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by Ken Sehested

Text: Proverbs 8
Sunday, 6 June 2004
Circle of Mercy Congregation

I think it was last Monday, or maybe Tuesday. Nancy was ready to start putting this Sunday’s service together, and she asked if I had decided on a text and theme.

“Wisdom,” I said. “Proverbs 8.”

“Wisdom?” she asked with a barely-disguised look of incredulity. “You got some, do you?” she replied. (Nancy is one of those people who can sound pleasant when she’s actually being sarcastic.)

“No,” I said, “but maybe if I do a sermon on the topic I’ll discover a little.”

Then I sat down to do some research, and the first insight I came across was this quote from the ancient Greek playwright Sophocles: “Much wisdom often goes with brevity of speech.”

So I immediately thought to myself: “Well, there’s my solution. We’ll read the text from Proverbs; then I’ll get up and quote Sophocles, and say “Here endeth the lesson,” and sit down.

There are times when the most appropriate Sunday sermon should go something like that. But I realized that if I actually played out this scenario, I might leave you thinking that I know something about wisdom.

There have been times when I thought I had some wisdom. But mostly when I was younger and had more hair. What’s that old line from the Bob Dylan song: “I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.”

I’m so much younger now.

“But wait,” I say to myself. “Didn’t I just win an award for a sermon I did? Didn’t they fly me across the country, to preach it to their annual gathering. I know they scheduled me for 8:30 on a Saturday morning; but, hey, they actually gave me a cash prize for the thing. Must be worth something.”

But then my friend J.R., from Indiana, wrote to congratulate me. J.R. often puts the phrase “from that old Mennonite guy in Goshen” in the subject line of his e-mail notes. And he and Nancy must have gone through the same “advanced training in sarcasm” program, cause he said: “Winning a prize for preaching the Gospel must be a real exercise in Christian humility!” Then I had to confront the puzzling fact that it was a group of Baptists—Southern Baptists, in fact—who presented the award. Moreover, it was an award given by the Baptist History and Heritage Society. And we all know how interested Baptists are in history.

The group did look a little shell-shocked when I finished; but listening to sermons on history early on a Saturday morning can do that to anyone. But I am glad that I got my plaque and my check the day before.

So much for wisdom. I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now.

I probably feel less wise at this period in my life than at any other time. The times in which we live appear to me darker, less transparent, with fewer reasons for optimism than any I can recall.

This experience of feeling very unwise doesn’t mean I can’t still spot the presence of foolishness. Here are a few examples from just the past week or so:

•You may have missed the news that MTV declined to air advertisements for Super Size Me, a documentary about a man who eats nothing but McDonald's food for a month, because it was determined that the ads unjustly disparage fast food.

•In his recent speech outlining a 5-point plan for Iraq, President Bush promised to build the country a brand new prison system. (You have to keep in mind that 1 out of every 75 males in the U.S. were in prison last year. Our per capita prison population is greater than any country in the world, including those mean ol’ countries like China and, yes, Iraq under Saddam Hussein.)

• Speaking of Iraq, we just learned that yet another person on the CIA’s payroll will become the new Iraqi prime minister of the Iraqi government on June 30, which is promised full sovereignty even though it won’t have any say over the 130,000 U.S. troops occupying the country. (You have to keep in mind that Saddam Hussein once wrote that he originally came into power “on the coattails of the CIA.”)

•And speaking of American troops: This week the Asheville Citizen-Times editorialized about the need for a thorough public discussion on the need for a military draft, saying that our armed forces are simply overworked and tired. But instead of discussing how we can get a bigger army, shouldn’t we be discussing why the U.S. currently has military bases or related commitments in 131 countries around the world?

•And speaking of foreign military engagements: Former President Ronald Reagan died yesterday. A chorus of commentators praise his legacy, saying he was the one who “made America feel good about itself” again. I’m not sure “feeling good” about ourselves is the way to wisdom, particularly at the behest of one who engineered U.S. sponsorship of several bloody wars in Central America during his presidency, wars which resulted in the deaths of well over a half-million people, and who ran up national debt greater than the cumulative national debts of every previous American president.

