franciscan Abbott of Croatia had invited the Fellowship of Reconciliation here to bring a group to his cathedral church in Zagreb to lead an interfaith service to unequivocally declare that God was neither a sponsor of nor a partisan for any side in this war.

      I was ill prepared for the testimonies of numerous Bosnian Muslim refugees and countless aid and human rights workers. Time after time we heard the confirmed stories of Serbian militias raping Bosnian women and then putting them on a bus for transport to Croatia, each with a hand-painted sign reading, “Here comes another busload of little Chetniks,” the nickname Bosnian Serb militias.

      Rape has always been part of the culture of warfare—by every side and in the service to every cause. (And I don’t mean to imply that Serbs committed all the atrocities of that conflict.) Apparently, though, this was the first time in history when rape of women by men became an intentional battle tactic.

      I came home from that trip very nearly stunned into speechlessness. Who can fathom such brutality?

      This same question comes to mind after hearing the earlier story from the book of Judges. I suspect many of you are hearing it for the first time. The narrative is monstrous, quite possibly the most visually brutal story in all the Bible.

      We could easily spend a week with this one chapter. Though it’s not easy to pick up in a first reading, the characters, plots and subplots, coded language and highly dramatized narratives are as elaborate as they are concise. You have to know some history and other biblical literature to catch all the nuances. The original author, the later editor, and the even-later compiler of this material all had interpretive points to make.

      And that doesn’t even get us to the question of why this violent and obscene material is in our Holy Book in the first place. To that question I will simply say: The Bible may be the original “reality” show. The mess we now get on TV is there in this ancient literature. If you happen to think the Bible is loaded with uniformly nice, sweet, “godly” characters, you haven’t done much reading. Misogyny, among other morally-debased activities, is all over the place. We’ll have to leave these large scale interpretive questions to a later time. Suffice it to say, I happen to think just such a body of literature is what helps us see and resist the violent and profligate culture in which we now live.

      Of course there are differences between now and then. Which is why this material requires some work if we are to comprehend and learn from it. But there are also profound points of convergence between this text and our context.

      Oddly enough, the central character in this story is one that remains nameless and never speaks. Her identity is always subsumed in collective references that include the accompanying servant and two donkeys. She is a concubine, something like we would think of as a mistress; only she is not “kept” in luxury. Her social status is actually less than that of the servant. Her owner is a Levite, a member of the professional religious class in ancient Israel. And there is no scandalous inference to his ownership of her. Just as today, generally speaking, there is no special significance assigned the scandalous rate of domestic abuse against women in our supposedly enlightened and advanced culture.

      Let me point out just a few of the points to consider.

      The first significant clue comes in the very first line of the story, where it says, “In those days, there was no king in Israel.” Calling attention to this fact is not an argument for monarchy, but simply an indication that the structures of public justice had collapsed. The text is implicitly tied to a related fact mentioned in the chapters surrounding this story, where this line is repeated: “every man did what was right in his own eyes.” This opening line is a clue about how we are to interpret what comes next.

      The second line of the narrative mentions what for the original audience was a startling turn of events. It’s something we pass over without noticing. The story says the unnamed woman fled her master’s house. A revolt is underway, and it is centered around a nameless nobody.

      Of course, the revolt is quickly quashed. Everyone in this Circle knows what it’s like to be involved in quashed revolts—revolts in our everyday lives against dehumanizing behavior in our neighborhoods and workplaces, in the formation of local economic policies, state and national funding priorities, political corruption and graft, even within the institutions we love and support . . . sometimes even into the church itself. People who are still grasped by a different vision—of affordable health care, of educational institutions devoted to genuine learning rather than propaganda and cultural assimilation, of genuinely equal opportunities for both women and men—we get beat down and quashed so often that we begin to think we’re crazy.

      One of the reasons worship is so central to our lives is because this is the place and time we get together to remind ourselves that we’re not crazy. That a different world is not only possible but is promised. Which is why one of the Bible’s most persistent themes is: don’t give up, stand firm, persevere, don’t be afraid. Part of our calling involves a kind of revolutionary patience (Dorothee Sölle).

