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That friggin’ Lexus

Listen close, God.

When we get together and sing

“Down By the Riverside,” we mean it.

But outside this sanctuary,

the urge to study war jumps up again.

      We all want peace, but we can’t seem

            to get what we want without war.

It’s not so much al-Qaeda

      [or, insert name of current national enemy]

that bothers us. It’s our neighbors, co-workers,

family members, or that friggin’ Lexus

      that just cut us off in traffic.

So burn this chorus in our memory.

            Keep humming it in our ears.

I ain’t gonna study war no more. . . .

I really don’t wanna / gonna study war no more. . . .

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. From In the Land of the Willing: Litanies, Prayers, Poems, and Benedictions.

News, views, notes, and quotes

3 April 2015  •  No. 16
Good Friday  •  Pesach

Invocation. “Nothing can trouble, nothing can frighten. / Those who seek God shall never go wanting. / God alone fills us.” —Listen to the Taizé chant “Nada Te Turbe,” based on the mystical writing of the Spanish mystic, St. Teresa of Avila (aka Teresa of Jesus). This past week marked the 500th anniversary of her birth. Teresa was canonized 40 years after her death and, together, with Catherine of Siena, was declared a “Doctor of the Church” by Pope Paul VI in 1970.

Hopeful news. Some 40 faith leaders across the width of Christian denominational lines have published a Holy Week letter calling for an abolition of the death penalty in the United States.
        “We urge governors, prosecutors, judges and anyone entrusted with power to do all that they can to end a practice that diminishes our humanity and contributes to a culture of violence and retribution without restoration,” the group said in a statement released the week Christians around the world commemorate the suffering and execution of Jesus leading up to Easter.
        “We especially ask public officials who are Christian to join us in the solidarity of prayer this week as we meditate on the wounds of injustice that sicken our society,” the statement said.

Artwork by Sydney M.

This week is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Billie Holiday, nicknamed “Lady Day,” who had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing, bringing unsurpassed emotional heft and creative tempo to her music. Among her best known recordings is “Strange Fruit” , a soulful expose of lynching,  written by Abel Meeropol. Meeropol and his wife Anne adopted Michael and Robert, the two young children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after they were convicted and executed for treason.

Last week’s “Signs of the Times” noted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s race-baiting comments as national elections began. There is also another story to be told, though not in the interest of “balance.” (The first step in any equitable resolution of conflict is to analyze the relative relationships of power among disputing parties; and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there is anything but equity.) Nevertheless, clear-eyed assessment must take into account all the brutal facts.
        “One has to go out of one’s way in Denmark to find a synagogue to terrorize—the country has only a few thousand Jews. And one has to go out of one’s way in France to find a kosher market to attack. The terrorizing of the grocery in east Paris [where four Jews were murdered] was not a ‘random act of violence,’ as President Obama oddly suggested. Nor was the February shooting of Dan Uzan outside a Copenhagen synagogue” or “the killing of four people at a Jewish museum in Brussels or in the murder of a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse. A vicious anti-Semitism persists on the streets of Europe as well as in the Middle East and on the Internet.” —“Still targeted,” Christian Century editorial

Traveling with an interfaith delegation to Iraq in 2000, to assess the impacts of US-led sanctions, I didn’t realize until it was too late that my passport had an Israeli visa stamp. At the time, Iraq didn’t allow any person with such into their country. By means of a chemical bath, I managed to erase the ink of my Israeli entry stamp but not the exit. An attempted disguise didn’t fool the Iraqi border guard, and I very nearly had to hitchhike the 500 miles back to Amman, Jordan. Luckily our driver, who had made this trip dozens of time, was quick on his feet—a small bribe secured my entry.

On that same trip, Iraq’s foreign minister agreed to meet with us—but only four of us. Our delegation elected our representatives, one of whom was a rabbi, the first rabbi allowed entry into the country since the 1991 Gulf War. The foreign minister’s office refused. We discussed this stipulation and finally agreed to say, OK, if the rabbi can’t come, none of us will come. It worked.

It was Jewish political theorist Hannah Arendt who coined the phrase “the banality of evil” in her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem,” describing the composure, during his trial, of the Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel) leader Adolph Eichmann who managed the logistics of Hitler’s “Final Solution,” the genocidal plan to eliminate the Jewish people. What was most striking about Eichmann, says Arendt, was that he expressed neither guilt nor hatred; that he was neither beastly nor sadistic and was judged fully sane by a psychiatrist; that he endlessly insisted that he was only following orders; that what he did was fully legal; that he was only doing his job—all of which is true, which makes it all the more frightening.

In Scripture, “sin” is rendered in several ways with several nuanced meanings, thus needing several synonyms. I think the most significant, and most overlooked, way to capture the meaning is cluelessness, which aligns with what Arendt meant about the banality of evil. Such evil is not so much the result of intentional or heinous brutality but of heedless, negligent, inattentive action oblivious to the context of history and social circumstance—being blind, sometimes innocently, sometimes willfully, typically a mixture of both.

Some of my favorite quotes from Hannah Arendt:
        •"Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to a single deed from which we could never recover; we would remain the victims of its consequences forever, not unlike the sorcerer’s apprentice who lacked the magic formula to break the spell.”
        •“Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history.”
        •"Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it."
        •“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”
        •“Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.”
        •“I'm more than ever of the opinion that a decent human existence is possible today only on the fringes of society, where one then runs the risk of starving or being stoned to death. In these circumstances, a sense of humor is a great help.”

Illustration (left) from the 14th century Kaufmann Haggadah.

The Jewish observance of Passover (Pesach) begins this week, starting Friday 3 April at sundown and lasting for seven days (the 15th-22nd of the Hebrew month of Nissan). The date moves around on the Gregorian calendar because the traditional Jewish calendar is lunar rather than solar. The Jewish calendar loses about 11 days relative to the solar calendar every year, but makes up for it by adding a month every two or three years. The Muslim calendar is also is lunar but does not add months, which is why Ramadan circles the calendar.
        Passover commemorates the Hebrew escape from the Egyptian Pharaoh’s brickyards. They left in such a hurry that they could not wait for bread dough to rise. In commemoration, for the duration of Passover no leavened bread is eaten, for which reason Passover was called the feast of unleavened bread in the Torah or Old Testament. Thus Matzo (flat unleavened bread) is eaten during Passover and it is a tradition of the holiday.
        The Hebrew verb "pasàch" is first mentioned in the book of Exodus (12:23) and is generally understood to refer to God’s “passing over” the houses of the Hebrews during the final of the Ten Plagues of Egypt. The term may also refer to the lamb or goat designated as the Passover sacrifice.

Yom HaShoah (aka “Holocaust Remembrance Day,” more formally “Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day”) is observed one week after the end of Passover, this year beginning at sundown on Wednesday 15 April, the date linked to the anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Increasingly, the word Shoah (“calamity”) is preferred because holocaust has historical roots in the Hebrew word olah, meaning “completely burnt offering to God,” with the implication that Jews and other “undesirables” murdered by the Nazis during World War II were a sacrifice to God.

In November 2005 the United Nations created the Holocaust Outreach Programme, designating an international Holocaust Remembrance Day observance for 27 January, the day in 1945 when the Auschwitz death camp in Poland was liberated.

¶ Web resources. “The Path to Nazi Genocide,”  (38-minutes, produced by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum) is a good primer on that history. Here is a poignant four-minute rendition of Schubert’s “Serenade” playing over photos from the Final Solution. “Keep the Memory Alive”  is well-produced video (8:45 minutes) interview with a Holocaust survivor using photos and animation, created specifically for use in an assembly with primary school children.

Profession of faith. “I have looked our destruction, our miserable end, straight in the eye and accepted it into my life, and my love of life has not been diminished. I am not bitter or rebellious, or in any way discouraged. . . . My life has been extended by death, by accepting destruction as part of life and no longer wasting my energies on fear of death or refusal to acknowledge its inevitability. It sounds paradoxical: by excluding death from our life we cannot live a full life, and by admitting death into our life we enlarge and enrich it.” —Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life (A Dutch Jew, Hillesum died at age 29 in Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp, in 1943. Her story been referred to as the adult counterpart to that of Anne Frank.