Maybe we were all so much older then; and we’re younger than that now.

Tim and Amy’s friend, the Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan, has a good line that describes the way I feel about the times in which we live. He said “It’s like pulling a piano across a plowed field.”

I should hasten to tell you, though, that the general lack-of-wisdom feeling I have is not the same thing as pessimism—or, even worse—cynicism. Cynicism may be the greatest temptation for people like ourselves, who’ve been captured at some point or other with dreams of lions and lambs living together in peace, of new heavens and new earths being born. These hopeful dreams won’t let us go even when we consciously try to shake them off. The prophet Zachariah has a great line about this experience. He talked about being a “prisoner of hope.” In fact, the reason we feel so terrible sometimes is precisely because hope won’t let go of us, even though things seem so desperate, so dark, even though we have so much evidence to support a pessimistic outlook.

There’s nothing the folk who are now seemingly in total control of events want more than for us to become cynical, to give up, to close our eyes and ears to anything but the most immediate and personal concerns. Cynical people are so much easier to control and manipulate. Don’t vote: it doesn’t really matter. Don’t get involved: nothing will change. Don’t take any risks: you’ll only get burned.

For what is cynicism, after all, but an extreme form of self-centeredness and narcissism. So, instead of facing reality, we substitute reality TV.

But there is neither wisdom nor hope in vicarious living.

As blue-collar philosopher Eric Hoffer once wrote: Wisdom bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.

I suspect I’m not alone in this room with my uneasy sense of being less-than-wise, of being not exactly up to the challenges we face, of feeling more than a little overwhelmed by the sometimes-despairing circumstances we encounter.

We all were so much older then; we’re younger than that now.

If wisdom has raised her voice, I must be going deaf; if she’s standing beside the gates, waving to get my attention, I must be preoccupied. If she’s calling out, I must need a hearing aid.

But wait a minute. Wait just one minute. I don’t for a second take back anything I’ve just said. But there’s more to be said.

Just last week a friend wrote to ask me if I’d be willing to write a couple sentences of endorsement for a new book he’s written, one that tells stories of hopeful engagement, stories that are often overlooked or undervalued. I put him off for a long time, fearing that I wouldn’t have anything very convincing to say. But I was finally embarrassed enough to at least sit down and peruse some of his chapters. And when I finished, I found myself typing out the following lines:

In recent days friends in Latin America, Africa and Asia—each of whom face more daily repression than I’ll know in a lifetime—have reminded me of a typically-American luxury. Not big cars, 401-K accounts or other gluttonous habits. But of despair, of a romantic penchant for hopelessness, our woeful nothing-can-be-done whining. It’s what a corrupt political process depends on more than anything else. This book is an antidote to such self-absorption.

And then during the research for this sermon my mind began going around the Circle that gathers here week after week. I began seeing each of your faces. I began thinking

•I think of Tom Burnet’s work of providing ecological stewardship of water resources;

•of Colleen and Amy and Greg Yost’s persistent devotion to raising children with counter-cultural values;

•of Mary Anne’s work in helping people invest their money according to their values.

•I think of Terri and Greg Clemons and Dale and Marc Mullinax and Missy’s passionate work helping students see the world in different ways;

•of Joyce’s collection of the nearly-forgotten  stories of African-American congregations;

•of Sara and Kathleen and Blan and Susan and Tim and Kiran and Tom Preston’s healing ministries, of mind and body, particularly with people who lack adequate access to health care.

•I think of Kim and Stan who, among many other things, bring music to a world reluctant to sing and who will soon be traveling again to Cuba and renewing the protest against our nation’s repressive policies;

•of our prophets-without-porfolio, Louis and Bud and Bill, who may have retired from full-time employment but hardy from active promotion of the things that make for peace;

•of Jim and Kaki, of Linda and Carol’s community-building labors on behalf nonprofit organizations devoted to the common good;

–I think of our students, of Anthony and Sophie and Caitlin, who find unique and creative ways to say no to the conforming habits of peer pressure, and yes to intellectual curiosity; of Rachel’s post-graduate determination to be true to her calling as a disciple of hope rather than simply a consumer of goods and services;

–of Robert and Jerene and Nancy’s pastoral presence with people in prison and in hospitals; of Mark Siler’s work giving shape to an incredibly hopeful cross-racial movement advocating for justice in Asheville;

–of Carolyn and Jean’s social advocacy for those living on the margins.

