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A meditation for fellow US citizens

Ken Sehested

Invocation. More than 200 South African firefighters singing and dancing after arrival at the Edmonton, Alberta airport, to help their Canadian colleagues extinguish wildfires that have broken out across the country. This is serious work and requires the ritual preparation to focus the mind, the heart, and the will. (Which is what liturgy should be.)

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A belated “Happy Canada Day” to our Canuck friends, on the occasion of their nation’s birth anniversary on 1 July 1867. It’s different from the US “independence day” since they achieved sovereignty from Britain over a period of decades and without a bloody revolution.

Two decades ago, responding to an article on the history of US imperial ambitions—where I mentioned a once-threatened invasion of Canada by the US—a friend in Canada, Scripture scholar Ray Hobbs—responded by saying, “not only threatened but carried out—in fact, four times.”

(For more, see “4 Times the U.S. Invaded Canada,” James Erwin.)

Those invasions were never mentioned in my history classes (or, likely, in yours).

Heather Cox Richardson points out other excluded background information surrounding our nation’s war of independence. As late as 1763, at the conclusion of what is referred to here as the French and Indian War, British colonists experienced an economic boom. Moreover, with the French relinquishing claims to land west of the Appalachian Mountains, the prospect of yet more free land and natural resources fueled entrepreneurial ambition.

However, Britain had no desire to fund yet another expensive war with Native Americans, which would surely happen if colonists began flooding west across the mountains. Such expansion was outlawed by the Parliament, which also passed multiple tax legislation affecting the colonies to help pay for the war.

For sure, the championing of freedom as a political virtue was an express ideal leading to the founding of the United States. But woven throughout—then as now—were pecuniary interests. Money is free speech, according to the US Supreme Court, first in the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo case, widened further in the 2010 Citizen United v. Federal Election Commission decision.

Or, to put it baldly, the wealthy (and a corporation is now a “person”) get more than one vote.

As has been said, money talks. Louder still as the decimal points accumulate.

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Hymn of confession. “What makes a gringo your smart aleck lingo / When he stole this land from the Indian way back when / Don’t he remember the big money lender / That put him a lincoln parked where his pinto had been / The almighty peso that gives him the say so / To dry up the river whenever there’s crops to bring in / Such a good neighbor to take all his labor / Chase him back over the border till he’s needed again.” —Merle Haggard, “The Immigrant”

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Democratic aspiration and commercial gain have been bound together since the arrival of the first English immigrants to our shores. But as Jon Meacham points out in Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation, of the 1606 First Charter of Virginia’s 3,805 words, only three percent are about God, the rest about commercial enterprise. As Captain John Smith of the Virginia Company wrote, “Faith was their color, when all their aim was nothing but present profit.

There was more piety in Puritan Massachusetts, of course. But their exercise of religious freedom was for their own kind. Meacham quotes the English Lord Bishop of Salisbury complaining, “Every party cries out for Liberty & toleration, till they get to be uppermost, and then will allow none.” In fact, the1650 Connecticut Code bluntly stipulates that “If any man shall have or worship any God but the Lord God, he shall be put to death.”

There is no doubt in my mind that the US Declaration of Independence represents the most politically far-reaching ideas of its time, beginning with those majestic lines of the second paragraph:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . . .”

Recall the words of colonial leader Thomas Paine who wrote his broadly circulated “Common Sense” pamphlet in January 1776: “For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King.” Paine rejected the idea that any person could be born to rule others. Consent by the governed as the basis of civil society was a radically new notion in this period.

Sensing the dramatic novelty of this epoch, Paine issued this breathtaking claim: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

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Hymn of revelation. “Padded with power here they come / International loan sharks backed by the guns / Of market hungry military profiteers / Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared / With the blood of the poor / Who rob life of its quality / Who render rage a necessity / By turning countries into labour camps / Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom. . . . / And they call it democracy.” —Canadian artist Bruce Cockburn, “Call It Democracy” (Calling out the International Monetary Fund, a global financial institution about which few in the US know.)

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One of the great historical ironies associated with the US Declaration of Independence is the fact that Ho Chi Minh, emerging leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam—against which the US fought its longest war of the 20^th century—quoted extensively from the Declaration in the founding of his party in September 1945.

But between the issuance of the Declaration and the writing of the US Constitution several years later, profound differences in economic policy emerged, threatening to sever the ties that had united the colonies in the war against British rule.

Slavery had already become the dominant economic generator in the Southern colonies, where industrial scale agriculture blossomed—and would compete, in the decades to come, with the Northern colonies’ development of industrial scale manufacturing.

The authoring and editing of the US Constitution was fraught with tension, most explicitly over the question of slavery. The resulting compromise ended with the sanctioning of enslavement.

The “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison, attacked slavery early in the Constitutional Convention, stating, “We have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.”

In line with Madison’s conviction, Thomas Jefferson attacked the trade in human bondage, calling it a “cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty”—though he himself profited greatly from the institution.

Such was the moral ambiguity built into the Constitution’s framers. To be sure, Jefferson did not believe that African Americans were social equals. (Nor did future President Abraham Lincoln, who, like many white abolitionists, supported repatriation of slaves to Africa.)

Jefferson described them “as incapable as children,” and admitted that maintaining slavery was like holding “a wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.”

In the end, the writers reached a compromise. Three provisions in the final draft of the Constitution provided partial limitations on the practice: the Three-Fifths Clause, the ban on Congress ending the slave trade for twenty years, the fugitive slave clause, and the slave insurrections.

Yet to hide its ignominy, the final draft resorted to euphemisms rather than use the words “slave” or “slavery.”

If the temporary confederation of colonies (for the purpose of ending British rule) were to survive as a coherent nation-state, the financial boon of chattel slavery had to be warranted—and not just for Southerners. Northern business interests, particularly the banking, shipping and insurance industries, were essential to slavery’s maintenance.

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Hymn of assurance. “O my soul, my soul, my soul / You are Holy, wholly, my whole life / For the lowly, the lambs, he breaks the / Empire’s knife, empires knife” —“Magnificat,” The Psalters

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The lofty sentiment of the Declaration’s “all men are created equal” was a myopic aspiration. The celebration of freedom was literally for men only, and not even for all men. Voting rights was largely restricted to white property owners. Slavery would not be abolished for another 76 years with the ratification of the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution. The franchise for women wouldn’t be approved until 1920; and nearly a half-century more before the Voting Rights Act assured Black voting rights. Even now, the US Supreme Court is chipping away at those voting rights provision.

The virtues of democratic governance celebrated on our nation’s Independence Day has from our founding been in competition with the interests of a “free” market economy. Though the word “God” is absent from the Constitution, the framers implicitly affirmed that, yes—in contradiction to the New Testament—both God and Mammon can be served simultaneously.

The instability of these competing aspirations was evident from the beginning. It was Jefferson who wrote, in 1816, that “The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed corporations.”

This sentiment would later be expressed in the writing of President Abraham Lincoln: “I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . [C]orporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

Then again, in the 20^th century, President Woodrow Wilson complained: “If monopoly persists, monopoly will always sit at the helm of government. I do not expect monopoly to restrain itself. If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it.”

President Theodore Roosevelt went so far as to say, “All contributions by corporations to any political committee for any political purpose should be forbidden by law.”

As has been said, money doesn’t just talk in politics, it also silences.

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Altar call. “I am a son of Uncle Sam / And I struggle to understand the good and evil / But I’m doing the best I can / In a place built on stolen land with stolen people / We are more than the sum of our parts / All these broken homes and broken hearts / God will you keep us wherever we go / Will you forgive us for where we’ve been / We Americans.” —Avett Brothers, “We Americans”

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Any accurate accounting of the competing interests in our nation’s founding must be attentive to the prophetic protestation of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ 5 July 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

“Had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused, the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.”

His assessment is as indisputable now as then. The slave trade was the original sin of our nation. Clearly, there have been sporadic, courageous, and efficacious movements to right that wrong, and we rightly recollect and celebrate those narratives. We do so not to exhaust or satisfy the longing for justice, but to inform, to sharpen, and to animate the ongoing struggle, to lay claim, as Dr. King reminded in his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, to that “promissory note” of freedom’s “inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

And to do so, we must move beyond King-quoting.