      I don’t need to repeat the callously brutal facts of the rest of the story: of whole communities committed to rape; of men protecting their own status and safety by sacrificing the lives of women. In her book, Texts of Terror, Phyllis Trible offers this commentary:

      “Of all the characters in Scripture, she is the least. Appearing at the beginning and close of a story that rapes her, she is alone in a world of men. Neither the other characters nor the narrator recognizes her humanity. She is property, object, tool, and literary device. Without name, speech, or power, she has no friends to aid her in life or mourn her in death. Passing her back and forth among themselves, the men of Israel have obliterated her totally. Captured, betrayed, raped, tortured, murdered, dismembered and scattered—this woman is the most sinned against.” (pp. 80-81)

      The story closes, with the woman’s dismemberment and the scattering of her body parts to the far reaches of the land, the text’s final words are instruction for the whole population to hear and heed:

      “Has such a thing ever happened since the day that the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt? Consider it, take counsel, and speak out.”

      But as Trible reminds us, even the best English translations cannot do justice to the original Hebrew, where all of the verbal forms and the object in this statement are written in feminine gender. Literally, if awkwardly, translated it becomes “And all who saw Her said, ‘SHE was not, and SHE was not seen such as this from the day that the people came up out of the land of Egypt.’” In other words, the unnamed woman, the one with no status and object of unspeakable terror, is at the center of this story demanding our attention.

      The narrative closes with three imperatives: “Consider this, take counsel, and speak.” But again, the original is so much stronger: The first comment is not a suggestion; it is an imperative. And it’s not just “consider this” or “think about this.” It’s more like: “Direct your heart.” It is a NOW HEAR THIS! And not just in general, but “to her,” to this abused woman. God’s interest is tied up in, is synonymous with, the interests of this woman. Then, “take counsel,” let this horrible story instruct you. And finally, “speak.”

      The silence must end, sisters and brothers—but here especially I am speaking to my brothers. To find the wherewithal to do this, our hearts must be directed to the stories of forgotten and unnamed sisters. They have names, and we must learn them. They have histories and we must tell them. In the end, we must nurture a vision where our security and theirs are bound up together.

      Lord, hear our prayer. May it be so.

#  #  #

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Make a new name

One unnamed woman's contribution to confronting a culture of rape

by Ken Sehested

        By now you know about the judicial lenience given by California Judge Aaron Persky to Stanford student Brock Turner for raping an unconscious woman at a campus party. You may also know about the absolutely clueless letter read to the judge by the student’s father.

        And you were probably shocked to learn that a Vanderbilt University athlete, convicted of the same crime under similar circumstances, is facing 15-25 years behind bars. Turner got 6 months. One of the two is African American, the other white.

        These events are but the latest in a string of similar assault cases, like the recent one involving Baylor University football players, which brought down the school’s president and head coach. Notre Dame University was among the universities profiled in “The Hunting Ground,” a 2015 documentary examining rape on college campuses.

        Then there are multiple National Football League players now facing some degree of accountability from the courts and the League office. Not to mention the protracted saga of comedian Bill Cosby’s accusers, a beleaguered cast which now number in the dozens.

        Patriarchy’s legacy spans political allegiance. People of my generation still flinch at the memory of civil rights icon Stokely Carmachael's quip that “The position of women in SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) is prone.”

        What makes this particular moment uncommon is the action of one character: the victim of Brock Turner’s rape, whose name is still not publicly known but who has been anything but silent.

        Her letter, read in court at Turner’s sentencing, is one of the most articulate pain-soaked statements I have ever read. The sheer fact that she rose above her trauma to say anything publicly is amazing by itself. She remains anonymous, but she had the moxie to not only write this but also to read this missive (and it is long)—in court and in the presence of her attacker and the case’s presiding judge.

        This is a modern-day epistle, a dispatch from the traumatized trenches of gender bias.

        But her letter is not only about pain. There is an anguish-transcending majesty in her narrative.

        What she says is must-read material.

        It’s not fun reading. But it is essential reading.

        If not right now, make a pledge to yourself to read her letter sometime in the next 24 hours. Skip the morning paper or your favorite electronic news wire or Facebook scroll. Skip your daily Bible reading and/or you prayer/meditation time if need be.