–I think of Will and Anna, of Leigh and Joy, of Jody and Isabel, of Sam and Bethany, who endure the daily pounding of self-doubt and fearfulness which always accompany the process of growing up.

–And who have I left out? Oh, yes, Chip . . . Chip, who lives with the self-consciousness of being the tallest person in nearly every crowd; Chip, who has the grave misfortune of being a truck driver in a room full of liberal arts graduates. Chip, who, like me, has the misfortune of being the ugliest one at the table when the family gathers for dinner. Chip, who alone is for me the embodiment of this text: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Which reminds me of a button I have at home. It has this seemingly innocuous but actually revolutionary statement: “The meek are getting ready.” So get us ready, Chip. Teach us about inheriting the earth.

THIS IS WHERE I FIND WISDOM. And hope. And faith. And reason enough to keep going despite the frequent temptation to simply sleep in.

It is the wisdom of this Circle which raises its voice, which stands at the gate, which is more precious than choice gold or precious silver.

# # #

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Ken Sehested

We must acknowledge the essential defect in the just war tradition, which is the assumption that violence can
somehow achieve justice. And we must with equal courage acknowledge the essential defect in pacifism,
which is the assumption that justice can somehow be achieved simply by opposing violence.
—Ivan J. Kauffman, “If War is Wrong, What is Right? The New Paradigm”[1]

            Ever since Pope Francis was selected to lead the Holy See three years ago, the Roman Catholic Curia watchers have had a field day with his many uncommon statements and actions. The most recent bustle had US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaking at a Vatican conference on economic inequality, just days after the issuance of Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), a papal exhortation reframing the plight of divorced Catholics and “all those living in any ‘irregular situation.’”

            Almost lost in news coverage was the groundbreaking conference, “Nonviolence and Just Peace: Contributing to the Catholic Understanding of and Commitment to Nonviolence” (11-13 April), jointly co-sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and Pax Christi International, the unofficial global Roman Catholic peace network. What’s at stake—with an unclear outcome—is the Church’s 1,700 year-old “just war” doctrine, traced back to St. Augustine in the 4th century and systematized by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. It outlines precise criteria as to when violence can be morally justified in opposing oppression.

            Opposition to just war thinking isn’t limited to the so-called “peace church” traditions, including the several bodies of Mennonite, Brethren and the Society of Friends (Quakers). There is a long, if thin, tradition of pacifism in Roman Catholic tradition (likewise within Protestantism), not all of which is limited to clerical exemption from military duty. What sets this particular conference apart was its urging the world’s largest unified-leadership religious body—within Vatican walls and with the assent of one Vatican agency—to “no longer use or teach ‘just war’ theory.”

            In his letter welcoming the 80 conferees from across the globe, Pope Francis expressed support for “revitalizing the tools of nonviolence,” particularly given the current global reality he aptly named “world war in installments.” However, he also referenced the church’s teaching of “the right to legitimate defence” should peaceful settlements fail.

 

Reactions in the Catholic press

It keeps the peace. In a dominating, intimidating sort of way.
—Boeing advertisement for its Apache Longbow attack helicopter

            Given the origins of just war theory in Catholic tradition, and its centrality to church social teaching, anxious reaction to the conference’s final document, “An Appeal to the Catholic Church to Re-Commit to the Centrality of Gospel Nonviolence” (hereafter, Appeal), was immediate. “[A]t the end of the day, in this vale of tears, it is hard to imagine the Catholic moral tradition could ever dispense with just war theory,” wrote Michael Sean Winters in The National Catholic Reporter. As with other similar commentaries,[2] Winters concludes pacifism “has little to offer in the way of protecting the innocent.”[3]