The provocative words of 18^th century patriot Thomas Paine have never been more prescient than to our current political climate. When reflecting “on the precariousness of human affairs,” a “constitution of our own” based on the rule of law must be established.

“If we omit it now, some [dictator] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.”

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Benediction. “. . . from the staggering account / of the Sermon on the Mount / which I don’t pretend to understand at all. / It’s coming from the silence / on the dock of the bay, / from the brave, the bold, the battered / heart of Chevrolet: / Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.” —Canadian artist Leonard Cohen, “Democracy” (Click the “show more” button to see the lyrics.)

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Resources for this article include:
• “July 2, 2023,” Heather Cox Richardson, “Letters From An American”
• Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation, Jon Meacham
• “Slavery and the Constitution,” Bill of Rights Institute
• “James Madison’s Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention, May 25, 1787”
• “Jefferson’s Attitudes Toward Slavery”
• “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Frederick Douglass

Ken Sehested

Invocation. “Grace.” Early American melody, performed by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus the day after the 1 October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas.

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INTRO: Years ago I represented the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists on the board of the Institute for Welcoming Resources, an ecumenical coalition of networks within multiple Protestant bodies advocating for the full inclusion of the LGBTQ community within the life of the church. On the way home from one of those meetings, I began a mental outline of what would become my sermon on Epiphany Sunday. Below is an excerpt.

I.

On the plane coming home I began composing a new sermon or essay—Queer Theology 101—dealing with the unpredictability, the “foolishness,” the queerness of God in choosing covenant partners and the destabilizing effect on all existing political arrangements and established orthodoxies. Here are some of the points it would include:

While Queer theology flows from the historically particular experience of LGBTQ folk, it is not only for them.

The Queer theology I envision points to the insistence of the Apostles Peter and Paul that Gentiles were to be welcomed into the household of faith. I can assure you that that the question was as controversial then as the question of gays in the church is now.

Queer theology references Jesus’ selection of the unclean Samaritan as a model of faith in the coming Reign of God; of pagan astrologers as the first to recognize the significance of that bright star announcing Mary’s birth pangs; of Ruth’s inclusion in Jesus’ genealogy, even though she was a Moabite, a stranger to the household of faith; of a black Baptist preacher, from Georgia of all places—Martin Luther King Jr.—who would come to be recognized among the leading figures in our republic’s pantheon of heroes and the church’s prophetic tradition. The Bible is chocked full of such queerness.

This is the heart of Epiphany’s announcement. Though the news is good, especially for those who have had no place at the table of bounty, those currently managing and policing the table sense the terror of this message. And they will resist it, with vicious propaganda, virulent threats and public intimidation, even with bloody violence.

News of Jesus’ birth, as T.S. Eliot wrote in his Magi poem, will be “hard and bitter agony” for some. And we could find ourselves in the middle of such a struggle.

But already, a week ahead of another birth anniversary of Gospel proportion [Dr. King’s], we can hear the echo of that refrain, begun in the ancient prophets and carried on by enslaved, shamed, and belittled people ever since: How long? Not long. For we shall overcome. Thanks be to God.

II.

INTRO: In February 2019 the United Methodist General Conference reaffirmed its previous ecclesial judgment against affirming the presence of LGBTQ folk in the life of its congregations. What follows below is a bit of my own commentary. Needless to say, Methodists are not the only denominational body being fractured over this matter—only, for now, theirs is the most public schism.

“A humble word of encouragement to my Wesleyan friends: On the United Methodist Church’s General Conference decision to ostracize queerfolk”

by Ken Sehested

Today’s hard news from the United Methodist General Conference made me remember something a friend (and United Methodist pastor) wrote some years ago about another travesty in the Wesleyan tradition.

“John Wesley recognized such violence hidden in the clean and tidy profits of slave traders and owners. He exposed it, addressing them with the fire of a prophet: ‘Thy hands, thy bed, thy furniture, thy house, thy lands are at present stained with blood.’

“He drew the Methodist societies effectively into abolitionism. The ‘General Rules’ [of the Methodist movement] began with the commitment to give evidence of salvation by ‘Doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind, especially that which is generally practiced.’ (‘Doing no harm’ is an 18th century synonym for nonviolence. . . .)

“The founding conference in the US called for the expulsion of any member participating in the slave trade . . . [though] little by little that commitment fell to the temptations of mainline compromise. By 1816, a committee reported to the General Conference that ‘in relation to slavery, little can be done to abolish a practice so contrary to the principles of moral justice . . . the evil appears past remedy. . . .’” (Bill Wylie-Kellermann, “Of Violence and Hope: Death Undone,” Response magazine)

This quote’s purpose is not to make anyone feel better. It’s simply a reminder that days like today are not new—and they will likely happen again in the future. What I am sure of is that, now and in the future, those steeled by Wesley’s courageous gospel vision are resilient and will continue to be troublesome to the wall builders. Today’s evil “appears past remedy.”

But only for a time. Times-up is coming. Attune sorrowful hearts to that melody that can only be heard by storm-stilled attention.

A postscript
No doubt more than a few will respond to [the Methodist church’s] insult by joining the ranks of the “dones”—as in, I’m outta’ here, done with the church altogether. If so, I urge those who depart to resist the temptation to play solitaire in your spiritual life. Find another community of conscience and conviction, one that actually gathers, whether explicitly oriented to some faith tradition or not.

Too much of the “nones” tradition, of those claiming no religious affiliation, is fueled by the increasing isolationist and narcissistic tendencies that plague modernity in all its forms. The powers that be want to turn us all into consumers. That kind of “freedom” is the worst kind of bondage.

As Wendell Berry says, “It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.”

The expansive dream of the Beloved Community to which we pledge allegiance is but an empty slogan unless rooted in actual communities that, in one way or another, involve entangling with others. That’s how our choices refine and our voices resound.

Remember one more wise word from Wesley: There are no “Holy Solitaries . . . no holiness but social holiness.”

III.

INTRO: In the middle of World War II, writes Heather Cox Richardson, the US War Department started publishing a series of weekly pamphlets “to help [the personnel] become better-informed men and women and therefore better soldiers.” In 1945, one of those was devoted to understanding fascism. It is worth your while to ponder how our own military leaders perceived this threat to democratic governance.

In a recent post, Richardson surveys this history and outlines three techniques used by fascists to achieve and maintain power:

“First, they would pit religious, racial, and economic groups against one another to break down national unity. Part of that effort to divide and conquer would be a ‘well-planned hate campaign against minority races, religions, and other groups.” —continue reading Richardson’s 30 May 2023 “Letters From An American” post

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Benediction. “Dedication.” The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus sings in solidarity with victims of the 12 June 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. (Click the “show more” button for more background.)

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An unconventional list

Ken Sehested

While it’s true that mothering songs often emphasize comfort, it’s not at all true that songs of comfort are flaccid, limp, or weak-kneed. Lullaby is not quietism. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is both an animator (think “tongues of fire”) and a comforter.

Comfort is the sustenance given in the midst of trouble and travail. I would go so far as to argue that such steadfast endurance, the capacity to keep on keepin’ on, is the decisive virtue in Scripture.

Fifty years ago, a Brazilian movement committed to nonviolent resistance to injustice (during a US-backed dictatorship) had as its watchword the phrase firmeza permanente, or roughly: persistent, resolute struggle, regardless of the odds of success.

Such is the eschatological posture to which people of faith and conscience are called. That is to say, it is the grace-imbued confidence that, in the end, death will not have the last word, despite much observable evidence in the present age.

In the long run, our willingness to receive comfort, and to rest and sleep serenely, is as crucial to good health as our most energetic activity.

Such motherliness is our secret weapon.