Here I stand. “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” —Elie Wiesel

“Klezmer,” the traditional music of Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe, is sometimes referred to as “Jewish roots music”. One beautiful example, “Shnirele Perele,” is a Yiddish folksong whose provenance is uncertain. Some say it originated from a Jewish religious source, Got fun Avrom, a woman’s prayer at the end of Shabbat (Sabbath), and some attribute the song to Rabbi Levi Yitzchok (1740-1810), a Hasidic rabbi. Watch a beautiful rendition of the song (with displayed lyrics) by the Klezmaniacs.

Good Friday? There are a host of explanations as to how “good” came to be attached to Holy Weeks’ “Friday.” (Germans use the word Karfreitag, “Sorrowful Friday,” which seems more straightforward.) Maybe the ironic modifier “good” simply lends itself to creative exploration. Maybe Good Friday represents the commitment we carry in the midst of the collision between sorrow and joy, despair and hope, imperial aspiration and the one Lordship that undermines all lording, Pax Romana and Pax Christi.
        The irony continues to this day to play out in a host of circumstances, as in this recent story.
        MidAmerica Nazarene University chaplain Randy Beckum has been relieved of some of his duties because of a “controversial sermon,” where he suggested that “Christians should take seriously Jesus’ injunction to love one’s enemies and by his questioning of Christians’ use of violence.” —Patheos

“Practice resurrection.” If you haven’t read it in a while (or never), see Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.”

Artwork (right) by Kaki Roberts.

Preach it. “Let him easter in us. . . .” —Gerard Manly Hopkins, “The Wreck of the Deutschland"

Lection for Sunday next includes a text from the early church’s vision of what practicing resurrection looks like. “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.” —Acts 4.32

Altar call. “Clarence [Jordan] viewed the resurrection as God's refusal to stay on the other side of the grave. ‘He raised Jesus, not as an invitation to us to come to heaven when we die, but as a declaration that He himself has now established permanent residence on earth," Clarence said.  "The resurrection places Jesus on this side of the grave, here and now, in the midst of this life.  The Good News of the resurrection is not that we shall die and go home with him but that he is risen and comes home with us, bringing all his hungry, naked, thirsty, sick, prisoner brothers with him.’" —Dallas Lee, Cotton Patch Evidence

# # #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

      • “The Top 10 Reasons You Know It’s the Sunday After Easter"

      • “Draw near,” a litany for worship

 

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

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

 

 

“The Top 10 Reasons You Know It’s the Sunday After Easter”

Sermon by Ken Sehested
Texts: Hosea 6: 1-3, Luke 24: 36-53

Every now and then I stay up late enough to catch David Letterman's talk show. You Letterman fans know about his "Top Ten" list which he does each evening. He starts with some kind of zany statement or conclusion to a question and then lists ten possible and equally zany variations of questions that fit the conclusion.

Well, I've got my own "Top Ten" list. Question: How can you tell it's the Sunday after Easter?

Answer #10: There's not a lily in sight.

#9: Walgreen's and K&B rotate the Easter candy to the sale tables and bring out the Mother's Day cards and gift ideas.

#8: You'll have no trouble finding a seat (even if you're late for worship).

#7: You'll have no trouble finding a parking place (even if you're late for worship).

#6: There is a very noticeable relaxing of the dress code.

#5: The number of visitors drops dramatically.

#4: The number of people who look like visitors but are actually church members who haven't been here for a while drops dramatically.

#3: Everyone is glad to wait another 12 months before singing "Up From the Grave He Arose."

#2: The choir recycles an old anthem.

#1: The preacher takes a Sunday off.

Easter Sunday is a hard act to follow. The Sunday after Easter mood is about like the way you feel when you pull the car in the driveway at the end of a long trip to some distant location. Dinner is definitely a take-out occasion. The return to "normal" life is a bit sluggish.

That's why preachers and choirs tend to take a week off or cook up some offering of a lighter fare. That's why you have a pinch hitter this morning.

The week after Easter is a very popular time for R&R conferences and retreats for ministers. It's a time for all of us—but especially preachers and choirs—to recover from the agony of Holy Week and the ecstasy of Easter, to kick back their feet and take a blow.

It's easy to understand. Who doesn't? It takes a lot of overtime work to pull off those extra Holy Week services and all the special features and arrangements for Easter Sunday. It doesn't take a degree in psychology to know that there's sure to be an emotional let-down. The sound of the Monday morning alarm clock is always a harsh one. Much, much more so the day after Easter. Actually—and this may sound odd at first—every preacher knows it's very easy to preach an Easter Sunday sermon. It's like getting a fat pitch to hit, a 3-and-2 count fastball, with no movement, belt high, in the heart of the plate, with runners in scoring position. Can't miss. Just about anybody can preach a good Easter sermon. It's the Sunday after Easter that takes some work.

Easter kind of wears us out. It's easy to understand. But it's also unfortunate. Because the other shoe has yet to drop. Easter is the beginning, not the conclusion. Just as our faith does not end with Good Friday crucifixion, neither does it end with Easter resurrection. We may be exhausted, but the New Testament story is not. Resurrection is certainly the pivotal moment in this drama; but there's another act to follow. But if you leave now . . . well, let's just say you go home and tell your friends this play was about spring fashions and painted eggs and chocolate bunnies. All very delightful, of course. Great acting; superb staging; crisp dialog; marvelous dramatic movement. But you missed the point. It would be kind of like walking out on "The Fugitive" right after the bus accident. Harrison Ford escapes, and boy are we glad ‘cause we know he's innocent, didn't kill his wife, didn't deserve to die in the electric chair. And now he's free. Oh, thank-you Jesus; now we can go home.

That would be crazy, of course, because things are just now getting interesting. If you think that bus crash was a heart-pounder, you ain't seen nothing yet. If you walk out now, you miss the most exciting part of the movie. And if you quit reading when Jesus is rescued from the jaws of death . . . well, let's just say you go home and tell your friends that this story is about gettin' people to heaven when they die.

That's the interpretation that a lot of churches give to this story. Lay-away theology: Give your heart to Jesus now so you can go to heaven later. Easy installments of weekly church attendance.

Transport theology: Buy your ticket now in case the glory train comes early. Then just hang out 'til the whistle blows. Nothing else much matter much once your ticket's in hand.

Life insurance theology: Once you read the policy and make arrangements for the payments, you file it away (and hope you don't have to cash it in any time soon).

But the New Testament story of Easter is different. Resurrection is not life insurance, to be used only in case of emergency. It's more like mobilization orders for someone in the National Guard. The action has just begun. Resurrection, as Clarence Jordan says, is God's refusal to stay on the other side of the grave. "God raised Jesus, not as an invitation to us to come to heaven when we die, but as a declaration that He himself has not established permanent residence on earth. The resurrection places Jesus on this side of the grave, here and now, in the midst of this life. The Good News of the resurrection is not that we shall die and go home with him but that he is risen and comes home with us, bringing all his hungry, naked, thirsty, sick, prisoner brothers and sisters with him."

Easter does not exhaust the biblical narrative of God's saving work. There's more. What began with Adam and Eve, what began again with Noah and the ark, and again with Israel's escape from Egyptian bondage, and again with Jonah emerging from the whale's belly, and again with Israel's repeated returns from exile, and again with Mary's pregnancy—all these beginnings and new beginnings, now uniquely confirmed and summarized and restated in the resurrection, are the prelude to the final act in the story, one step short of the dramatic conclusion of the salvation story. There is another stage between the eruption of Easter and the inauguration of the New Heaven and the New Earth. Just as surely as Good Friday crucifixion is followed by and fulfilled in Easter resurrection, Easter in turn is followed by and blossoms into Pentecost.

Easter is God's resurrection moment, Pentecost is God's resurrection movement. Pentecost, the birthday of the church, is the enactment of the dramatic declaration of the news of Easter morning. Easter is when God announces the invasion; Pentecost is when God establishes a beachhead.

Our New Testament text this morning is a bridge text between these two momentous occasions. Luke is at the end of his first book, about to start the second volume, which is called the Acts of the Apostles. Here, in the final story of Luke's account, we find the resurrected Jesus appearing to the dazed and terrified disciples huddling behind closed doors in some secret location in Jerusalem. They've already found out about the empty tomb. The women have told them their fantastic tale of having spoken with the resurrected Lord, and while they're not dismissed out of hand as they were at first, the menfolk probably still do not fully believe them. A resuscitated corpse may be a scientific marvel, but it doesn't have the power to beckon death-defying faith.

Jesus suddenly appears among them. "Peace be to you," he says. He asks why they're still in hiding. "Why are you troubled?” as if he didn't know. And did you notice what came next? Before the disciples even have a chance to respond, Jesus asks if they have anything to eat.