            This likely will be the most searing question posed to any with doubts about the sufficiency of just war doctrine. What about Syria? What about slavery? And, as always, what about Hitler? Then there is the popular view of Jesus’ command to love enemies as moral prompt but not for replication; that it is for personal interactions but not for geopolitical relations. Reinhold Niebuhr’s classic book, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics, covers well this common assumption about the nature of things, known as “Christian realism.”[4]

            Its premise is that “people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”[5] Is it any wonder that the growing body of literature attesting the effectiveness of nonviolent struggle still struggles to find a readership?[6]

            When the binary of pacifism versus just war is posed—the choice between suffering violence or afflicting it—the only thing that’s clear is that our language is impoverished, and we have a diminished vision of to Whom we belong as people of the Way of Jesus and to what we are called to do. The challenge before just war objectors is: Can we point to rival, realistic and spiritually-informed political strategies that are alternatives to policies that assume the need for political domination through superior fire-power?

 

Just peace

Praying for peace is a little like praying for a weedless garden.
—John Stoner

            The Appeal’s proposal “that the Catholic Church develop and consider shifting to a Just Peace approach based on Gospel nonviolence” is highly suggestive. It properly emphasizes the proactive over the reactive tense of peacemaking; understands that what Scripture speaks of as shalom is rooted in justice; and calls attention to concrete strategies to preempt war fever knowing that the origins of warfare must be addressed in their underlying and localized causes. And it calls to mind the evocative phrase by Glen Stassen on the need for “transforming initiatives”[7] in the work of reconciliation.

            The currency of “just peace” language in recent years is noteworthy, as is the phrase “building a culture of peace,” the latter suggested first by a group of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, then adopted by both the United Nations and the World Council of Churches, who established a parallel “decade,” beginning in 2001, for “overcoming violence.”[8]

            The dilemma with just peace thinking is that its frame of reference is tilted toward addressing the final blossoming of enmity in open warfare by means of national and international action. For instance, the truly groundbreaking book Just Peacemaking: Ten Practices for Abolishing War,[9] a rigorous, creative effort by twenty-three scholars and edited by Glen Stassen, locates the agencies for change primarily in national and international arenas, thus distancing the levers of influence from the majority of people who want to add the incremental weight of their convictions for a different future.[10] It reinforces the sense that this vital work is best left to elites. If we are to promote a holistic understanding of peacemaking to marshal communities at every level we need a comprehensive analysis of violence, beginning with the capacity for evil of the human tongue[11] all the way up the scale to international war.

            In addition, while the just peace analysis provides an impressive inventory of tactical options, it is less useful as a strategic document in the sense that it does not address (at least not to my satisfaction) the overarching purpose and underlying vision for why, as people of faith, we should expend energy and risk assets in the outrageously ambitious pursuit of an end to the entrenched habit of human malice.

            If we are to mobilize a sufficiently large movement to address the root causes of war, we need an animating vision powerful enough to inspire risky exposure to every arena of human injury, rooted in and attentive to local communities. And we need it said in such a way that nonviolence is understood as the distinguishing mark of the “new creation” (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17) into which our faith is immersing us.

 

Just war legacy

Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.
—the Witches in Shakespeare’s “MacBeth,” Act 1, Scene 1

            In preparation for this article I wrote fifty people—pacifists and just warriors alike, academics-to-activists, who know something about the use of just war theory—asking if they could cite evidence of a potential war averted (or significantly altered) due to the constraints of just war criteria. More than half responded, and not a single one could name a case. What’s more surprising is the number who considered my question a novel one. If the just war matrix is to be an honest broker of policy decisions, surely there must be verifiable metrics.

            Careful thinkers that they are, a number who responded added qualifications to their conclusion: a negative is hard to prove; given the secrecy of deliberations prior to war, there may be still-classified examples of averted war; several affirmed that just war theory has significantly shaped internationally recognized documents like the United Nation’s “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and the Geneva Conventions, war crime tribunals, not to mention military and police training protocols. And as recently as the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Pope John Paul II (among numerous other communion heads) expressly employed just war theory in condemning the attack.