        Skip a meal, get up early, go to bed late, if your schedule is that tight. Just do it.

        If you have children above the age of accountability, require them to read it—and talk with you about it. Maybe call a family meeting to discuss it. Ask your Sunday school class to read and discuss it, or your civic club, or your deacon board or church staff meeting or your pastors’ fellowship.

        This tragedy creates an opening to lift the curtain on a shockingly common form of violence which has been covered up or overlooked or excused almost forever.

        Rape is a form of terrorism. It’s obsessing goal is not genital contact—it is about domination. It is a kind of eroticized violence rooted in millennia of gender tyranny. There is a word for it—misogyny—naming a pattern of contempt for and ingrained prejudice against women by men. The fact that males also suffer sexual assault does not balance out the preponderance of statistical facts documenting male suppression of women’s lives.

        The long road to mutuality must include fathers telling sons, “Her body, her rules.”

        Surely—and I believe this firmly—Brock Turner needs to be required to enter some kind of restorative justice process, one that might lead to genuine repentance (regardless of how long he stays in prison); and he needs to be accountable not only to the criminal justice system but also to the woman he assaulted (or to her appointed representative). This process, including professional counseling, should take time, months at least, maybe years.

        If the only thing that happens to Mr. Turner is inflicting the pain of punishment, he will likely, eventually, vomit out that pain on others, thereby perpetuating the cycle of violence.

        One breathtaking part of this one woman’s letter is just this sort of recognition.

            “Your life is not over, you have decades of years ahead to rewrite your story. . . .  I challenge you to make a new name for yourself, to do something so good for the world. You have a brain and a voice and a heart. Use them wisely. You possess immense love from your family. That alone can pull you out of anything. . . .

        “I hope you will become a better, more honest person who can properly use this story to prevent another story like this from ever happening again. I fully support your journey to healing, to rebuilding your life, because that is the only way you'll begin to help others.”

        “In memory of her” is the phrase Jesus uses at the close of the story (Matthew 26) about the unnamed woman in Bethany who anointed his feet with oil. Another unnamed woman may be doing something as memorable in our time.

        We all long for new names.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Remembering Jephthah’s Daughter

A litany for worship, inspired by Judges 11:29-40

by Ken Sehested

Today’s text is the brutal story of the mighty warrior, Jephthah, whose bloody victory entails the sacrifice of his only child, a daughter, whose name is lost to history.  Hear now and testify your resolve to Heaven’s intent:

Oh you, dear unnamed daughter, pawn of warrior’s reckless vow,

You whose life was bound, requiting bloody vic’try, ancient row,

You whose memory linked forever to a father’s scur’lous name,

By whose spirit, for whose honor, consumed in sacrificial flame.

      O you among the living, will you remember me at all
?

      Will you write my name out with a single finger scrawl

      Across a broken window, in some long forgotten wall,

      That goes stretching out forever where the tears of heaven fall
?

      Can I get no witness, this unholy tale to tell?

      Was God alone there watching, crying, weeping as I fell?

Yes, God was there weeping, bidding me to do the same,

Bidding me to intervene by the power of Mercy’s reign.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

The words in italics are lyrics from Emmylou Harris' song, "Lost Unto This World"

 

—Ken Sehested, inspired by Judges 11:29-40, using lyrics (in italics) from “Lost Unto This World,” by Emmylou Harris and Daniel Roland Lanois

 

 

Limb by limb

Repenting and repairing a legacy of violence against women

by Ken Sehested

Men: Our hearts sag with sorrow when the history of such misery is unveiled.

Women: Such truthfulness comes at a cost. But worthy is the truth.

M: What good can come from such vile remembrance? Can we not safely and silently dispose of such memory?

W: No, not safely. Heaven still hears. The roots are deep. The seeds are dormant. The brutal harvest continues.

M: How then can we live with such terrible knowledge?

W: We can live because the truth unknots the cords of enmity. But first, a NO has to be spoken with clarity, a renunciation has to be made, before a YES can be asserted, before an affirmation can be announced.

M: Then let us proceed. Will you walk with us?

W: Yes, we will walk with you.