 "Yo, guys! What's happ'nin? What's for dinner?"

Seems like everywhere Jesus went in the Gospel stories, food gets passed around. Actually, this is no coincidence, but an important clue about his mission.

After repeating the same teaching he had given just a little earlier to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, about how God was fulfilling what was written in Hebrew Scripture, Jesus formally swears them in as witnesses to this new reality—a reality not really new but only hidden and now made manifest. "And behold, I send the promise of my Abba upon you," he says. And then a curious command: "but stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high." Don't rush out just yet, he says. Don't get ahead of yourselves. God will act again, to empower you. It is the promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit, which Luke would write about just a few chapters into his second book—the occasion of Pentecost.

Pentecost never drew much attention for those of us who grew up in Baptist churches. For the first half of my life, my only association with Pentecost was that bizarre practice called "speaking in tongues" which the Pentecostal folk did. Always seemed kinda spooky, in poor taste, definitely uncultured. "Pentecostal power" meant talking gibberish with lots of weird emotions. Later I learned that this Pentecost marvel wasn't about glossolalia—ecstatic tongues—but about the disciples' sudden ability to speak in foreign languages. Certainly interesting, even impressive, but not very gripping.

It would be later still before I began to comprehend the real miracle at Pentecost. Pentecostal power was not talking emotional gibberish; nor was it the overnight facility with languages on the part of the disciples. No, Pentecostal power was about the overcoming of walls of hostility. Pentecostal power was about the fact that people of different races, different cultures, difference languages (to be sure), different nationalities and ethnicities suddenly understanding each other, suddenly about to really "hear" each other, suddenly able to respond to each other with empathy rather than hostility. Remember that Jesus' final entry into Jerusalem, just before Good Friday and Easter morning, was the celebration of Passover in Jerusalem. It was the time when Jews from everywhere came on pilgrimage to the holy city. Walk down the streets of Jerusalem during Passover and you could hear people speaking in languages from every part of the known world. Pentecost would come to symbolize the overcoming of the Tower of Babel story in Genesis, when human arrogance became so overwhelming that God "confused their tongues" so they could not understand each other. Pentecost is the unraveling of this confusion and this division within the human community. Pentecost, in other words, is about overcoming racism, and nationalism, and every other "ism" which feeds enmity and hatred between people.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We're not yet to Pentecost. There's still a good bit to go of the 50 days separating Easter and Pentecost.

Right now we're in between times. Resurrection has occurred, but the reforming of the people of God has not yet happened. The coming of the Spirit power is ahead of us still. Right now we're still waiting and listening and reading the signs of the times. Right now we're still gestating, not quite ready to be born. And that brings me to the point of this sermon.

I am convinced that a new gestation of the people of God is actually occurring among us at this very moment. I am convinced that we are at present between the Resurrection moment and a new Resurrection movement. The God movement (as Clarence Jordan would say) is being redefined and reshaped. And this is happening in two related arenas, both of which encompass the life of Prescott Memorial Baptist Church. One is more narrow, geographically and culturally specific; the other is broader, more global in scope.

The first instance of God's reforming the life of the people of God has to do with our historic identity as a Southern Baptist-affiliated congregation. We're only barely an SBC church, of course. We've already been kicked out of the local SBC association. And both the state and national bodies can expel us at any time. It's not a question of if they dismiss us, but when. I am saying that the time has come for us to take the initiative to sever that affiliation ourselves.

The second instance of God's reforming the people of God in our age has to do with a more global reality. Sometime during the middle of this century a little known but very significant thing happened. For the first time in history, the majority of the Christian community is now composed of people of color. The worldwide church isn't white anymore. In addition, the majority of the Christian community now live in the South and in the East. No longer is Western Europe and North America the center of God's resurrection movement.

Understand the significance of this fact: the new constitution of the people of God now lives primarily outside the gates of the empire, the empire being the United States and its client states in the North Atlantic region. Therefore the interests of the empire are increasingly at odds with the people of God.

April 10, 1994, Prescott Memorial Baptist Church, Memphis, Tennessee,

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

News, views, notes, and quotes

26 March 2015  •  No. 15

Invocation. It’s not the Muslim, not the Jew, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. —old spiritual, new verse

Amazing. Renewable energy sources “now generate nearly half of Nicaragua's electricity, a figure that government officials predict could rise to 80 percent within a few years. That compares to just 13 percent in the United States. . . . There is so much untapped energy in Nicaragua that it's planning to export electricity to its Central American neighbors.” —John Otis, "Nicaragua's Renewable Energy Revolution Picks Up Steam”

The message from Eduardo came with the asunto [subject] line “First time ever!!!!” followed by several photos, taken at the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People office in Ciego de Avila, where the St. Paul, Minnesota-based Global Volunteers delegation presented an American flag as a gesture of hope for reconciliation. Rev. Eduardo Gonzalez (at left, center, back row), pastor of Iglesia Bautista Enmanuel, served as the local host.
        A gringo friend, Stan Dotson, currently teaching in Cuba who’s been able to travel throughout the island nation, reports that US President Barack Obama’s 17 December 2014 announcement reestablishing diplomatic ties with Cuba has been received with enthusiasm by people across the political spectrum (including the politically indifferent).

Several pieces of legislation have been submitted in the US Senate and House calling for an end to US-Cuba travel restrictions and the US embargo. See this summary by the Washington Office on Latin America.

Intercession. “There are things that can be seen only with eyes that have cried.” —Roman Catholic Archbishop Christophe Munzihirwa, former bishop in the Democratic Republic of Congo, killed in the war there in 1996

Words of assurance. In 1971 music producer Gavan Bryars was working on a film about people living on the street in London, recording their songs of all sorts. One, by a man whose frail voice sang “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.” Bryars eventually turned those 13 bars of music into a loop, slowly adding Tom Waits’ voice on top and in harmony, then slowly adding orchestral accompaniment. It is a haunting tune (especially for a Tom Waits fan like myself) to which I’ve listened numerous times as a kind of extended meditation.
        There are versions on the web in several lengths, including a four-minute version , a 20-minute version, and a one hour 14-minute version (the latter available on CD).
       For more of the intriguing story behind this music, see Matthew Archbold’s “The True Story Behind One of the Most Beautiful Hymns I’ve Ever Heard.”

Foot washing. Some years ago, in a visit to our partner congregation in Cuba, our hosts asked us to plan and lead their Wednesday worship service. We chose to focus on the Gospel of John’s “Lord’s Supper” account, where there is no ritual bread and wine observance, only Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. We asked Iglesia Getsemani leaders if we might do a foot washing ritual and found out they had been previously been discussing this. (Pictured at right are two of our members washing the feet of Rev. Angela Hernandez, Iglesia Getsemani’s pastor.)

Lection for Maundy Thursday. “Jesus, knowing that the Abba had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet. . . . After he had washed their feet . . . he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you?’” —John 13:3-5, 12

Foot washing will alter your point of view. “It remains an experience of incomparable value that we have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled, in short from the perspective of the suffering.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

“Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles” by Meister des Hausbuches, 1475, Gemäldegalerie art museum, Berlin, Germany

Preach it. “Maundy means commandment; it’s Commandment Thursday. Jesus expression should be serious.” Unfortunately, “the lectionary gives us only the beginning of Jesus’ farewell discourse. His later words in chapter 14-17 clarify the provocative washing of feet and declaring of a new commandment. He speaks of joy: ‘I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete’” [15:10-11]. —David Keck, “Living the Word,” The Christian Century

Disingenuous confession. The modern form of evasive apology by public figures gives the appearance but not the substance of confession. All are variations on the theme of “I’m sorry if my comments offended anyone,” which is to slyly say it’s your fault if you were offended. (See Edwin Battistella’s “The Art of the Political Apology” for more on this topic.)
        Case in point: This week’s “apology” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his Election Day race-baiting broadcast that “Arab voters are coming in droves to the ballot boxes” and that “left-wing NGOs [non-governmental organizations] are bringing them in buses.” Then, back-tracking on Monday after his reelection, he said “I know the things I said . . . offended some of Israel’s citizens, hurt Arab citizens. I had no intention whatsoever that would happen.” [Approximately 20% of Israel’s citizens are Arab.]
        He also said his election-eve vow to block the creation of a Palestinian state was misunderstood. However, the Likud Party (Netanyahu is its elected leader) Platform states that “The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.”