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¶ “The time has come / We’ve got to turn this world around / Call the mothers / Call the daughters / We need the sisters of mercy now.” —Keb’ Mo’, “Put a Woman in Charge,” feat. Rosanne Cash

¶ “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” by Antonín Dvořák, Ernestina Jošt and the Gimnazija Kranj Symphony Orchestra

¶ “Anagehya, women of all the Nations, you are the strength, you are the force, you are the healing of the Nations.” performed by Joan Henry, founder of the Mothers of Nations Singers & Dancers, with remarks on the nature of traditional songs.

¶ “Kiss me mother kiss your darlin’ / Lay my head upon your breast / Throw your loving arms around me / I am weary let me rest / I am weary let me rest.” —“I Am Weary, Let Me Rest,” The Cox Family

¶ “Mothers of the Disappeared,” U2

¶ “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”

¶ “Fingers on the trigger around here / Fingers on the trigger around here / Bullets flying, mothers crying / We gotta change around here / Get it straight, be sure that you hear / Things gonna change around here.” —Mavis Staples, “Change”

¶ “All the pain that you have known / All the violence in your soul / All the ‘wrong’ things you have done / I will take from you when I come.” —Sinéad O’Connor, “This Is to Mother You”

¶ “A way outa no way is flesh outa flesh, courage that cries out at night / A way outa no way is flesh outa flesh, bravery kept out of sight / A way outa no way is too much to ask, / Too much of a task for any one woman.” —“Oughta Be A Woman,” Sweet Honey in the Rock. (Open a second tab to read the lyrics while listening.)

¶ “The Mother,” Brandi Carlile https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOpbJIJF7bM

¶ “I went down to the place where I knew she lay waiting / Under the marble and the snow / I said, Mother I’m frightened, the thunder and the lightning / I’ll never come through this alone / She said, I’ll be with you, my shawl wrapped around you / My hand on your head when you go / And the night came on, it was very calm. . . . / I want to cross over, I want to go home / But she says, Go back, go back to the world.” —Leonard Cohen, “Night Comes On”

¶ “Lay me low / Lay me low, low. / Where Mother can find me, / Where Mother can own me, / Where Mother can bless me.” —Dale Warland Singers, “Lay Me Low” (Shaker)

¶ “From the north to the south / from the west to the east / hear the prayer of the mothers / bring them peace.” —“Prayer of the Mothers,” Yael Deckelbaum, who created an alliance of a group of Israeli and Palestinian women for a “March of Hope” in 2016

¶ “As we come marching, marching, we battle, too, for men— / For they are women’s children and we mother them again. / Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes— / Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses!” —“Bread and Roses,” a poem and song that emerged during the women’s millworker strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912. Women were fighting for fair wages, child labor laws, overtime pay, fair working conditions.

¶ “When I find myself in times of trouble / Mother Mary comes to me / Speaking words of wisdom / Let it be / And in my hour of darkness / She is standing right in front of me / Speaking words of wisdom / Let it be / And when the broken-hearted people / Living in the world agree / There will be an answer / Let it be.” —The Beatles, “Let It Be”

¶ “Slumber, my darling, till morn’s blushing ray / Brings to the world the glad tidings of day / Fill the dark void with thy dreamy delight / Slumber, thy mother will guard thee tonight.” —“Slumber my darling,” beautiful Stephen Foster lullaby, performed by Alison Krauss, Edgar Meyer, Yo Yo Ma & Mark O’Connor

¶ “How sweet and happy seem, those days of which I dream / When memory recalls them now and then / And with what rapture sweet, my weary heart would beat / If I could hear my mother pray again.” —“If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again,” Staple Singers.

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Art: A reprise of my Mother’s Day card to my beloved (aka, JaJa to her grandkids).

A Mother’s Day reflection

Ken Sehested

¶ Invocation. “Holy Mother, where are you? / Tonight I feel broken in two. / I’ve seen the stars fall from the sky. / Holy mother, can’t keep from crying. / Oh I need your help this time, / Get me through this lonely night. / Tell me please which way to turn / To find myself again.” —Eric Claption, Luciano Pavarotti, and the East London Gospel Choir “Holy Mother”

¶ Call to worship. Bread-baking, kitchen-dwelling, breast-feeding God / We return to your lap and to your table because we are hungry and thirsty. / Fill us again with the bread that satisfies, with milk that nourishes. / Drench parched throats with wet wonder; / feed us ‘til we want no more. —continue reading “Bread baking God”

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It seems such an incomparable coincidence: A spate of horrific killings of kids; then the singularly sentimental observance of Mother’s Day.

Just in the past 10 days: A young kid rings the doorbell on the wrong door and is shot. A young woman drives into the wrong driveway and is shot. A cheerleader accidentally gets in the wrong car in a parking lot and is pursued and shot, along with her friend. A basketball rolls into a man’s yard, and a neighboring 6-year-old girl and her father are shot. A young girl playing hide and seek with friends in her neighborhood is shot. All these episodes occurred within recent days

In popular culture, Mother’s Day is about bouquets, chocolate, cooing Hallmark cards, and all manner of sugary sentiment (which, like actual sugar, generates a short-lived burst of emotion followed by lethargy).

It’s as if we can make up a year’s worth of taking motherly care for granted with a day of platitudes. Kind of like the opposite of national handwringing over the latest mass shooting followed by public policy inertia.

Thoughts and prayers, shots and tears: an emotional catharsis which only further dulls the conscience. It all happens so frequently that we forget which tragedy we’re now mourning.

The US is now averaging one and a half mass shootings per day. Guns are the leading cause of death among children in our nation. Compared to other wealthy countries, the US accounts for 97% of such deaths, though our share of the population of such nations is 46%.

As has been said, if more guns made us safer, ours would be the safest country in the world.

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“We are all meant to be mothers of God.” —Meister Eckhart, 13^th century mystic

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Several individuals’ names get mentioned in the history of Mother’s Day founding. (See “A brief history of Mother’s Day.”) But the earliest call for such an observance came from Julia Ward Howe who, after witnessing the carnage of the US Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War in Europe, called for a 2 June 1872 Mother’s Day festival which “should be devoted to the advocacy of peace doctrines.”

In her “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” she wrote “As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home. For a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace….”

In some ways, there’s no better occasion to address the cascade of deadly violence than on Mother’s Day.

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“For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant” (Isaiah 42:14).

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In the early years of our congregation’s life, we pastoral leaders put special effort in planning Mother’s (and Father’s) Day—though without the sentimental trappings—to highlight and honor the pivotal work of parenting. In place of a sermon, we asked selected members to speak of their own mother’s/father’s enduring influence on their lives.

We heard some extraordinary stories of steadfast strength, and encouragement, and tenderness, and gratitude in those testimonies. But afterwards, to our surprise, we got more than a little pushback. We eventually stopped marking these days in any focused way. (For more see “Pastoral dilemmas with observing Mother’s Day.”)

For some, such parental recollections trigger painful memories. My friend Courtney Marsh, a steadfast mom and a midwife, wrote about this recently:

“As we head into this weekend: I am thinking of all of you who are not mothers but want to be, all of you who decided not to be mothers but feel society’s pressure, all of you who navigate the realities of being a stepmother, all of you who have lost a child, all of you whose mothers have left this Earth, all of you whose mothers weren’t/aren’t who you needed them to be. This weekend may be tough for you. Please remember that you are loved and you are not alone.”

Matchless wisdom. Parenting stories are complex.

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“Our Savior is our true Mother in whom we are endlessly born and out of whom we shall never come.” —Julian of Norwich, 14^th century mystic

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I gathered pages of facts and figures for this article about the toxic scourge of guns in our culture. The numbers can be numbing. But note this one: Already in 2015—eight years ago—more citizens in the US had been killed by guns since 1968 than members of the military in all battlefields of all the wars in US history.

Surely there is a malady deeper than the powdered discharge of lead from calibrated, machined steel. There is a hideous spirit that’s been loosed in our culture—incarnated in the National Rifle Association more than any other entity, shielded by a spurious history of court rulings and legislative roadblocks—that shields and protects gun purveyors from anything resembling accountability.

It is one sign (among several) of the poisoned well of our democracy that a large majority of citizens support a variety of common sense gun restrictions, yet state and national legislators refuse to budge. The consent of the governed is being expressly rebuffed.