M: With the encouragement of you, our sisters, we renounce the habits of tyranny and intimidation. And we shall instruct our sons to also renounce.

W: With the encouragement of you, our brothers, we renounce any silence and complicity. And we shall instruct our daughters to undertake such risky speech.

All: Breath of Providence, Breast of Provision, be near us in the midst of terror which assaults the bond between male and female, jointly created in the image of Holy Intent.

Strengthen and sustain the work of Helpmate*. Fortify their voice. Steel their courage in the face of resistance. Enlarge their merciful embrace of all whose lives are battered and bruised and broken.

Beloved, bear witness to these promises. Confirm our repentance. Grant bold resolve from hearts humbled by Your caress. As we are endeared to You, so make us endearing to each other. Limb by limb may the healing begin, in us according to your mercy.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org,

Written for use in a special worship service dealing with domestic violence. Sermon text for the day: Judges 19, the story of the torture and murder of the unnamed concubine. *Helpmate is the name of the local shelter for women and their children.

Steal away

A litany for worship

by Ken Sehested

Introduction: To “steal away to Jesus” is not submission to injustice or passivity in the face of evil. Rather, it represents a strategic retreat to gather the weapons of the Spirit needed to reengage enemies in ways they fail to fathom and ultimately cannot thwart. Enemies are destroyed, by and by, when enmity itself is swallowed in death.

§  §  §

One: When the apostles were gathered, exuberant with tales of all they had done, Jesus said: Steal away with me to a quiet place.

       All: Steal away, to the garden’s still harbor.

              ALL SING: Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus.

One: When the Israelites faced the Red Sea in front, Pharaoh’s chariots behind, Moses spoke to the people: Fear not. Stand still. Soon you will see the deliverance of our God!

       All: And the waters parted.

              ALL SING: Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus.

One: “Be still and know,” the Beloved entices, though desolation confound. For every bow shall fracture, every shield abandoned, every warring heart and armed incursion halted, every malice routed by Mercy’s advance.

       All: With the Blessed One on our side, cried the psalmist, I shall not fear! What can mere mortals do to me?

              ALL SING: Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus.

One: Fear not, Jesus said in departure. Be of good cheer, for destiny’s cruel rule is being dismantled.

       All: Steal away home, children! In every midnight’s hour, find the still point’s Center; lay your burdens down; let your breath find its rest; study war no more.

              ALL SING: Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus.

One: Let the quiet unfurl, let the silence commence. Moor yourself to the peace that passes all understanding.

       All: When death itself yields to life’s Invocation, when Heaven’s abundance revives earth’s withered soil, when creatures join in joyful accord, then all tombs cede their dead at the Risen One’s beckon.

              ALL SING: Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus.

#  #  #

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Mark 6:30-33, with phrases from Exodus 14:13; Psalm 46:8-11; Psalm 118:6; John 16:33; Philippians 4:7; and line from “Steal Away to Jesus,” American Negro spiritual by Wallace Willis.

 

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  2 June 2016  •  No. 75

Processional. “Get Right With God,” Lucinda Williams.

Above: Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia

Memorial Day reprise

Special edition of Signs of the Times

Fellow citizens (in the US): We need to talk. Not just about Memorial Day but about an annual holiday calendar that includes no less than 13 days celebrating (directly or indirectly) a militarized history of our nation. (The annotated list is printed below.)

        This past week I’ve written two new short essays dealing with this question. The first is “Memorial Day piety: A meditation on the day’s significance.” The second is “Donald Trump’s favorite Bible verse.” (Part one of a two part series title “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”) The summary paragraphs for both, with links to the full texts, are posted below.

        Ponder these things. I would love to know what you think. Post your comments, questions, and/or challenges on the “reader comments” section at the bottom of this page.

Invocation. “Agnus Dei” (Georges Bizet), performed by Luciana Pavarotti.

Call to worship. “I’ll lay down my Bible / if you’ll lay down your gun / Hear my plea / Hear my plea / Hear my hopes  / For you and me / May we all join hands  / lay down our arms harmonize  / breathe as one  / May we love, love, love, love  / May we love.” —Willie Sugarcapps, “May We Love”

 

First featured essay

"Memorial Day piety: A meditation on the day’s significance"

        My question is not whether we should mourn, legitimately and unreservedly, the loss of our war dead on Memorial Day.