            The U.S. Administration, of course, argued for intervention using the same criteria. The latter fact only underscores what many see as the de facto use of just war theory as makeup hiding the blemishes on the face of war’s countenance.

            To say that war is against the will of God but is also, on occasion, a tragic necessity, is either hypocritical (at best) or deceitful (at worst). It creates a zone of legitimacy for brutal behavior masquerading as service to the common good. It assumes that creation is like a bucolic mansion which, nonetheless, has an unfinished basement where ugly, abominable things may be carried out to preserve the habitable space above. It accepts the notion that there is a space in which the stake of Heaven has no claim and the terms of God’s Reign do not apply. In our distorted imaginations we assume God’s tenure needs a little nudge by means of human enforcement.

 

Beatific vision

For the world has grown full of peril. And in all lands, love is now mingled with grief. . . . The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stay but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true.
— Galadriel, in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

            My argument is not that just war theory be publicly displaced by principled nonviolence. My contention is simultaneously more daring and more modest. Namely, that the Church relinquish its world-governing assumption on the one hand while, on the other, focus attention on its distinctive charism.

            Our sights should be set on the two separate but intersecting realms in which we participate: an understanding that we do engage, without privileged voice, in the province of public reasoning while also attending our ekklesial reckoning.

            No one disputes that not even the most compassionate, courageous and intelligent people, institutions or movements can make things right. Hurts seem to forever find a home in our midst. And our commonwealth duty is to join with all other people of conscience in picking up the pieces, tending wounds, embracing the shell-shocked, drying tears, burying the dead, and devising appropriate walls to segregate harm’s effects. This is the work of public reasoning, a form of discernment which impels and guides public action for the purpose of the reduction of violence. People of faith bear no distinctive markings in such decisions.

            Our distinction comes by way of ekklesial reckoning, from the Greek word ekklesia, which the Apostle Paul used to indicate the early churches’ anatomy; and reckoning, a discernment of identity and orientation. Ekklesial reckoning involves continually being formed and fashioned in the insights and habits of God’s intention in Creation and promise of a new heaven and a new earth, of Heaven’s transforming initiative (“while we were still sinners Christ died for us,” Romans 5:8), an initiative which the Community of the Beloved imitates and enacts in the world. We do so without hubris, as if our calling warrants special favor from the Beloved; but simply because this is who we are (becoming), and this is what we believe God is doing in the world. So doing is not credit to some celestial savings account. This is how we breathe, for we are being steeped in the Breath of the Spirit.

 

“Fools” for Christ

You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you odd.
—alternate rendering of John 8:23, attributed to Flannery O’Connor

            The challenge we face as heralds against assumed realism was keenly cited by Countess Crawly (played by Maggie Smith) on “Downton Abby.” “Hope,” she insisted, “is a tease to keep us from accepting reality.”

            We are not sectarian in the popular sense of the word, separated from “worldliness” in the self-sanctifying attempt at moral purity. We are sectarians—“foolishness” was how Paul often characterized the Gospel announcement (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18-30)—in that we believe another world is not only possible but is in fact on its way—present already in those with open rather than grasping hands—as an era beyond scorched time. We believe the future is more than a projection of the present or replay of the past. We are adventus people, formed by the beatific vision of a future beyond all currently available calculations, one that does not obliterate creatureliness but grows from its compost.

            Years ago I was invited by a denominational leader to speak at a national conference on peacemaking. In her letter of invitation, my friend Carole wrote, “We want you to speak to the question of ‘why should we work for peace when folk just need to get saved?’”

            Knowing her sense of humor, I kept reading to get the real topic. But that was it. Dumbfounded at first, it suddenly occurred to me how insightful her request really was. Other than the few go-to texts on peace and justice in Scripture, our congregations are largely unaware of how saturated all of the Bible is with God’s passion for reconciliation, for the right-relatedness of every part of creation, for shalom in all its rich and varied meanings.

            The unfortunate thing is that our communities are largely unaware of the fact that God is more taken with the agony of the earth than the ecstasy of heaven. As a Christian, if you don’t get the Incarnation, you’re largely clueless about everything else. The fact that the text of John 8:32 is inscribed in marble in the Central Intelligence Agency lobby is indication we have significant recovery work to do.