Regret is not repentance. Rather, “regret” is often a self-centered sentiment designed to draw attention away from the situation of harm and blind to the requirements of repair.

¶ “Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death.” —2 Corinthians 7:10

This, on the other hand, is more like a real confession, though there’s no mention of repairing the damage and though the change isn’t as great as some of us would like. “The former president of Bob Jones University (BJU), one of the nation’s bastions of Christian fundamentalism, has apologized for comments he made in 1980 that gays and lesbians should be stoned to death.”
       “I cannot erase [those words], but I wish I could,” said Bob Jones III (grandson of the school’s founder), who retired in 2005, in response to a petition by an informal network of 2,000 LGBT alumni/ae and their supporters asking him to recant his 1980 statement. —Religious News Service

When Roger Williams, founder of the first Baptist congregation on the American continent, was banished by his fellow Puritan leaders from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635, the first of four charges against him was that he held "that we have not our land by patent [land grant] from the king, but that the natives are the true owners of it, and that we ought to repent of such a receiving of it by patent."

There’s no getting over a certain foreboding in Holy Week liturgies (the “Triduum” of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday), including a dimly-lit Tenebrae (literally, “shadows”) service which typically ends in total darkness and silent recessional. We need a reminder that Jesus didn’t die of a heart attack; that he sweat blood trying to figure out an alternative to what by now seemed inevitable; that his closest friends deserted him. He was executed, in the most publicly shameful manner available, as the Roman Empire’s terror-inspiring warning against all insurgent aims.
        If Holy Week’s schedule gets wearisome, take an irreverent break to ponder God’s burden in abiding our pontifical attention: a new poem, "Raucous."

Cross at left hand-painted by artists at the Kairos Community Center, Matanzas, Cuba.

Preparations for Holy Week and Easter. The brutal violence afflicting citizens of Aleppo, Syria, brings to mind another, even longer-standing (and sometimes violent) conflict within the church: When to celebrate Easter? That conflict is based on differing opinions regarding the lunar calendar, dates of the Jewish Passover observance, and a 16th century switch in the Western church from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. Most years, the Eastern and Western churches observe Easter on different Sundays—often a week apart, sometimes as much as a month, and occasionally on the same day (as in 2010, 2011, 2014, not again until 2017).

In 1997 the World Council of Churches sponsored a parlay in Aleppo in hopes of uniting the global Christian community’s observance. Easter would be defined as the first Sunday following the first astronomical full moon following the astronomical vernal equinox, as determined from the meridian of Jerusalem. This reform has not yet been implemented. (Maybe because it’s too confusing?)

Egad! “Fistfights broke out yesterday between Christians gathered [at the church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem], the site of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus Christ,” according to a 2004 story in The Guardian. There was lots of hitting going on. Israeli police called in to quell the minor riot were hit. “There were a lot of people with bloodied faces.” Theological-ecclesial competitors (does this sound familiar?) have resorted to fisticuffs before and since. Here’s a video of a monk-brawl at the Holy Sepulcher in 2008.

Don’t be surprised when you walk down the aisle of your local CVS to find that the company has decided to do its part in supporting our troops. For $3.99, you can buy a package of camouflage-colored Easter eggs, with matching green and white armed plastic soldiers—the “toy prizes” are just like the jellybeans of Easters past and, according to CVS, “Perfect for Easter egg hunts.” —Nancy Aykanian, “CVS Makes War on Easter,” Common Dreams

Hard to stay focused. On Easter Sunday 2013 the Baylor University (mascot: bear) women’s basketball team played in the NCAA quarterfinals for the national championship. The Waco, Texas, Grace Baptist Church sign that day read: “He is risen /  Go Lady Bears.”

Hershey’s wants a piece of Easter action, too, with a milk chocolate cross. (I didn’t see a fair trade dark chocolate option.)

In the movie Son of God, Jesus is played by Diogo Margado “who plays the title role with a gleaming smile and a surfer-dude vibe.” —USA Today movie review

¶ “As E.B. White watched his wife Katherine planning the planting of bulbs in her garden in the last autumn of her life, he wrote, ‘there was something comical yet touching in her bedraggled appearance . . . the small hunched-over figure, her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be yet another spring, oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection.’
       "Katherine was a member of the resurrection conspiracy, the company of those who plant seeds of hope under dark skies of grief or oppression, going about their living and dying until, no one knows how, when or where, the tender Easter shoots appear, and a piece of creation is healed." —Robert Raines

¶ “Get an Exclusive Coupon on this Cute ALLYOU Easter Craft Kit.”

¶ "To preach to the powerful without denouncing oppression is to promise Easter without Calvary, forgiveness without conversion, and healing without cleansing the wound." —"From What We Have Seen and Heard: A Pastoral Letter on Evangelization From the Black Bishops of the United States," 1984

Altar call. “It is likely that there can be no resurrections by proxy. Each person and each generation may be called to stand anew at the river.” —Vincent Harding, Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement

Art at left ©Julie Lonneman

Closing hymn. “There ain’t no grave can hold my body down.” —Johnny Cash

Benediction. “As Tashi Johnson [in Alice Walker's novel Possessing the Secret of Joy] goes to the firing squad, punishment for fighting the edicts of history, her sisters unfurl a banner before the soldiers can stop them. ‘Resistance is the secret of joy,’ it says in huge block letters. 'There is a roar as if the world cracked open and I flew inside,' says Tashi upon seeing the banner. ‘I am no more. And [am] satisfied.’” —Rose Berger, “Pursuing the Secret of Joy,” Sojourners magazine

#  #  #

Featured this week on the prayer&politiks site:

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

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

 

Raucous

by Ken Sehested

There is a raucousness to God, in God, of God, by God
that the orderly mind cannot abide (finds chaotic, riotous)
that the prim-proper mind finds embarrassing (even trashy)
that the erudite mind judges tacky (mangy)
that the pious mind believes unseemly (well-nigh depraved)
that the disciplined mind finds rowdy (or at least untidy)
that the morally rigorous simply cannot condone.

Have you ever been in a place—
like, maybe, as a child in church, sitting
next to your best friend who,
despite trying hard not to
(how can I say this without
offending delicate sensitivities?),
“break wind”?
What might normally be
only marginally humorous, now
(given the solemn circumstances,
the prohibition of irreverence being severe)
becomes funny all out of proportion
and, despite your best efforts,
trying to swallow the guffaw
rising from your esophagus
(like trying to muzzle a sneeze),
it squirts out anyway, and the
breath suppressed shoots
up through the nasal cavity,
launching a snotty snort
out your nose, giggles
thus threatening a riot?

Listening to prayers, all day, all night,
hour after endless epoch,
that’s how God often gets.

©Ken Sehested, Lent 2015 @ prayerandpolitiks.org

News, views, notes, and quotes

19 March 2015  •  No. 14

Invocation. “Why, when God's world is so big, did you fall asleep in a prison of all places?” —Rumi

Remarkable news. “South Africa may be one of just 10 countries in the world to permit same-sex marriage—not to mention the only country in Africa—but it is also a place where the assault, rape and murder of lesbians remains a troublingly common issue. At the same time, however, a brave effort is taking shape to counter this hatred and violence. Among the groups leading the charge is Luleki Sizwe, founded in 2005 by Ndumie Funda. The group’s main objective is to put an end to corrective rape—a phenomenon where men rape lesbian women with the belief that it will somehow correct them of their sexuality.” —Ray Mwareya-Mhondera, “South Africa’s brave struggle against lesbian hate crimes”

Good news you likely didn’t hear. An interfaith crowd of more than 1,000 surrounded Oslo, Norway’s main synagogue on Saturday 21 February, chanting “No to anti-Semitism, no to Islamophobia.” The event, organized by Muslim youth in the city, was done in solidarity with Norway’s Jewish community on the heels of the murder of two people outside the synagogue the previous week.
        One of the event organizers, 17-year-old Hajrad Arshad, explained that the intention was to make a clear statement that Muslims don’t support anti-Semitism. “We think that after the terrorist attacks in Copenhagen, it is the perfect time for us Muslims to distance ourselves from the harassment of Jews that is happening,” Arshad told the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. She noted that the group aimed to “extinguish the prejudices people have against Jews and against Muslims.” [Photo credit: Reuters]

Confession. “Like many people concerned about ‘humanity,’ [European novelist Arthur Koestler] was contemptuous of actual humans. —description of Koestler by Christopher Caldwell, in a review of Michael Scammel’s Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic, New York Times Book Review

Words of assurance. “If we were terrified of God as an inexorable judge, we would not confidently await God's mercy, or approach God trustfully in prayer. Our peace, our joy in Lent are a guarantee of grace.” —Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration

Art at left ©Miranda Hassett.