        Yes. A thousand times yes. . . .

        I happen to believe that the failure to love enemies, resulting in the resort to calculated violence, is to hedge your bet on Jesus. Others will argue differently.

        So let’s be very clear about this: The disagreement between proponents of just war and those of principled nonviolence does not include competition for divine affection. God is utterly beyond such partiality, and nothing we can do will tip the scales of beloved attention. No one gets more cookies, seating upgrade or pay-for-play access to seats of power. The contrast in opinion is not a contest over who excels in moral heroism, superior courage, or intellectual rigor. —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Memorial Day piety”

§  §  §

Patriotic holidays. There are 13 officially-sanctioned holidays in the US annual calendar which, directly or indirectly, commemorate a militarized history of the nation.

        This does not include commemoration of the Confederate cause of the Civil War, or the birthdays of one of the Confederate leaders, in 11 Southern states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia) and in Pennsylvania, where the state’s Confederate partisans are remembered. In many of these, actual observance is fading or phased out entirely. For more details, see “Confederate Memorial Day in the United States”

        •Lincoln’s Birthday, celebrating our Civil War president (12 February).

        •[George] Washington’s Birthday (22 February), celebrating the Commanding General of the US Revolutionary War and first US president.

        •Loyalty Day originally began as "Americanization Day" in 1921 as a counter to the Communists' 1 May celebration of the Russian Revolution. (“May Day” celebrations actually go back to the pre-Christian era and continue as a spring festival for many countries in the northern hemisphere.) On May 1, 1930, 10,000 VFW members staged a rally at New York's Union Square to promote patriotism. Through a resolution adopted in 1949, 1 May evolved into Loyalty Day. Observances began in 1950 on April 28 and climaxed 1 May when more than five million people across the nation held rallies. In New York City, more than 100,000 people rallied for America. In 1958 Congress enacted Public Law 529 proclaiming Loyalty Day a permanent fixture on the nation's calendar.

        •Armed Forces Day (third Saturday in May).

        •Memorial Day (last Monday in May).

        •Flag Day (14 June). Prior to the Civil War, the US flag was not popularly displayed but “served mostly as a military ensign or a convenient marking of American territory, flown from forts, embassies, and ships, and displayed on special occasions like American Independence day.” [Adam Goodheart (2011). :Prologue" in 1861: The Civil War Awakening, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group]

        •Independence Day (4 July).

        •Patriot Day (11 September), in remembrance of the terrorist attacks. Established by a joint resolution of Congress, 18 December 2001.

        •Constitution Day (17 September). In 1917, the Sons of the American Revolution formed a committee to promote Constitution Day. A new song, “I Am An American,” was featured at  the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Soon public media picked up on and promoted the theme. On 29 February 1952 Congress moved the "I am an American Day" observation to September 17 and renamed it "Citizenship Day.” Congress changed the name to “Constitution Day” in 2004.

        •National Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Recognition Day, customarily observed on the 3th Friday of September, was established by an act of Congress in 1998.

        •Columbus Day (second Monday in October), marking the start of European colonization of the Americas. Several locales in the US have begun celebrating “Indigenous Peoples Day” (though the event does not replace Columbus Day in places where Columbus Day is a state holiday). These include the state of South Dakota, Berkeley, Ca., Sandoval County and Albuquerque, N.M., Anadarko, Okla., Multnomah County and Portland, Ore., Erie County, N.Y., Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., and Olympia and Seattle and Bellingham, Wash., Lawrence, Kan.,

        •National Boss Day (16 October). Just kidding.

        •Veterans Day (11 November).

        •Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (7 December).

 

Second featured essay

"Donald Trump’s favorite Bible verse"

        Let’s be honest. Jesus’ command to “love your enemies” is likely the New Testament’s most memorable yet most effectively ignored directive.

        US presidential candidate Donald Trump hints at the disconnect in a recent interview.

        When asked on a radio talk show to name his favorite Bible verse or story that “informed” his thinking or character, Trump’s response was (and this is verbatim):

        “Well, I think many. I mean, when we get into the Bible, I think many, so many. And some people, look, an eye for an eye, you can almost say that.” (Notice his characteristic way of saying something without quite saying it.)