You don’t need to be a grammarian to comprehend that “the right to bear arms” is explicitly tied to the provision for “a well-regulated militia” in the second amendment to the US Constitution.

It’s been nearly six years since former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said that mass shooting events are “the price of freedom.” He was commenting about the gunman who, firing from the 32^nd floor of a Las Vegas hotel, killed 59 and wounded 520 attendees at an outdoor concert.

Just last week a bill in the Texas legislature was introduced stipulating students as young as eight could be instructed on how to stanch blood loss suffered by a classmate’s gunshot wound.

Also last week, Alex Coker, a former police officer, responded to a Fox News commentator’s question on how to be prepared for a mass shooter: “Be polite and professional, but plan to kill everyone you meet.”

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My ship of faith has many sails. But being both a reared and a convicted deep-water (small “b”) baptist meant I was nursed and nurtured on the language of freedom. The first Baptist congregation in the Western Hemisphere was founded by Roger Williams, who fled for his life from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for championing religious freedom for all. Our nation’s founding aspiration (distinctive at the time)—denying the divine right of kings—was freedom, though severely restricted to white, property-owning men. Just as colonial demand for religious freedom meant freedom for “my” religion.

Nowadays, freedom has come to mean something altogether different.

Economically, freedom language reifies the “free” market, providing justification for cannibalizing capitalism to penetrate and control the economies of other nations, and rationalizing extreme wealth inequality. “Foreign policy” means resource extraction.

Politically, freedom was stamped by the Supreme Court’s 2010 “Citizens United” decision, opening the floodgates of corporate-funded electoral politics, and, ironically, the rejection of social contracts designed for the common good.

Militarily, freedom reflects the strategy of preemptive war, embedded in Congress’ 2001 “authorization for use of military force” (which allows the president almost unlimited use of military force by simply saying “terrorism.”) “Freedom” is the stated rationale for having some 750 US military bases outside the US. (China has two. Russia, 10, all but one of which are in former Soviet republics.)

And in the church, “freedom” has come to mean, “don’t ask me to make commitments,” or take risks, or subject material assets to Gospel imperatives, or be otherwise inconvenienced.

§  §  §

The wombishness of God. “In the biblical Hebrew language, the word for ‘mercy’ (רחם; racham) shares the exact same three-letter root as the word for ‘womb’ (רחם; rechem).”

§  §  §

This weekend our congregation joins a coalition of other faith-based organizations to host a gun-buy-back event in our city. Once dismembered, the weapons will be donated to a company for reforging the metal into garden tools.

To be clear: we cannot buy-back our way out of this public health emergency. But congregations and individuals need to get started, even with incremental steps, on the longer, arduous journey needed for recovery from our national gun addiction.

§  §  §

¶ Not to be outdone. Fathers, be like these dads who:

• Helps with stage fright

•Helps with hula hooping

¶ Benediction. “From the north to the south / from the west to the east / hear the prayer of the mothers / bring them peace / bring them peace.” —Yael Deckelbaum & Prayer of the Mothers, “This Land” (English translation of Hebrew and Egyptian Arabic lyrics), a 14-member ensemble of Jewish, Arab and Christian women

 

The week leading up to a remembrance
of St. Stephen’s testimony

Ken Sehested

Invocation. “The Prayer,” Giulia Zarantonello, performed by Montserrrat Caballé

§  §  §

There’s a lot going on this week of 2023, much of it having to do with the kind of memory needed to sustain the future.

7 May: The Feast of St. Stephen on the Roman Catholic list of saints is not until 26 December. But those following the Revised Common Lectionary, his story—traditionally venerated as the first Christian martyr—in Acts 7 rolls around this coming Sunday.

A brief meditation on the Feast of St. Stephen

Historic moments of grand-scale movements cannot be engineered. Our work is to be readied, rehearsed, abled, and allied for the season when gestating Darkness erupts in travailing labor to birth the Promise of the ages.

Remain faithful to the liturgy beckoning the Age to come: When the night’s dark fear melts from having loved so greatly the stars’ kindly light and clarifying direction.

Pray for us, St. Stephen, when Truth’s claim conflicts with law’s domain. —Ken Sehested

§  §  §

6 May: The hair on the neck of every Free Churcher will stand up this Saturday, on the occasion of the coronation of newly-ascended British King Charles III.

During the service, Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby will invite not just the royal guests gathered in London’s Westminster Cathedral but “All persons of goodwill in The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of the other Realms and the Territories to make their homage, in heart and voice, to their undoubted King, defender of all” by saying aloud this oath:

“I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God.”

This is the first time in history that all citizens are including in this pledge. Previously only British royalty were asked to do so.

And, wouldn’t you know it, bankers get an extra holiday on Monday the 8^th.

§  §  §

4 May: The annual “National Day of Prayer” in the US, when citizens are urged “to turn to God in prayer and meditation.” Several of our presidents have made such declarations. Earlier, though, such official declarations were titled “National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer.”

By act of Congress and President Truman’s signature in 1952, all reference to penitence was removed. As Truman said, “Our global victory [in World War II] . . . has come with the help of God. . . . Let us . . . dedicate ourselves to follow in His Ways.”

Soon after, in 1954, continuing a show of public piety and opposition to those commie atheists, Congress approved a revised “pledge of allegiance” to include “under God.” And then, in ’55, mandated that all US currency contain the wording “In God We Trust.”

In his 2003 National Day of Prayer proclamation, President George W. Bush focused on divine guidance in the “fight against terrorism” and urged citizens to “ask the Almighty to protect all those who battle for freedom throughout the world and our brave men and women in uniform. . . .”

Evidently, God’s honor, and the nation’s prowess, was at stake. By now, national penitence is a thing of the past. In its stead, “May God bless America” became the repeated benediction of political leaders and the centerpiece of National Day of Prayer piety.

A few years ago, while in an especially curmudgeonly mood during our trumphian captivity, I penned the following brief meditation:

On this national Day of Self-Inflated Prayer,
when legal sanction is extended to
flatulent religious posturing, proudly
claim your allegiance to the early
Christian movement charged with
atheism by Roman imperial authority
for their refusal to genuflect in the
ace of mercenary gods.
This is not the time for decorous
objection. This is a time for holy rage.

§  §  §

2 May: The “Children’s March” began in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963. You remember the black and white TV footage of police dogs and water cannons being loosed on more than 1,000 school children. These scenes galvanized the nation and prompted President Kennedy—then, after his assassination, President Johnson— to press for and secure, the Civil Right Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (For more see “Black Children Begin Movement Protesting Segregation; Face Police Brutality,” Equal Justice Initiative)

ALSO: The US Marines again occupy Nicaragua in 1925, having left only nine months before after a stay since 1912. This time they stayed until 1933.

§  §  §

1 May: “The Catholic Worker Movement traces its beginnings to May 1, 1933, when Dorothy Day and three others distributed an eight-page tabloid newspaper in the midst of a crowded, festive Union Square in New York City.” —“History of the Catholic Worker Movement”

ALSO: In what is called the 1886 “Haymarket Affair” (or “riot” or “massacre”) in Chicago—a demonstration that drew a large crow of the working class demanding an eight-hour workday (down from an average of 60 per week). Both Illinois and federal law mandated this limit but few enforced it. The cause of the Haymarket incident was the police killing the day before of several striking workers at another industry.

Just as Methodist pastor and labor activist Rev. Samuel Fieldman finished speaking, an unknown person threw a pipe bomb in the direction of assembled police called in to disburse the demonstration. Gunfire broke out after the explosion. By the end of the melee, seven police officers and four demonstrators lay dead, with an untold number of wounded.

In the ensuing trial, eight demonstrators were convicted, seven of whom received the death penalty. In 1893 the Illinois governor pardoned the three still living and condemned the trial’s outcome.

Etcetera

• Late in his life the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass commented, “experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other.”
• “The federal minimum wage in the US would be more than $42 an hour today if it rose at the same rate as the average Wall Street bonus over the past four decades.” —Common Dreams
• Oh, about the child labor laws which unions helped get passed, 10 states have recently approved or are considering legislation to allow younger workers.