            Until we effectively communicate that the failure to love enemies is to hedge our bets on Jesus, we will lack the necessary leverage to inspire self-forgetful engagement with the world’s pain. Unless our constituency learns to deprivatize teaching about forgiveness and repentance (spirituality is always personal but never merely private), repurposing them to social realities, these notions are largely mute in a world weary of boorish piety. Not until our catechisms point to joy—rather than moral heroism or gritty endurance—as the center, the substance and the circumference of our secret power, will our mobilizing lead to something other than exhaustion.

           It does not surprise me that a way out of our philosophical sinkhole (otherwise known as the just war versus pacifism debate) would be pioneered by those from the tradition arguing most vigorously for moral assessment of conflictive aims. As the child of pietist-revivalist rearing, it was a Catholic author, years ago, who in a single sentence first alerted me to the demanding work of prayer hitched to the imperative work of justice. It was a personal parting of the water. If you know any of those who had a hand in the Vatican conference on Gospel nonviolence, write them to say thanks. And stay tuned for further developments.

# # #

[1] In Just Policing, Not War: An Alternative Response to World Violence, edited by Gerald Schlabach (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2007), a collection of essays done by participants in a 5-year dialogue of Roman Catholic and Mennonite theologians seeking common ground.

[2] See Daniel Petri, “Replace Just War Theory with Nonviolence—What About Syria and Genocide?”, Millennial; Gretchen R. Crowe, interview of Gerald F. Powers, “Powers: Catholic social doctrine is ‘just peace,’” Our Sunday Visitor, 20 April 2016; Damon Linker, “Will Pope Francis dump the just war doctrine?”, The Week, 19 April 2016.

[3] 25 April 2016.

[4] We often forget that just war theory shares a moral presupposition with pacifism, namely, that violence in defense of myself is not justified, but such in the defense of innocent neighbors is.

[5] The sentence is variously attributed to George Orwell, Winston Churchill, Rudyard Kipling and John Le Carré.

[6] See, for example, John Dear’s “The facts are in: Nonviolent resistance works,” a review of Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan’s Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, National Catholic Reporter, 16 October 2012 . Watch this 12-minute video, “The Stunning Success of Nonviolent Resistance,” by Erica Chenoweth.

[7] Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press), 1992.

[8] For more background, see: “International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World” ; the “Decade to Overcome Violence” of the World Council of Churches (WCC) ; the United Church of Christ “Just Peace” resolution of 1985, with its reaffirmation in the 2015 General Synod ; and the 2013 “Statement on the Way of Just Peace” by the WCC

[9] Pilgrim Press, 1998. Note: this work and the previously cited book by Stassen share the same title but have different subtitles.

[10] A notable exception is the book’s final recommendation, urging “grassroots” activists to support governmental and nongovernmental initiatives.

[11] Among the most blistering texts in Scripture is the Epistle of James’ warning (3:5-8) of the devastation that can be caused by human speech. The same book (4:1-2) also makes explicit the economic roots (“cravings” in the New Revised Standard Version) of war.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

by Ken Sehested
Circle of Mercy Congregation, 20 May 2007

        Ever since Easter the principal lectionary readings have been excerpts from the books of Acts which records the story of the birth of the church after Jesus’ resurrection and then the subsequent missionary journeys of Paul and other church leaders.

        Today’s story is actually two stories: a short one, which I just read—about Paul healing a “slave girl”—which sets up a longer one, which Nancy told to the children—when Paul and Silas are dragged into the marketplace of the city of Philippi, A city on the Aegean Sea coast of what is now the modern country of Bulgaria, in what was then a Roman colonial region. There they are accused by the slave girl’s owners of unlawful activity, and the city magistrates convict them toss them into prison.

        There aren’t many biblical stories that have fired the imagination of protestors (like those of the Civil Rights Movement) more than the memory of Paul and Silas . . . sitting in a squalid prison cell, no one to make their bail . . . and singing. The practice of singing in prison dates to this story from Acts.