        He continued, “That’s not a particularly nice thing.”

        “Not nice”? You mean there’s something “not nice” in the Bible? When asked to pick a text that informed his thinking, why go to the “not nice” part? One that Jesus contradicted? Why not mention a “nice” verse or two. —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Donald Trump’s favorite Bible verse,” part 1 of a two part essay titled “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” 

§  §  §

Hymn of praise. Paraguay's landfill orchestra plays instruments made from recycled rubbish.

The Spirit’s intercession for the world. “Because I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know,” Amy Winehouse.

Confession. “Father Forgive Us,” Armenian hymn.

Words of assurance. “Agnus Dei – Gregorian Chant,” Monastic Choir of the Abbey of Notre Dame de Fontgombault.

Hymn of intercession. “Who said that everything's lost? / I'm here to offer my heart, / So much blood carried away by the river, / I'm here to offer my heart.” —First verse in English translation of “Yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón,” Mercedes Sosa

Preach it. “No one should dispute the valor of soldiers and sailors and airmen and women, and I certainly don’t. In fact, I’m envious, envious over the fact that we have institutions capable of calling forth the willingness to go into harm’s way for reasons beyond self-preservation. Once upon a time, the church offered a similarly compelling story, inspiring similar levels of commitment.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s Memorial Day sermon, “How long will you sit on the fence?”

Call to the table. “Adagio for Strings,” with scenes from the movie “Platoon.” (7:35)

Altar call. “Many are the hearts that are weary tonight, / Wishing for the war to cease; / Many are the hearts looking for the right / To see the dawn of peace.” —refrain from “Tenting Tonight,” a Civil War era song by Walter Kittredge performed by Tom Roush

Benediction. “Into your hands we commend ourselves and those we love. Be with us still, and when we take our rest, renew us for the service of your Son Jesus Christ.” —New Zealand Prayer Book

Recessional. “Eternal Father, strong to save, / Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,  / Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep / Its own appointed limits keep; / Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, / For those in peril on the sea! —“Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” (aka “The Navy Hymn"), performed by the US Navy Band Sea Chanters

Lectionary for Sunday next. “Those to whom little is forgiven, love little.” —Luke 7:47

Just for fun. Listen to the a cappella music group Cantus’ rendition of Curtis Mayfield’s hit song, “It’s All Right”

#  #  #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “Memorial Day piety,” a meditation on the function of Memorial Day

• “Donald Trump’s favorite Bible verse,” part 1 of a two part essay titled “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” 

• “Agnus Dei (Lamb of God),” a poem

• “How long will you sit on the fence?” a Memorial Day sermon

Recently featured

• “Memorial Day: A summary history: Why being for peace is not enough”

• “Trans-formation: Controversy over the boundary of God’s welcome continues”

• “Public reasoning and ekklesial reckoning: Commentary on the Vatican conference calling for ‘spirituality and practice of active nonviolence’ to displace church focus on just war"

©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. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi

Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world (John 1:29)

by Ken Sehested

Does the Lamb of God truly take away
the sins of the world? The question is
more than a forensic exercise. The
question brings us to a momentous
fork in the road.

§ If so, then how can we who affirm this
conviction fail to live into its consequences—
promised though not yet prospered—of
withdrawing from and standing against
the logic of retaliation and every
bloodletting endeavor. It is not
                JUST WAR.
                    It is
                 just war.

§ If so, are we not under the mandate of
Scripture’s repeated caveat against
using evil means to resist evil ends?

§ If not, then infidelity reigns, and all are
free to pursue, without qualm, every
passion that arises in the contention
of each against all; for there can be
no basis, no argument, no code of
conduct demanding respect, since all
such codes are mere show designed to
               justify the mighty
                       in their
       profiteering of the meager.

§ If not, do not mourn, do not regret,
do not repent, do not deprecate
afterwards for the barbarous, feral
character resulting in and enthroned
by each victory over beasts.
Penance after the fact is tomfoolery:
             it does not purchase
                    divine favor,
                        for God
              cannot be bought.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org