“The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.” —Voltaire

Benediction. “We reached these shores from many lands / We came with hungry hearts and hands / Some came by force and some by will / At the auction block, in the darkened mill/ Arise! Arise! / I see the future in your eyes. / To a more perfect union we aspire / And lift our voices from the fire.” —Jean Rohe, “National Anthem: Arise! Arise!” (Scroll down to see the full lyrics.)

This is a slightly longer version of commentary for The Center for Congregational Ethics‘ “Lectionary to Life Series” for 21 April 2023

 

by Ken Sehested

Lections for the day: Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19; Isaiah 26:1-4; 1 Peter 1:13-16

Here are three points of entry in discerning today’s lections.

1. The psalmist (as is the repeated case elsewhere) lifts up life’s distress in vivid language. Though little of such psalms (or other biblical texts) show up in our lectionary cycle. Our liturgies characteristically feature “the sunny side of life” and strive to “accentuate the positive.”

The church gathered needs fewer praise bands and triumphant anthems and more occasions for lament and blues music. Ironically, our resistance to public lament constricts our capacity for the kind of hope that sustains beyond shallow, cheery optimism.

2. As is too often the case, today’s readings skip over key information which clarifies and quickens the surrounding text.

Left out of this selection from Isaiah are vv. 5-6: [God] humbles those who dwell on high [and] lays the lofty city low; he levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust. Feet trample it down—the feet of the oppressed, the footsteps of the poor.”

This reversal of fortunes is echoed in Mary’s “Magnificat” (Luke 1) where her incendiary “hymn of praise” impinges on “the proud in their conceit” and imagines the rich being stripped of their affluence.

3. Attention to the world’s cries is the essential context of spiritual formation. As Isaiah writes, The Lord “heard my voice,” an ultimatum uttered in the midst of death’s entanglement.

The psalmist centers the voice of the abused, calling to mind the Exodus text where the wailing of Hebrew slaves mobilizes God’s attention (3:7). And, prior to that—after her abandonment by Abraham and Sarah into the desert’s desolation —the weeping of Hagar’s infant, Ismael, whose name means “God has heard,” spurs God’s intervention (Gen. 21:17).

To “be holy, because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16) requires a recalibration of our eyes and ears.

Atonement comes by way of attunement to the voices of the afflicted. It is in their presence that we comprehend our own spiritual paucity and the revelation that our own sake is linked to that of “the least of these.” The only proper adoration comes by way of emulation.

As has been said, what you know depends on where you stand. Social location is essential if the little flock of Jesus is to “rightly divide the word of truth.”

The pathos of God—incarnated in Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, and capacitated by the Holy Spirit— forges the ethos of the church.

# # #

A Maundy Thursday meditation

by Ken Sehested

Maundy Thursday, a key observance in Christian Holy Week calendar, is often associated with the Gospel of John’s account of the “Last Supper,” when the central plot is not the meal but the shocking narrative of Jesus’ washing the feet of his disciples.

The dramatic climax comes when Peter objects to having his feet washed by Jesus—likely because of his notion of reverence: Jesus is to be served (honorifically attended), as is the custom in the every culture of privilege.

Recall for a moment that the Gospels record the disciples’ argument over who among them would be greatest in the coming Kingdom—once at the very table Luke mentions as the final their final meal together. I can only imagine Jesus’ heartbreak that even now, shortly before his final showdown with imperial authorities, his closest friends were still clueless about the counter cultural nature of his mission.

It is indeed an “other” world; but not one evacuated to the high reaches of heaven, but bursting out in the very stuff of history’s creaturely life.

The scholarly debate over whether this final meal was formally a Passover observance is maddeningly complex. There’s no question, however, that this narrative was happening on the cusp of that pivotal Jewish remembrance of the Exodus, that dramatic escape from Egyptian clutches, following by the desert wandering, the Sinai instructions, and the entry into a “promised land.”

The Exodus march was not like a Marti Gras parade, however. The text says that less than two months into the trek, “the whole congregation of the Israelites” began complaining to Moses, even suggesting maybe they should go back to their dependent status in a company-store economy. Life may have been hard in Egyptland, but at least they had enough to eat.

Evidently, God did not take offense at this bickering (Exodus 16:2-3) but instructed Moses to tell them that provisions would be made, both morning and evening—and that these provisions would disclose “the glory of the Lord.”

Then come detailed instructions on the morning gathering of manna. Each household would gather only enough to satisfy its members: Those who gathered much had nothing left over; those who gathered little had enough (16:17-18). The harvesting was aligned with sufficiency: gather too much, the stuff will rot and be worm infested.

Furthermore, the gathering on the sixth day should include enough for the seventh, allowing for a day not just for leisure but weekly reorientation and recommitment to a vision of equity and a rejection of the relentless striving for more, and yet more, that characterizes the impulse of every assertion of “manifest destiny” and imperial modes of empire.

Neither Israel, nor America, can lay claim to being “first.”

The “glory of the Lord” means no more surfeiting: no more restless, never-ending accumulation; no more gorging; no more coveting neighbors. Or as the Book of James would later interrogate: Where do those conflicts and disputes come from? Your cravings! You want and cannot obtain; therefore you commit murder.

Even worse, by “befriending” such behaviors, you become “an enemy of God”! (4:1-4)

God’s “glory” is displayed in neighborliness. God’s “enemies” are those who hoard.

No doubt Jesus had this narrative in mind when, in John’s Gospel, he scandalously breached the logic of what is commonly viewed as power. He, the “master,” assumed the kneeling posture of a washer woman to clean his subordinates’ feet as a symbolic representation of the new pattern of redemptive community.

To be aligned with this alternative community, everything you recognize as to how the world “works” is rejected: No more would the strong take what they can, no more the weak suffer what they must.

From here on, as Hebrew scripture repeatedly affirms, special attention is to be given to the widow, the orphan, the migrant—the most vulnerable and all judged unworthy to be seated at the banquet of plenty.

This assertion is clearly reinforced in Jesus’ utterly incongruous claim that the only road to heaven included compassionate partnering with the hungry, the evacuee, the inadequately clothed, the feverous and frail, the massively incarcerated. That is to say, the debris field in every communized and capitalized culture.

This is Passover’s preface to Sinai’s covenant imperatives. This is the paschal signifier of the sacrifice and posture worthy of God’s glory. Holy Week’s mandatum (mandate) is to align with the posture by whose terms alone will vanquish death’s greatest threat.

The baptismal vows of those on the Way of Jesus center around the ongoing struggle to let Pharaoh go.

# # #

Maundy Thursday, 6 April 2023

by Ken Sehested

Invocation. “Hatred had me bound, had me tied down / Had me turned around, couldn’t find my way / Then you walked with me and You set my spirit free / To me and my family down that long highway / Free at last, free at last / Free from the world and all it’s sins / Free at last, free at last / I’ve been to the top of the mountain.” —Joan Baez, “Free At Last”

§  §  §

Given the lunar calculus of setting Easter’s date, the occasion moves around on our solar calendar, landing anywhere between late March to late April. Every year, therefore, the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination on 4 April 1968 occurs within that span. This coincidence is an interpretive matrix in my faith formation.

Among our stubborn human tendencies is to create sentimental memories of times past that actually were turbulent, conflicted, even dangerous. Nowadays, Easter bunnies substitute for Jerusalem’s colonizing Roman soldiers. Clothiers and chocolate makers alike look forward to the day as much as any cleric.

Choirs perform new jubilant anthems. Well appointed sanctuaries feature brass ensembles. (And I confess, I do love such music.)

The Sunday leading up to Easter, children process with palms, ancient symbol of peace and prosperity, historically associated with military prowess. These days you can purchase plastic Easter eggs painted in military patterned camouflage, each with a toy soldier inside.

Jesus overturns no tables in modern Holy Week reenactments. Few feet are washed.

You would think that Jesus was executed for preaching the Golden Rule.

Our recollections of Dr. King and the troublesome movement he represented have also been acclimatized. Military bands are often featured in Atlanta’s ML King Day parade. His “I Have a Dream” speech gets a little dreamier each passing year. Alabama and Mississippi’s ML King birthday holiday is a “King-Lee” day, splicing the occasion to also remember Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the “Lost Cause” mythology.