        I didn’t catch many of the details, but a recent NPR program interviewed a man imprisoned in a small town in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement. The small group of activists were singing away, and it was driving the prison guards crazy. After much harassment, the guards finally unleashed water hoses on the group. People in jail cells aren’t supposed to act like they’re free!

        And the truth is, this entire narrative is a stunning commentary on who’s really free and who’s really a slave. The slave girl’s owners, the city magistrates and the jailer—these are apparently living in liberty. The slave herself, along with Paul and Silas—these are supposed the ones under bondage. But the Gospel message turns this around. The text is urging us to ask deeper questions about freedom and bondage. We think we know which is which. But do we?

        For today, though, I’m especially intrigued by the first part of this story, the one that sets the stage for Paul and Silas’ conviction.

        The text says that the “slave girl” had “a spirit of divination” and could tell people’s fortunes. And for days she would follow the missionaries around town, crying out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”

        The woman’s words were probably more like a taunt than an introduction. And Paul finally got tired of it. So he performed an exorcism: “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And,” the text continues, “it came out that very hour.”

        That’s when the two traveling preachers were “dragged into the marketplace before the authorities” and soon thereafter stripped, beaten and tossed into the deepest recesses of the prison, feet bound in stocks so they couldn’t even move around. All because the slave girl’s owners “saw that their hope of making money was gone” after Paul healed her.

        Scripture scholars aren’t entirely clear exactly what it was that ailed the woman. Probably some kind of mental illness, and probably some ability as a ventriloquist. The closest analogy that comes to mind is to think of how, years ago, traveling circuses had their “freak shows”—bearded women, dwarfed people and the like—people who were exploited for their very unusual physical appearance.

        And when Paul and Silas disrupted this exploitation, they were dragged into the marketplace where they were sentenced to prison. The lesson is: You don’t go messin’ with people’s livelihood. That kind of freedom is strictly sanctioned.

        It reminds me of that 17th century legal statute in the State of New York: "It is hereby Enacted by the authority of the same, That the Baptizing of any Negro, Indian or Mulatto Slave shall not be the Cause or reason for setting them or any of that at Liberty."

        That law is one small example, among many, of the state’s consistent pattern of defining the legitimate authority of religious practice. It’s OK to baptize those slaves. You just can’t set them free. (And you thought our nation was founded on religious freedom?!)

        It’s interesting how an emphasis on economics—thinking about money—has emerged in our Circle this year. Neither the pastoral team nor the church council planned it this way. It just happened.

        Counter-cultural economic practice has always been a significant part of our vision, of course. Nearly four year ago we first began asking members to make financial pledges for the support of our common life (which is a small form of “holding things in common,” one of the defining characteristics of the first Christian community). Nearly three years ago we made the decision to create our own “contingency fund” for emergencies; but instead of putting it the money into Exxon stock, we chose to put it in microlending institutions and community development banks, at 0% interest, so that capital could be circulated in places which mainstream financial institutions won’t go.

        I’m not one to boast, but I confess it does please me to think that we were the first congregational supporter of Christians for a United Community, one of whose goals is addressing economic disparity. And more recently, we were among the first to make a congregational contribution to the Living Wage campaign here in Asheville.

        This past February, at our annual planning day, the agenda was given over to discussing ways to implement parts of our mission. You remember—we took a list of “Pentecost Power” questions first put on the table on Pentecost Sunday in 2006. Everyone present at the planning day got to vote on their top three priorities. One of those three was the topic of economics, and it evoked a great deal of discussion and ideas.

        The following month, Andy Loving happened to be coming through Asheville over a weekend and we invited him to lead the adult education hour on social responsible investing and then to preach in worship. His sermon title was, “The Common Purse and the God of Maximum Return.” He reinvigorated our thinking about alternative economic practices and really challenged the way we take for granted the values of our economic system. In fact, his presence was so stimulating that several people asked if we could get him back again. [details]

        (By the way, going back to the thing about religious freedom, one of the things Andy has taught me is that denominational pension funds are prohibited by law against investing in capital markets that do not produce the highest interest return. In other words, the United Church of Christ pension board can’t invest in Oikocredit, where part of our contingency fund is invested. The legal provision is called “fiduciary responsibility.” This is what Andy meant in his sermon title when he used the phrase “the God of maximum return.”)