Prayers of intercession. “Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement, seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.”  —Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Congratulations! This year is the 25th anniversary of the historic American With Disabilities Act of 1990—though churches were exempted from its provisions. A coalition of faith groups is seeking 2,500 faith communities to formally pledge (prior to 26 July) their commitment to full implementation of the Act’s provisions. Consider putting this initiative to your congregation. Even if you’re already in compliance, there is pastoral value in having this conversation. You can find the pledge here. Among the campaign’s co-sponsors are:
        •The Collaborative on Faith and Disability, a clearinghouse for ongoing projects, best practices, upcoming events and other resources addressing topics at the intersection of disability, spirituality and faith communities.
        • The Interfaith Disability Advocacy Coalition, a program of the American Association of People with Disabilities, has produced church resources to raise awareness about ways to expand employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
        •The ADA National Network has a Facebook page for idea sharing, questions, activities and other resources including links to faith and disability program websites. —information from Baptist News Global Today

¶ Americans With Disabilities Act meets Women’s History Month: The Helen Keller you never knew. Helen Keller is most often depicted simply as a courageous individual who overcame the severe phyisical obstacles of being deaf and blind. But that’s not half the story.
       Newspaper photo (right) of Helen Keller joining the actors’ strike picket line at the premiere of the silent film “Deliverance,” about her own life.
       “Helen Keller worked throughout her long life to achieve social justice; she was an integral part of many social movements in the 20th century,” writes Ruth Shagoury in “Who Stole Helen Keller?”  But she was also an activist and author, writing frequently on disability and class, socialism, women, and war.
        “On August 18th, 1919, Helen Keller took part in a strike called by Actor’s Equity—joining the picket line against the debut of the silent film Deliverance, about her own life. Not only did she join in the picket line, she spoke at the union’s strike meetings in support of their dispute with management regarding their wages. She declared she would 'rather have the film fail than aid the managers in their contest with the players.' (The New York Call also was the first newspaper to publish Keller’s article, “How I Became a Socialist,” in 1912.)"

Disabilities of a different sort. “In response to a racist chant by a group of fraternity brothers the president of Oklahoma University acted quickly to denounce their actions. That was good. There absolutely needed to be accountability for using hateful and horrific language.
        “But then the predictable pattern fell into place. It was the same old triple crown of punishment for a failing. Blame ‘em, shame ‘em and shun ‘em.
        “What if the OU president had said, ‘What happened is deplorable. There are consequences. We will not tolerate any language that denigrates or disrespects anyone, regardless of race, religion, gender or class. Yet we are aware that we all suffer from living within a racist and biased culture of prejudices. We are in this together. The students will remain on campus so that we can learn together. Together we will learn about the paralyzing systems of injustice that bind and constrict us. Together we will seek to discover a mercy that unites us and strengthens us to change for the common good.’” —Nancy Hastings Sehested in last Sunday's sermon, “Astounded by Forgiveness”

It is painful, but I do believe we need to hear the un-bleeped video version of that fraternity pep rally-like chant (sung to a tune eerily similar to “If You’re Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands”). And I do believe we need to read the uncensored lyrics: “There will never be a nigger SAE [Sigma Alpha Epsilon] / There will never be a nigger SAE / You can hang ‘em from a tree, but it will never start with me / There will never be a nigger SAE.”

Can't make this %#!@ up. Thankfully, social media outrage prompted retailer T.J. Maxx to pull these "hang loose noose" t-shirts.

Hymn of petition. Mercy Now  by Mary Gauthier. This version uses photos from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, whose 10th anniversary is this August, a “natural” disaster which exposed—as much as anything else to that point—the “unnatural” divisions of race and class in our nation.

Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror documents Equal Justice Initiative’s multi-year investigation into lynching in twelve Southern states during the period between Reconstruction and World War II. EJI researchers documented 3959 racial terror lynchings of African Americans between 1877 and 1950—at least 700 more lynchings of black people in these states than previously reported in the most comprehensive work done on lynching to date.

In a recent speech, Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson said:
        • “I don’t think slavery ended. I believe it just evolved.”
        • “Injustice prevails where hopelessness persists.”
        •Some 10,000 children are housed in adult jails and prisons, where they are at least five times more likely to be sexually assaulted than if they were in juvenile facilities.

Here’s an “extended” interview with Stevenson by Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.”  (It’s worth enduring the open ad.)

Two books that bring to the surface the structural racism of our nation’s criminal justice system. Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, is the go-to book documenting Bryan Stevenson comment (above) that “slavery didn’t end, it just evolved.” According to the New York Times Book Review, Alexander's “book marshals pages of statistics and legal citations to argue that the get-tough approach to crime that began in the Nixon administration and intensified with Ronald Reagan’s declaration of the war on drugs has devastated black America."
        Where Alexander’s book provides a rigorous analysis of how “slavery has evolved” (as Stevenson says), Stevenson’s Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption tells concrete stories. The Washington Post says Stevenson “surely has done as much as any other living American to vindicate the innocent and temper justice with mercy for the guilty.”

Here’s an interview of Alexander by Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report.”

Some words are worth a thousand pictures. “Nothing sucks more about prison than missing the people who own beach front property in your heart.” —JEG, prison inmate, in a letter to a former prison chaplain

Some basic facts on prison and race from the American Civil Liberty Union
        •From 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled-from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people.
        •The US is 5% of the World population and has 25% of world prisoners.
        •African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population.
        •African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites.
        •Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population.
        •About 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug.
        •Although five times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites.

McAfee School of Theology student Jordan Yeager (pictured at left, photo by David Garber) has been an advocate on behalf of Georgia death row inmate Kelly Gissendaner whose execution was postponed last week. David Garber, McAfee associate professor of Old Testament and Hebrew and the faculty advisor for the Certificate in Theological Studies for women at the Arrendale State Prison, said “Many students have written eloquent papers on capital punishment and on restorative justice” during the run-up and aftermath to Gissendale’s scheduled execution. —Baptist News Global Today

The good news is that out-of-control prison costs have forced conservatives and liberals to agree on commonsensical alternatives. And Texas is leading the way. It began with Texas attorney Marc Levin, who has become one of the nation's leading advocates of conservative criminal-justice reform. “How is it 'conservative' to spend vast amounts of taxpayer money on a strategy without asking whether it is providing taxpayers with the best public safety return on their investment?" In 2007 Texas legislators voted to spend an eighth of a proposed $2 billion prison budget increase on drug courts and rehabilitative programs for addicts and mentally ill prisoners. Since then the state’s incarceration rate has fallen by 20% and crime rate is at its lowest since 1968.

Prisons are to crime what greenhouses are to plants. —Harry Whittington, former member of the Texas Board of Corrections and the bonding authority that builds prisons.

Every pastoral agent—clergy and lay leaders alike—should become familiar with the phrase “restorative justice.” For a start, get a copy of Howard Zehr’s The Little Book of Restorative Justice ($4.95) and bookmark the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice site.
       Retributive justice asks “What law has been broken? Who broke it? How should they be punished?” Restorative justice asks “What harm has been done? What needs to be done to repair the harm? Who is responsible for repairing the harm?” (For more, see “If You Do Well,” Ken Sehested’s sermon on restorative justice.)

Lection for Sunday next. “Jesus entered Jerusalem, then entered the Temple. He looked around, taking it all in. But by now it was late. . . . —Mark 11:11, The Message. The lectionary editors stop short of the rest of the (“I’ll be back”) story.