A few years ago the makers of Dodge Ram pickups ponied up $5 million for a Super Bowl ad—an homage to patriotism and “service”—featuring a brief line from one of Dr. King’s sermons.

We forgot long ago how polarizing Dr. King was. The Federal Bureau of Investigation referred to him as “the most dangerous Negro” in the country. They along with two other intelligence agencies (we have 17 of them, in case you were curious) illegally spied not only on Dr. King but numerous other activists.

King’s favorability ratings plummeted after his historic 4 April 1967 speech at Riverside Church in New York City (exactly one year prior to his assassination), where he vigorously condemned the war in Vietnam and referred to the US as the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world.”

He had long since understood the Beloved Community went well beyond bus seating, water fountains, and lunch counters. Less than a month after his soaring “I Have a Dream” speech, he was presiding at the funerals of the girls killed by a terrorist bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

Nowadays, a number of state legislatures have approved, or are considering, laws making it illegal for teachers to present material that might make a student feel uncomfortable. Even after a “war on poverty,” the median wealth of white households is ten times that of African Americans.

But of course, I never heard that when our country’s Declaration of Independence insisted that “all men are created equal,” it literally meant men. Not just men. White men. And not just white men but property-owning white men. It would take nearly three-and-a-half centuries between the first arrival of chattel slaves from Africa and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And those rights are now eroding in many parts of the country.

It’s not the case that we are, merely as individuals, suffering memory loss as to Easter’s threat and Dr. King’s critique. There are potent economic, cultural and political interests collaborating in the work of dis-remembering and sugar-coating our history.

There are also powerful forces at work disguising the ambiguous character of our nation’s aspirations regarding foreign policy.

In my high school senior year. the last six weeks of our world history class was devoted to studying J. Edgar Hoover’s book, Masters of Deceit, that propagandizing screed which encouraged citizens to see a communist behind every bush. And if you didn’t pass that one six-week period of one course, you could not graduate.

There is, to be sure, a legacy of foreign policy—not to mention a host of foreign service personnel—nobly championing the pursuit of human dignity and democratic aspirations. What we fail to see over the course of our history is that when human rights and economic gain are in conflict, the latter are more likely to govern our action.

One document in particular, written in the years after World War II gave way to the Cold War, that articulates the “political realism” of this principle.

George Kennan, then US ambassador to the Soviet Union (later named “the most influential diplomat of the 20th century”), wrote a lengthy secret memo, later declassified, advocating for a bare-knuckled game plan for our nation’s foreign policy. This long excerpt is worth needed attention:

“We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. . . . In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. . . .

“We should dispense with the aspiration to ‘be liked’ or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brother’s keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague and . . . unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.” (You can read the full proposal here.)

Among our most urgent tasks as people of The Way is recovery of memory. Beginning with comprehending the threat that saturated the first Holy Week.

In his book The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God, Lee Griffith wrote, “It is the resurrection which is the terror of God to all who believe that death should have the final word.”

Add to that, regarding the legacy not just of Dr. King but of the countless others, a few named, most unnamed, who put their security on the line in service to the Beloved Community. The urgent question for us is: How has it become so common to respect the man but relinquish the mission? To revere the dreamer but renege on the dream?

Movements have a tendency to become museums.

Finally, it is imperative that we do the excavation needed for an honest reading of our nation’s history.

In commentary on a news channel, Dr. Eddie Glaude, professor of African American Studies at Princeton, commented: “America is not unique in its sins as a country. We’re not unique in our evils. . . . Where we may be singular is our refusal to acknowledge them. And the legends and myths we tell about our inherent goodness, to hide and cover and conceal, so that we can maintain a kind of willful ignorance that protects our innocence.”

Because our virtues as a nation are considerable, we tend to think our vices unremarkable. Such is not the case. And if we are to rightly interpret our condition, to expose our pretension, we simply must take seriously the whole story.

§  §  §

Benediction. Listen to Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech—“I’ve been to the mountaintop”—on 3 April 1968, the night before his assassination. Here’s is a brief (1:13) excerpt. You can view the entire speech (43:14 video) here.

        Background to the speech. There was a terrible storm that night in Memphis. King was tired. The initial march in support of sanitation workers had attracted provocateurs who smashed windows along the march route. King was deeply discouraged. His staff was very unhappy that he chose to be in Memphis when so much work was needed on the upcoming “Poor Peoples’ March” in Washington, DC. Memphis seemed like a distraction.

Given the bad weather the night of the rally, given his tired and disappointed disposition, he didn’t want to go. “Ralph, you can take care of it.” But an overflow crowd showed up. And they wanted to hear King. So Abernathy called him and said “Martin, the people want to hear from you.” So he went and spoke extemporaneously, going on that famous “I’ve been to the mountaintop” riff, but then going on to say “I may not get there with you.” Almost a premonition of what happened the next day. He was 39 years old when the sniper’s bullet arrived.

 

A series of short meditations on the season’s tragicomedy

by Ken Sehested

I.
Listen, smith [artisan] of the heavens, / what the poet asks. /
May softly come unto me / your mercy. / So I call on thee, /
for you have created me. . . . / Most we need thee. / Drive out, O king of suns, /
generous and great, / every human sorrow / from the city of the heart.
—“Heyr himna smiður” (“Hear, Heavenly Creator”), 12th century Icelandic poem,
put to music by Thorkell Sigurbjornsson, performed by Eivør Pálsdóttir
(click the “show more” button to see all the lyrics)

The traditional emphases of Lent—prayer, fasting and almsgiving—are intensely personal but never merely private. The depths of our hearts are connected with the depths of the world. The brokenness of our personal lives is intimately bound up with the rupture of the world itself. The joy we experience and the beauty we encounter reflects Creation’s original intent and promised fulfillment.

The logic of focused attention to personal repentance is not segregated holiness but public healing, of “the earth and all that dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1).

Such disciplines represent strategic interventions designed to confront gluttonous appetites—appetites that are seeded and cultivated in ways even the most kindly fail to see. The deadliest thing about privilege in the midst of privation is that we often are not even aware of it. Lent’s aim is to disabuse us of such innocence. Not to molest us (discomforting as it may be) but to befriend and amend us according to the Beloved Community’s covenant terms.

Though they require different strategies, the disarming of the heart and the disarming of the nations are organically connected.

II.
Why have you forsaken us?
–“Forsaken,” The Many: Lament for Black Lives Lost” https://youtu.be/98yde4gMHCI

Some years ago the Brazilian pastor-theologian Odja Barros was our guest preacher. One of the things we encouraged her to speak about was where she sees God at work in the world.

“I have to confess,” she said in her sermon, “that the first thing that comes to mind is to say where I see God’s absence,” going on to name just a few of the places, in concrete detail, where breaking and bruising and battering dominate the landscape.

Deus absconditus. At the close of Holy Week’s Tenebrae service, we chant Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani! My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!

With trepidation, we ask, has God gone AWOL?

Lent is the liturgical season where this seizure rises to the surface, and we—people of privilege—are asked to enter the wilderness from which, apparently, God has absconded: where things don’t work out, where movies lack happy endings, where minor-keyed hymns are sung, where the faces of children are not cherry-cheeked, downy-soft, delightfully adorable.

III.
Mama put my guns in the ground / I can’t shoot them anymore /
That long black cloud is comin’ down / I feel I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.
—“Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” Bob Dylan

Two years ago gun violence in the US became the leading cause of death among children and teens. Moreover, compared to other wealthy countries, the US accounts for 97% of such deaths, though our share of the population of such nations is 46%. “Combined, the eleven other peer countries account for only 153 of the total 4,510 firearm deaths for children ages 1-19 years in these nations in 2020, and the U.S. accounts for the remainder.”

The buyers, sellers and makers of AR-15s (in particular) are practitioners of child sacrifice to an gun-crazed idol—and should be named as such.

Part of Lent’s work is to break through our feigned innocence. As has been said, you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free; but first it may make you miserable. Any credible statement about God’s passionate love for the world must be spoken fully cognizant of the world’s passionate misery.