        As the council began discussing possible resource leaders for our August family retreat, Dr. Michelle Tooley’s name came to the front. Michelle, a religion professor at Berea College in Kentucky, is a friend of several in this Circle, and one of her passions is the economic teaching in Scripture, particularly the legacy of what’s called the “jubilee” tradition, which first appears in the book of Leviticus, reappears elsewhere in the Torah, is picked up again by the Prophets and is put at the center of Jesus’ mission. The “jubilee” tradition for ancient Israel demanded that every 50th year that all land be returned to original owners, that slaves be freed and that debts be canceled. It is a stunning piece of social legislation which has no parallels in the ancient world.

        All of you are familiar with Jesus’ inaugural sermon, the one where he says “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed . . . AND TO PROCLAIM THE YEAR OF THE LORD’S FAVOR.” That last phrase—“the year of the Lord’s favor”—is a direct reference to the Jubilee Year in Hebrew Scripture.

        I’m pleased to tell you that Michelle has agreed to come do Bible study for us on the jubilee theme during our family retreat. And the church council has approved plans to follow up that event with some related Christian education themes. Mahan Siler has agreed to lead several sessions on a curriculum which used family systems theory to help individuals understand the values and habits they inherited from their parents in how decisions about money are made. And we’re making plans to study Ched Myers’ Sabbath Economics, the best concise summary of biblical teachings about wealth.

        Maybe this focus on economics might lead us to put the topic of tithing on the table for discussion. “Tithing” is one of those traditional religious words we don’t use around here, mostly, I think, because its use in mainstream churches is simply a form of financial development to support the congregational budget. What if we began thinking about tithing as one of the spiritual disciplines of membership in the Circle of Mercy—not as requirement that you give 10% of your earning to support our church budget, but as a commitment to directing financial support to places and people and movements that the dominant values of our economic institutions ignore?

        And what if, next year, we began talking more broadly about the purpose and values of common disciplines of various sorts? “Discipline” is another of those traditional religious words we don’t like to use. Mostly, I think, because the word “discipline” has come to imply punishment. All through my public school years, the vice principal of the schools I attended served as the “disciplinary” officers of the school. Which meant, that’s where you went to get scolded or paddled or even expelled—as part of your “discipline.”

        But the word “discipline” comes from the Latin word discere, which means “to learn.” A discipline is something you undertake because there’s something you want to learn. That doesn’t mean disciplines are easy to undertake; but it does mean that you are the one who decides, and the motivation for learning something important provides the stimulus for making such commitments. (“Discipline” is the root from which the word “disciple” is taken.)

        I happen to think that the struggle over economic values and practices and habits is the fundamental place where wheels of spirituality meet the road. We tend to forget that though Civil Rights leaders got into trouble for protesting segregation, it was when they began developing a sharp economic analysis of injustice that the threats became deadly. Dr. King was not assassinated for trying to integrate the sanitation department in Memphis. He was supporting the workers’ demand for economic justice, and he went to Memphis in the midst of planning a Poor People’s Campaign march on Washington—not a Black People’s Campaign. The people at Koinonia Farm in South Georgia got into trouble for letting white and black people eat at the same table. But it was their practice of paying everyone the same wage that brought provoked deadly threats against them.

        Like Paul and Silas, when we start exorcising the spirit of economic bondage, we will likely get dragged into the marketplace to face the authorities.

        Paul and Silas, bound in jail
        Had no money for to go their bail
        Keep your eyes on the prize, Hold on
        Paul and Silas thought they was lost
        Dungeon shook and the chains come off
        Keep your eyes on the prize, Hold on
        I got my hand on the gospel plow
        Won’t take nothing for my journey now
        Keep your eyes on the prize, Hold on

        Sisters and brothers, hold on, hold on, Keep your eyes on the prize, Hold on.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org