¶ Preach it. Writing 25 years ago, as if a seer of current headlines, Vincent Harding wrote: “On the harshest national level we saw again that race is like a bone stuck in our throat, refusing both digestion and expulsion, endangering our life. . . . “ This news testifies “to the unmistakable need and desire of our nation to deal with its terrifying and compelling history, to exorcise the demons of our racial past and present, perhaps even to discover the healing possibilities that reside in our many-hued and wounded variations on the human theme.” —Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement

Altar call. “In order to change the world, you sometimes have to choose to do uncomfortable things. You have to choose to be in places that are uncomfortable,” which he calls the “power of proximity.” —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

Benediction. “Yes, the Pope, who beat Edward Snowden for Time magazine’s [2013] ‘Person of the Year,’ is astonishing. I must admit that even as a secular Jew, this pope fills me with awe. He sneaks out at night to feed the homeless; invites homeless people to celebrate his birthday in the Vatican; washes the feet of young prisoners; says he is not one to judge gay people; calls on the church to get beyond its fixation on reproduction and sexual morality; debunks trickle-down economics and questions the morality of capitalism; lives simply and loves to take public transportation. What a cool guy!” —Medea Benjamin, director of CODEPINK

Featured this week on prayer&politiks:
• “Astounded by Forgiveness,” a sermon by Nancy Hastings Sehested
• “The Palm and the Passion,” a litany for Palm Sunday
• “Confrontation in Jerusalem,” a Palm Sunday sermon
• “If You Do Well,” a sermon on restorative justice
• “Blessed unrest,” a litany for worship

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

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

 

Blessed unrest

Give heed, all you of unquestioned comfort and careless ease:

You who know little of the underside of bridges, the short side of markets, the wrong side of the tracks or the inside of jails.

The Holy One of Heaven is neither kindly uncle nor auntie sweet.

God is not “nice.” God is no lucky charm. God is an earthquake.*

O Blessed Unrest, disturb the peace  of the counsels of deceit.

Unnerve every congress of infamy. Shake the foundation of all insular living.

Come and wrangle our hearts with the dis-ease of your Love.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org, from In the Land of the Willing: Litanies, Prayers, Poems, and Benedictions. Inspired by “God of Tempest, God of Whirlwind” by Herman Stuempfle, Jr. *The line is variously attributed to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, as a Yiddish proverb and as a saying from Hasidic Judaism.

 

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

 

 

The palm and the passion

by Ken Sehested

Welcome to this Circle of faith. Today we mark both the pain and the passion of the human journey toward the arms of God.

Jesus, riding a humble donkey, entered Jerusalem, cheered by the crowd.

Palms and cloaks were laid in his path as a sign of messianic hope for deliverance.

Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes with liberation.

We, too, long to be saved, to be delivered from occupation.

Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes.

But who is this one who comes, this one who conquers?

Why this confusion: Mighty One, mounted on the colt of a common donkey, rather than on a stallion of war?

What does this mean? What struggle is this?

¿Es una buena lucha?

¡Es una buena lucha!

Morning by morning the Beloved awakens me.

Tuning my ear to heaven’s harmony.

Be gracious to me, Blessed One, for I am in distress.

My eyes are awash with grief; my tears are a drowning flood.

My bones bulge under the weight of unlived life.

Sighs crowd my heart and swell my tongue.

Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. Over Asheville. Over the Circle of Mercy.

Can you hear it? Can you hear it?

But the One who vindicates is near.

The approach of Beloved has reached our ears.

Hear this, O people of The Way: The fitness of Christ is available to all. Hide not your face from this Deliverer. Your sins are insufficient, your shortcomings are too paltry, your frailties are too insignificant and your fears are too impotent to overwhelm the Reign of Grace!

We hear, and in hearing we rejoice!

 

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

If You Do Well: The Vanity of Vengeance and the Restoration of Righteousness

by Ken Sehested
Texts: Genesis 4:1-16; Psalm 133; Matthew 18:1-22

        "Why do we kill people to show that killing people is wrong?"

        The logic of that bumper-sticker aphorism sounds so simple. Is it simplistic? If you think so, ponder this more complex quote in 1994 by former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who died earlier this year:

        From this day forward, I shall no longer tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored—indeed, I have struggled—along with a majority of this court to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Despite the effort … the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice and mistake. I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.

        This morning's service is the focal moment for an entire month's emphasis here at Oakhurst on the criminal justice system and our response to it. Planners for this morning's worship have collaborated so that this service coincides with the larger national campaign to abolish capital punishment.

        It is especially appropriate for the church to reflect on the relation between crime and justice. Among the world's religions, ours is the only one whose founder suffered capital punishment. The visitation of prisoners was on Jesus' short list of disciple activities reflecting one's eternal destination. Here in the U.S., the institutions of criminal justice were organized by Christians—Quakers, in particular—as an experiment in social reform. (Did you know that our word "penitentiary" comes from their intended use as places of penitence, where wrong-doers could repent of their transgressions and then be reintroduced to law-abiding society.)

        But something has gone wrong. Terribly wrong. Way wrong.

        Did you know, for instance,

        •that the prison population in the U.S. has increased five-fold since 1970? That since 1980 the incarceration rate per capita has increased more than 200%?

        •that prison construction is among the leading growth industries in the U.S.?

        •that nearly one-third of African-American males, ages 20-29, are under some type of correctional control (prison, probation or parole); that two-thirds of the prison population is either black or Hispanic?

        •that among the world's nation-states, only Russia has a higher per capita prison population?

        Did you know that

        •among Western democracies, the U.S. is the only country which retains the death penalty (for civilian crimes)?

        •that the vast majority of the world's nations have either formally abolished the death penalty or no longer effectively implement it?

        •two states—California and Florida—now spend more on prisons than on higher education? In fact, a couple years ago, in an ironic piece of timing, one state agency in California announced that it was in the process of hiring 10,000 new prison maintenance employers just after another state agency announced its approval of a plan to lay off the same number of college and university teachers.

        •the rates of incarceration have been skyrocketing at the very time when crime rates have been falling?

        The cynic's prediction seems to be coming true: The day is coming when there will be just two kinds of people—prisoners and guards.

        Will Campbell writes about a door-to-door evangelist that visited his porch some years ago. He wanted to know if Bro. Will knew the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior, to which Campbell responded with an enthusiastic YES. The questioning continued, as all such inquisitors do, until the question was raised about the infallibility of the Bible. "You believe that, too!" Will responded. "Why I'm so happy to hear that. You see, there's a group of us going down to the Nashville jail this afternoon. We're gonna' close that sucker down . . . set the prisoners free, just like Jesus said. Why don't you come along with us?"

        Turning to the Bible for answers about criminal justice in general, and capital punishment in particular, isn't a simple affair.

        The Torah—the first five books of the Bible—is ancient Israel's code book for behavior; and it stipulates the death penalty for a host of crimes:

        •for murder (Gen. 9:6)

        •for owning an animal that kills people (Ex. 21:14, 29)

        •for kidnapping (Gen. 9:6)

        •for giving false witness against a defendant in a death penalty trial (Deut. 18:18-21)

        •for a host of sexual transgressions, including incest, adultery, bestiality, homosexual activity, rape—and for having sex with your wife during her menstrual period (Ex. 22:19; Deut. 22:21, 24, 25; Lev. 20:10-14; 21:18)

        •for witchcraft and sorcery (Ex. 22;18; Lev. 20:27)

        •for breaking the sabbath (Ex. 31:14; Num. 15:32-36)

        •for child sacrifice (Lev. 21:9)

        •for falsely claiming to be a prophet (Deut. 13:5, 10)

        •for blasphemy (Lev. 24: 15-16)

        •and for a non-Levite who enters the sacred place of the temple (Num. 1:51; 3:10, 38; 18:7)

        And then there's my favorite: for a stubborn son's disobedience to his mother or father (Ex. 22:19; Deut. 22:21; Lev. 20:9; Deut. 21:18-21) I can tell you—there are a lot of us sons who are happy we didn't grow up in homes that took this particularly text literally!

        But on the other hand, in Scripture's first account of a capital offense—when Cain committed premeditated murder against his brother Abel—the offender was given divine protection against retaliation and vengeance. Neither did Moses suffer any consequences after his act of murder. In fact, he was chosen to lead the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage. And what about King David, who gave the orders for the death of his lover's husband? After repenting, David received this sentence from God via the prophet Nathan: "The Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die" (2 Sam. 11-12).

        Similarly, Jesus  side-stepped Scripture when the scribes and Pharisees brought the woman caught in adultery to Jesus. The law of Moses demanded such criminals be stoned to death. Jesus refused to be drawn in to such sentencing (John 8). In an even more blatant contradiction of Scripture, Jesus said, "You have heard it said, 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer" (Matt. 5:38ff)—which is a blundering translation of his statement, which is rendered more accurately as: "do not set yourself in violent or revengeful resistance against an evil-doer" or "do not respond in like manner to the evil-doer." The Apostle Paul spoke in a similar way when he wrote: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21).

        Indeed, the Apostle, building on statements from Hebrew Scripture (Lev. 19:18; Deut. 32:35), expressly forbids vengeance: "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written: 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.'" (Rom. 12:19)

        So why do we kill people to show that killing people is wrong?