IV.
Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.
—Psalm 126:5

Arguably, the church’s greatest liturgical weakness lies in its failure to provide space for lament. Often, when that happens, exclamations of adulation have all the authenticity of a singing television commercial.

“Keep on the sunny side of life” is a worthy reminder to lean into gratitude often taken for granted. Yet, sorrow is a constituent part of breathly life. When lament is ignored, its pain festers. When sorrow is silenced, we end up bleeding on those who did not hurt us.

The work of Lent is to privilege and affirm this neglected theological assertion: The purpose of God is framed, and the passion of God is fired, in the wounds of the world. That is to say, God bleeds. The recognition of God’s solidarity in life’s ache is essential if we are to endure the many shapes and shades of loss.

Intimacy with God implies and shapes non-conformed intimacy with the world, causing us to ask: who bleeds? And, whose profit depends on whose suffering?

Likewise, Lent’s discipling instruction is this: Instead of speaking for the silenced, it is more important to dig and dredge and excavate (and, sometimes, just get out of the way of) the voices of the silenced so they can speak for themselves.

Thus, Lent’s question for every congregation is this: How can we structure our worship to make space for lament?

V.
There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried.
—Archbishop Óscar Romero, assassinated in March 1980
by members of El Salvador’s military for outspoken
opposition to that country’s oppression of the poor

Scripture has a pronounced bias favoring “light” and opposing “darkness.” But there’s a minority report as well, where the Holy One is encountered in darkness.

The opening chapter of Genesis affirms that creation begins in darkness: “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day” (1:5). The promise to Abram, of descendants outnumbering the stars and of land (read security) is made only after a “deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him” (15:12). Isaac’s son, Jacob, has his name changed (read destiny) to “Israel” following an all-night wrestling match with an “angel” (32:24-32).

The Hebrew slaves’ escape from Pharaoh’s prison camp occurred at night; a little later, their covenant-making encounter with God comes from “the voice out of the darkness” (Ex. 20:21; Deut. 5:22). Indeed, “The LORD has said that he would reside in thick darkness” (1 Kings 8;12; 2 Chr. 6:1), and God “made darkness his covering around him” (Ps. 18:11). The repeated promise of good news is “to those who sat in darkness . . . for those who sat in the region and shadow of death” (Isa. 9:2; Mt. 4:16). To these faithful ones “the treasures of darkness” are promised (Isa. 45:3).

The Jesus story begins with angels appearing in the dead of night to roughneck shepherds. Royal astrologers from the East are alerted to divine announcement by stars visible only in darkness. Joseph and Mary, toting baby Jesus, flee the wrath of political authorities under cover of night.

On more than one occasion Jesus’ imprisoned followers received nighttime angelic visitation, either to free them (Act 5:19) or to bolster their courage for a coming trial (18:9). And the Apostle Paul’s initiation of his historic mission to Gentiles came on the heels of another night vision, of a “man from Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us’” (16:9).

As modern seer Wendell Berry has written, “To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, / and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, / and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.”

VI.
O all you who walk by on the road, pay attention and see: /
if there be any sorrow like my sorrow. / Pay attention, all people,
and look at my sorrow: / if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.”
—Tomas Luis de Victoria, “Tenebrae Responsories – 14 – O vos omnes,”
performed by “The Sixteen”

There are several words from the oldest manuscripts of the Bible translated as “sin” in English, each with a nuanced meaning. If I were translating, my choice would be the word “cluelessness” in many of those renderings.

While there are some who willfully, menacingly commit fraud or violence, most of our sinning is unintentional: most often we are clueless, of the “they-know-not-what-they-do” variety. That’s why the work of repentance involves setting aside a measure of our privilege to experience the world through the eyes of those on the margins. This is where our most reliable theological education begins.

It has been rightly said: What you see depends on where you stand. Lent is the season when we consciously examine where we are standing to see if we may need to relocate.

VII.
Isn’t there anything you understand?
It’s from the ash heap God is seen.
Always! Always from the ashes.
—Archibald MacLeish in “J.B.,” a play based on the Book of Job

The relinquishment God asks of us—the desert into which Jesus guides us—is not a kind of spiritual immolation. Nor is the bent-kneed posture of Lent a form of groveling, as a beggar to a patron. The flame of the Spirit’s igniting presence does not scorch us. It makes us radiant. The ascetic practices of spiritual discipline are training for life lived unleashed from our shriveled little egos.

Lent’s labor may be disconcerting but it is never demeaning.

VIII.
Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.
—Zechariah 4:6

Lenten labor entails seeking whose presence we must foster, which whereabouts we must locate, and what constellation will be our guide through dark nights of the soul, wandering trackless terrain, parched lands, and soggy bogs. This journey’s purpose is reeducation about the nature of power, key to learning about the character of love.

Love, of course, is more than a kindly feeling or a cordial acquaintance. Love involves an expenditure of assets: time; attention; inconvenience; affection that endures even through turbulence; material sustenance; a willingness to risk one’s own security, reputation, or social standing for those excluded from the table of plenty.

This is why saying we “love everybody” is an illusion, because our assets—time and attention and material capacity, etc.—are finite. There are only so many hours in the day. And the actual practice of compassion is more than mutual aid (worthy as that is). The distinction of loving relations, over against bartering, is generosity to those whose capacity to repay is in doubt (cf. Luke 6:32).

Lent’s labor is designed to train us in discerning questions of security. The world’s insistent claim is that you can never have enough: enough wealth, enough firepower, enough recognition, etc. Long before Karl Marx posited economics as the principal influence on human decision making, Jesus warned “You cannot love God and mammon” (Matt. 6:24), the latter being the word for wealth and power.

IX.
Those who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars.
—19th century British poet and painter William Blake

The opportunities for love’s bond, shaping the building blocks of the Beloved Community, come not by heroic relocation to some exotic other place. It begins close at hand, as paths cross in ordinary circumstances and physical proximity: within families (among the most severe testing ground), neighborhoods, workplaces and classrooms, places of worship. It’s possible, of course, a close encounter could lead to distant and strange places, maybe even highly public engagement with dramatic consequences. Those faithful in large things have surely been faithful in small ones.

Love’s aim, of course, is mutuality. Be wary of the charitable impulse that leads (however unintentionally) to dependency; or which requires public recognition; or demands gratitude from recipients. Indeed, those who lack material resources are often the ones who know more about the gratuitous work of the Spirit. Let them teach.

X.
I only ask of God /
That I am not indifferent to the pain, /
That the dry death won’t find me /
Empty and alone without having done enough.
—English translation, “Solo le Pido a Dios,” performed by Mercedes
Sosa. Originally written and performed by Argentinian musician Leon
Gieco in 1978, this song is an anthem that was widely used throughout
the social and political hardships and civil wars across Latin America,
particularly in Argentina and Chile.

One group of characters in Thomas Klise’s futuristic novel, The Last Western, is a roving band of people with the quirky name of the “Servant Society of the Used, Abused and Utterly Screwed Up.” They function, I think, as a vivid metaphor of what the church’s mandate. Klise puts this self-description on their lips:

“The Servants will always choose the way of serving the poor, the lonely, the despised, the outcast, the miserable and the misfit. The mission of the servants is to prove to the unloved that they are not abandoned, not finally left alone. Hence, the natural home of the Servants is strife, misfortune, crisis, the falling apart of things. The Society cherishes failure, for it is in failure, in trouble, in the general breaking up of classes, stations, usual conditions, normal routines that human hearts are open to the light of God’s mercy.”

XI.
If someone asks you What would Jesus do? remind them that flipping over
tables and chasing them with a whip is within the realm of possibilities.
—author unknown

A commitment to kindliness, cordiality, and civility as the default position in all our encounters is virtuous. This should be a priority in the formation of our young. But they also should learn there are times when the peaceable are called upon to be troublers, when what passes for “peace” is actually a cover for villainy of every sort. Some tables, as Jesus demonstrated, need overturning.