        Actually, I'm not so interested in your convictions about capital punishment. Regardless of whether you're for it or against it—or if you're just not sure what you think—I'm less interested in getting you to take a position as I am in getting you to take action. Regardless of what you think, there's a way you can be redemptively involved in the arena of criminal justice. There's a new paradigm, a new perspective, on crime and justice issues which is far more helpful in guiding the church's involvement in changing the vengeance-based motivation for responding to crime.

        This new perspective is referred to as "restorative justice." Maybe you've heard the phrase. It's been formally articulated just in the past few decades. In this particular case, much of the credit goes to our Mennonite friends for developing these ideas in real-life experiments in dealing with criminals.

        Let me briefly mention some of the highlights of this new framework for thinking about and responding to criminal justice issues.

        First of all, those who advocate a switch to a restorative justice model for dealing with criminal behavior are not "soft on crime." The Bible is serious about the reality of evil; and those who advocate for restorative justice make no attempt to rationalize criminal behavior. People do bad things and must be held accountable. But a vision of restorative justice redefines crime and punishment, and counters our nation's relentlessly unproductive and exorbitantly expensive system of justice based on retribution and vengeance.

        Second, the restorative justice paradigm takes the pain of victims more seriously.

        Let me quote from an article by the Baptist Peace Fellowship's business manager, Evelyn Hanneman, who for years has been an advocate for restorative justice:

            Our current retributive system views crime as an affront to the power of the state, and asks the questions, "What law was broken? Who broke it? What is the punishment to be?" It is easy to see that the victim has little, if any, place in such a system.

            On the other hand, restorative justice defines crime as injury to the victim and the community. It asks, "What harm was done? What needs to be done to repair the harm: Who is responsible for repairing the harm?" Restorative justice affirms that the harm done by crime is best healed when the offender is held accountable for his or her actions and responsible for making things right. ("Restorative Justice: A biblically-based paradigm for justice," in Baptist Peacemaker, Winter 1998, pp. 6-7)

        In the retributive justice system, offenders are held accountable by means of punishment; in the restorative justice system, accountability is defined as assuming responsibility and taking action to repair harm.

        In the restorative justice system, victims are central to the process, not peripheral.

        In the restorative justice system, the offender is defined not by deficits but by their capacity to make reparation.

        In the restorative justice system, the focus is on solving problems, on liabilities and obligations, on the future—rather than on establishing blame and guilt and on the past.

        In the restorative justice system, restitution and reconciliation for all parties involved is the goal—the restoration of just relations in the community—rather than simply the imposition of pain against the perpetrator.

        All of which is to say: The institutionalization of vengeance as represented by the modern criminal justice system in the U.S. has failed and will continue to fail in bringing healing to our communities. Vengeance is a vanity we can no longer afford. Our society is slowly being smothered under its weight. The Christian community—along with all people of good faith—needs to bring to bear the weight of its vigorous convictions on all appropriate public policy mechanisms to see that our current criminal justice system is transformed.

        There are very practical things you can do—practical things which this congregations, and others in the Atlanta area, are already doing. Advocacy for the application of restorative justice principles to criminal justice institutions is a form of peacemaking—of restoring right-relatedness within our communities—and with creation itself, since there are plenty of crimes against the non-human parts of creation as well. (You should know, by the way, that the FBI's annual listing of crime statistics does NOT include the multitude of corporations who are fined billions of dollars each year after being convicted of environmental degradation.)

        The restorative justice paradigm is good public policy, pure and simple. In the numerous places where experiments are underway, it's getting results. It will actually save our governments a lot of money. But for us, as Christians, advocating restorative justice principles is reflective of our identity as believers in the Good News of the Gospel.

        The principle text for this service, from Genesis, is the story of the first murder recorded by Scripture. Even more, it is the cosmic telling of the human condition. The break with God, in the garden of Eden, is followed immediately by the first homicide, the murder of Abel by his brother Cain.

        Some parts of this story are difficult to comprehend. For one thing, the text gives no clue as to why Abel's sacrifice to God is pleasing while Cain's is not. There have been centuries of speculation at this point, and it's an interesting discussion, but not for now. The crucial issue to which I want to draw your attention is not the cause for the provocation but the dialog of confrontation between God and Cain and before the actual murder takes place.

            And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. The Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it." (Genesis 4:4b-7)

        Theologians often refer to the "doctrine of the fall" in reference to the story in Genesis 3—the story of Adam and Eve's expulsion from the garden—as if humankind were forever more afterwards incapable of righteous and just action. But here in chapter four, the implication of God's questions to Cain does not imply such a fatalistic vision. God addressed Cain as a moral agent capable of choosing rightly and righteously. Abel's murder is not inevitable; the future is not circumscribed by fate, but remains open: If you do well.

        But the option of violence—"sin lurking at the door"—is real and available. And violence contains within itself a self-escalating tendency. Violence begets violence, as illustrated by the remainder of chapter four of Genesis. Immediately following the story of Cain's murder is a brief genealogy of five generations of Cain's descendants, culminating with Lamech. And the only thing we know about Lamech is this quote: "I have killed a man for wounding me; a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold" (Gen. 4:23a-24). Indeed, the relation between sin and violence is established at the very beginning of Scripture. Two chapters later, in chapter six, the relationship between the two is stated in concise and explicit terms: "Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence" (6:11). The presence of physical violence is the unmistakable indicator of spiritual corruption and sin.

        Such is the harvest of vengeance. "An eye for an eye" is never enough. The logic of vengeance is that violence must be compounded in order to be effective. As Mahatma Gandhi wrote, "Practicing 'an eye for an eye' justice will only end up making the whole world blind."

        But this God is the God who longs for restoration, not vengeance. The entire collection of stories and teachings in Scripture is aimed in this direction: of God's repeated attempts to restore right-relatedness, to restore justice and righteousness, not to punish and destroy. And it is a story which, for us as Christians, culminates in the story of Jesus, whom we confess as God's Only Begotten, whose repeated message was a variation on the demand that followers must love, not hate, their enemies—for such behavior is the distinctive marking of the children of the Abba.

        Only such behavior—rooted in the confidence that God's intention is not to punish but to restore, in the suffering love of the One who promises to dry every tear, in the assurance that grace is greater than all our sins—only such behavior is consistent with the redemptive purposes of God.

        Only such behavior can effectively respond to the threat of Cain's murderous impulse—an impulse magnified and expanded in the threat of Lamech. And thus did Jesus reply to Lamech's threat about the limitations of forgiveness. When Peter asks, in Matthew 18, whether forgiveness should be "as many as seven times?", Jesus responds: "Not seven times, Peter; but seventy times seven," which is to say: As much as it takes for justice to be restored. Lamech's threatened holocaust is countered with Jesus' standard of obedience.

        Walter Wink has written that the most fundamental challenge facing the church is the myth of redemptive violence. Most Christians, along with most everyone else in the world, believe there are at least some occasions of sin, of fractures in the human community, which must be addressed by violent means. This sermon about restorative justice is at bottom a sermon about nonviolence—as are all my sermons—because I believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ is best understood in our day as the message of nonviolence. Not simply as tactical strategy for doing good things in the world, but as the very shape of conversion, of repentance and salvation from the power of death, of empowering by the Spirit to proclaim with our very lives and our lips the redemptive message of the Gospel.

        Today I commend to you the practical model for restructuring our criminal justice system which restorative justice represents, as a means of addressing the crushing failure of our criminal justice system. A number of people right here in Oakhurst's membership know more than I about this. Check with members of the prison and jail ministry group; they have much to teach you. And they have ways you can be involved.

        But I also offer for your discernment the conviction that the theory and practice of nonviolence is the most fruitful way for understanding God's purposes, for comprehending the messianic mission of Jesus, and for being swept up in the power of the Holy Spirit. The disarming of the heart and the disarming of the nations are tied up together. IF YOU DO WELL, the grace of our Lord is abundantly available to protect you from sin's desire and to equip you with the weapons of the Spirit for waging peace in a land committed to violence and death.

        This, I dare say, is the word of the Lord.

Oakhurst Baptist Church, Decatur, GA
Sunday, 10 October 1999

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

 

Confrontation in Jerusalem

by Ken Sehested
Mark 11:1-11

This week we come to the dramatic events of Lent’s finale. Holy Week. Jesus’ so-called triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In order to figure out where this parade is taking us, we need to remember some clues that have been given earlier in the story.