Civility does not mean passivity in the face of injury. Bearing the servant’s towel to wash soiled feet (cf. John 13) does not mean being a doormat on which any may wipe their feet. Lent’s labor includes learning the difference between washing and wiping.

XII.
This is what we hope Lenten practices will do: Create “a creeping
discomfort about my confidence in the way I’ve always viewed the world.”
—Rick Steves, popular travel reporter, in
“Travel As a Political Act: How to Leave Your Baggage Behind”

Some years ago our congregation’s theme for Lent was “Set your plow deeper,” suggested by one of our members, a retired farmer. In years past, Marvin noted, most farmers plowed at the same depth every year. “The bottom of the plow compacts the soil beneath it, so that, over time, a thick crust forms, separating the plant roots from essential nutrients. To prevent this from happening, occasionally you need to set your plow deeper.”

This is the resolve of Lent, of allowing our lottery-winning fantasies to be altered, of facing a mortally-diseased world and proclaiming Heaven’s nevertheless, affirming that we are not, finally, left to the consequences of our calamitous choices. Another world is not only possible, it is promised, and its scouting party is already showing up in a neighborhood near you.

In the end, the fruition of Lent’s labor has less to do with what you give up than with what you take up* in the aftermath of Easter’s incendiary announcement. May the promise of the season’s eventual delight be sufficient to endure its demands.

XIII.
I imagine Lent for you and for me as a great departure from the
greedy, anxious anti-neighborliness of our economy, a great departure
from our exclusionary politics that fears the other, a great departure
from self-indulgent consumerism that devours creation. And then an
arrival in a new neighborhood, because it is a gift to be simple, it is a
gift to be free; it is a gift to come down where we ought to be.
—Walter Brueggemann, “A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent”

Knowing friends who were in harm’s way, I followed news of the 2020 Mexico City earthquake with alarm. One photo that caught my attention was of a man holding high a large sign that read “¡silencio!” Silence—calling onlookers to be quiet so the workers could hear the sound of any who might still be alive under the debris.

“¡Silencio!” is our Lenten watchword. The silence to which we are called is not that of candlelit hot tubs, champagne flutes in hand, Coltrane playing in the background—as delightful as that may be. Rather, silencio is practiced amid history’s rubble, as we listen for the faint cry of survivors from earth’s trauma and human atrocity.

Lent’s listening posture aligns us with God’s hearing, for the groans of the enslaved above the clamor of imperial pursuit, and the remembrance of covenant ties.

XIV.
Holy Mother, where are you? / Tonight I feel broken in two. /
I’ve seen the stars fall from the sky. / Holy mother, can’t keep from crying.
/ Oh I need your help this time, / Get me through this lonely night. /
Tell me please which way to turn / To find myself again.
—“Holy Mother,” Eric Clapton, Luciano Pavarotti,
and the East London Gospel Choir

The Gospel account of Jesus “being led by the Spirit” into his wilderness ordeal, then sorely tempted by the Deceiver, thereafter ministered to by the angels, is the narrative point of departure for Lent’s observance. It’s important to note that Jesus did not undertake this severe trek without the blessing “from above” (i.e., from beyond human calculation and control) upon immersion in the Jordan River.

By the way, Lent’s penitential work is not a transaction: X amount of repentance for Y amount of forgiveness. There’s no getting right with God. There’s only getting soaked.

Never forget that desert excursions—where sustenance is scarce and threats are plentiful—must begin with a blessing. The ancient Hebrews’ trek from Egypt’s fleshpots began with a promise and was sustained by manna and water from a rock. The church’s Eucharistic elements are similar, and they, too, represent a warrant that the tomb’s claim will not be sustained.

Lent’s ashen imposition is prelude to Easter’s emancipation. But it is, to be sure, a bet-your-assets proposition which no investment banker would recommend.

In another play on Jesus’ admonition, You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you odd.**

XV.
“Wana Baraka” (“They have blessings”)
—traditional Swahili hymn from Kenya, Capetown Youth Choir

The Lent-Easter drama is more than a happy ending to a sad story. Easter’s exclamation is not simply the conclusion of Lent’s premises. Easter is a threat to the sponsors of repression and violence (along with their clientele). Easter is God’s insurgency against a world predicated on enmity and promulgated by fear. It is comedic, not because it’s funny but because it is astonishing, arriving seemingly out of nowhere.

Lent’s labor entails becoming conscious of the grandiosity of such fear; being drawn into a beatific vision powerful enough to undermine fear’s myth of redemptive violence; and enlistment in God’s insurrection, cheating death of its threat.

The rolled stone is our animation; the empty tomb, our mandate.

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*Insight from Terrance Moran on Facebook.
**Author unknown, often misattributed to Flannery O’Connor.

 

Reflecting on the implausible news of finding an infant—alive, literally born amid the earthquake’s rubble

Ken Sehested

Invocation. “When in the dark orchard at night / The God Creator kneeled and prayed / Life was praying with the One / Who gave life hope and prayer.” —English translation of lyrics from “Wa Habibi” (performed by Fairuz), a Christian hymn of the Syriac/Maronite rite. Also known as the Mother’s Lament, the hymn has been performed every year on Good Friday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI-tr1XntsE

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It is staggering news: The birth of a baby girl, born as her mother, father, and four siblings lay crushed among the earthquake rubble of a five-story apartment building in northern Syria. When rescuers found her, they had to cut the umbilical cord attaching her to her mother, who died sometime in the 10 hours between the building collapse and the rescue.

(See this brief video.)

Aya, Arabic for “sign of God,” is the name this infant has been given.

Aya, a mother’s last determination when all prospects of breath seemed futile.

Aya, reminder of the slave child, Ismael, first born son of Abraham, sower of Semitic seed, by way of Hagar, cast-off, weeping in the desert—the first mention of weeping in the Torah, and thus in human history.

Ismael, meaning “God has heard,” also wailed. The text says “And God heard the boy crying” (Genesis 21:17).

The same God who, later, attended the misery (cries) of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, for they were “afflicted,” the same word used to describe Hagar’s plight (Exodus 3:7).

Aya, whose life was inscrutably spared, not unlike that of Moses, by the innocent kindness of Pharaoh’s daughter and the bold action of Miriam, Moses’ sister. An imperial princess and a slave girl—who but the Sovereign of Heaven could script such a drama!

Miriam, named in Torah and the Talmud as a prophetess, leader of the exodus from Egypt’s brick yard, along with her brothers: “For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam” (Micah 6:4). Could there be a more dazzling, dumbfounding spectacle?

Miriam, whose name (in Hebrew) was taken up by Mary, mother of Jesus, whose Magnificat foretold terror among Herod’s minions, Caesar’s census, and all who followed in their deceit and despotism.

And also of another Mary, “Magdalene,” the Jesus Movement’s first evangelist, whose memory was suppressed by the church for the better part of two millennia, now commemorated with a feast day and designated Apostle to the Apostles.

Aya, in the ancient lineage of Hagar, also known (in Islam) as a daughter of Egypt’s king, gifted to Sarah, and considered a matriarch of monotheism.

It is from the rubble of earth’s erupting tragedy and human enmity that a cry for deliverance arises. Those attuned to the homing signal of Heaven will also hear.

But first, the cacophony of the world’s clamor must be submitted to the silence of Lent’s tutoring. Gluttonous habits must be interrogated. Penitential posture must be sharpened; hands emptied to be receptive; knees bent in reverential awe; arms raised in urgent petition.

Only by means of a renewing of the mind and a decolonizing of the heart can we be prepared to receive the enchanted news, tidings of great joy, the death-defying, stone-rolled shout of resurrection.

The harbinger of Lent’s staggering promise is this: the coming ashen smear is not a mark of retribution. Instead of a tomb, it is the womb from which you—amid all creation—will be born.

The meek are getting ready. Let us join them.

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“From the true Light there arises for us the light which illumines our darkened eyes. / His glory shines upon the world and enlightens the very depths of the abyss. / Death is annihilated, night has vanished, and the gates of Sheol are broken. / Creatures lying in darkness from ancient times are clothed in light.” —English translation of one verse from “The Coming Light: Hymns of St. Ephrem the Syrian,” 4th century CE 

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