The first thing we need to remember is that the nativity stories of Jesus’ birth were not originally sung as lullabies. Rather, they were provocative hints at the political intrigue unfolding with the birth in Bethlehem.

How do we know that? Recall that at the time of Jesus’ birth the great Caesar Augustus ruled the known world from his throne in Rome. Many inscriptions describing Caesar’s divine status can still be found. On some of those artifacts you can read about the Caesar’s “gospel”—literally, euaggelia, the same root word in Greek we Christians use when we speak of evangelism. In Rome’s imperial world, “gospel” was the good news of Caesar’s having established “peace and security for the world.” Before Jesus, Caesar was described as “savior” who brought “salvation” to the world. Because of this, citizens were to have “faith” in their “lord” —the words “faith” and “Lord” are the same ones in the Jesus story. Elsewhere Caesar is referred to as “redeemer” who has “saved the world” from war and established “peace on the earth.”*

From this distance we may sing about the “holy infant, so tender and mild,” the original night of Jesus’ birth was anything calm and bright. It was an explosive season of plots and counter-plots and a fierce ideological struggle to decide who, really, was to be lord.

The second thing we need to remember is the season of Jesus’ final visit to Jerusalem was the fevered occasion of Passover. Passover was the story of the Hebrews escape from Egyptian bondage. It was like Memorial Day, July 4th and Thanksgiving all rolled up into one. And the fact that the Jews were again in bondage: Ruled by Roman might enforced by Roman legions right there in their own country.

Remember what the people shouted as this parade began: “Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of our Lord! Blessed be the kingdom of our father David! Hosanna.” These are shouts of thinly-veiled political subversion, with the memory of the great King David brought to bear against the reality of the great Caesar Augustus. And the word “Hosanna” isn’t a word of piety—it’s not like saying “O, thank-you Jesus!” The word means “come and liberate us!”

The third thing you need to remember is that a unique characteristic of Mark’s gospel is what scholars refer to as the “messianic secret.” Over and over in Mark’s account Jesus is forever shushing people—don’t go telling anyone about the miracles I’ve performed. He was, in effect, a marketer’s worst nightmare.

And the fourth thing you need to recall comes up ahead, at the ending of Mark’s Gospel. There are actually several ancient manuscripts that have very different endings. But most scholars agree that the oldest of these ends with this description of the three women who came to anoint Jesus’ dead body. After an unexpected conversation with an angel in Jesus’ tomb, they are told, the story says: “And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.” It is an abrupt closure to a brutal story of torture and a gruesome murder. The storyline simply collapses in fear and trembling.

There is a realism to this truncated account that is compelling, especially in the fairytale cult that dominates so much church life in our age. This truncated version of the resurrection story somehow more commonly captures much of our own lived experiences—standing at the precipice of despair, fleeing hearts filled with misgivings, minds racing to make sense of how such a promising future could end in such ruin. Is there no word to sustain the weary?

My most enduring Lenten memory dates back to 1991 during the first war in the Persian Gulf. There were honest reasons to believe that the resistance to going to the invasion against Saddam Hussein might stay the unleashing of the dogs of war. We were wrong, terribly wrong. And more than a few of us were afraid, very afraid, of what would happen. That’s when I decided to build on a project my organization was already sponsoring, a “Call to Prayer and Fasting,” urging people to pray daily and fast weekly to forestall the run-up to open warfare. I decided to fast for the entire season of Lent, living on bread and water, as a symbolic act of resistance.

By the way, that’s when my acquaintance with Joyce was forged into a friendship. Prior to a trip to Washington, DC, I called Joyce to ask if I could bunk at her place. That’s when I found out that she, too—without any knowledge of my commitment—had decided to engage in a liquids-only fast for Lent. While I was there, she tried to convince me that my fast would allow going out for pizza and beer because, hey, it’s only grain and water!

To end my fast on Easter morning I invited several friends to join me for a simple sunrise liturgy and communion service in a park adjacent to the Mississippi River in Memphis. We gathered in front of a monument to those who, in the 19th century, came to Memphis to care for the dead and dying caused by a yellow fever epidemic. Many who came were themselves infected and lost their lives.

I asked two young women in our congregation to serve communion. One of them was my daughter Jessica, and her best friend, Courtney Walsh. Both were 14 years old. Later that week I began of more things that needed to be said, especially to Jessica and Courtney, about the relationship between suffering and joy. And so I wrote an open letter: “Announcing Resurrection in a Violent World.” I’d like to read a few excerpts from that piece.

I have the clear sense that, despite your tender age, you intuitively understand the curious relation between suffering and joy, between despair and hopefulness. My reason for writing this letter is so that you may more fully comprehend this confusing, seemingly contradictory reality. For though we celebrate Easter's resurrection announcement, the stench of death is still in the air.

Even before our resurrection flowers have wilted, we will be confronted again with the presence of evil. In 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor, was executed two days after Easter Sunday by the Nazis for resisting their authority. This past week, April 4, is the anniversary of  Dr. King’s assassination right here in Memphis. And right now, half a world away, the terror of our country's military power is manifest in unspeakable devastation.

God may be in the heavens, but all is surely not right with the world. Jesus' defeat of the world's power of crucifixion didn't make things all right. You may ask, How honest is it for us to celebrate Easter's resurrection when so much blood continues to be shed? How can we proclaim Easter's promise in an increasingly violent world? Doesn't the world snicker at resurrection claims? In fact, doesn't most of the church secretly ignore this promise? . . .

By asking you to lead in our communion meal this morning, I am trying to tell you something very important, something which most of the Christian community in our culture has forgotten, something which many Christian leaders work hard to suppress. The disturbing message of the eucharistic meal is this:

There is no resurrection by proxy. {Vincent Harding}

There's an old French proverb that says: To love is to suffer. That's a good way to sum up the meaning of the Christian season of Lent. Most of our culture prefers to celebrate Valentine's Day [February 14 that year] rather than Ash Wednesday [February 13 that year]. Most people are repulsed by the thought of smudging ashes on the forehead in the shape of a cross. Most, even in the church, shy away from the mark of crucifixion. Instead of the body-broken, blood-spilt meal which Jesus offered, most prefer the empty calories of candy. Valentine candy is the Gospel of our culture. . . .

Your life in God's Spirit is actually the very reason you will know suffering, the reason you will know sadness and disappointment. Not that suffering is good. It most certainly is not, and you should never, ever seek it. But it will find you, simply because God is looking, through the eyes of your soul, at creation as it was intended from the beginning. And when you see what God intended, what is now visible brings great sadness. And this sadness will cause you to be near those who suffer, to experience their pain, to attempt to bring healing and hope. You can't bring healing and hope from a safe distance. You have to get up close, which inevitably will mean you will feel the pain yourself.

Nevertheless, rejoice! Rejoice, even in your suffering, for God is at work redeeming creation. Rejoice, even in your suffering, for you are one of God's instruments of redemption. Rejoice, even in your suffering, for redemption is not simply your personal possession, but is being extended—through you and other believers—across the whole world.

May you and I both continue to learn these things—and continue to teach these things to each other—all the days of our lives.

The reason the older ending to Mark’s gospel rings true is because you and I live constantly in the face of redemptive plans gone sour, hopes battered and bruised, splendid dreams which turn into nightmares, soothing visions that are scorched by the sun’s relentless glare.

Valued friends fail us, colleagues demean us, loved ones breath their last breath and our own bodies falter under the weight of our years. Often as not life comes at a terrible price to our hopes and dreams. Sometimes we spend more time picking up the pieces than forging into the future. Whatever happened to those sturdy professions of convictions?—convictions now gone soft and compromised and barely remembered.

My friend Kyle Childress tells about stopping at a small gas station along a U.S. highway through central Texas on his way to visit his parents. As he went inside to pay the cost he noticed a hand-written sign on the wall above the cash register. Here’s what it said:

“Dragons I have never met. Only spiders and gum on the bottom of my shoe. I could have handled dragons.”

One of the longer versions of the final chapter in Mark’s Gospel has this closing line: “And [the disciples] went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it.”

Now we head into Holy Week—while includes all the unholiness that marks our days no less than the disciples; with fear and trembling that break out in our lives no less than it did for Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus and Salome, the original evangelists of the Gospel story who originally fled the resurrection scene because they were afraid.

There is no getting over our fears and our failures. To be conformed to the way of the cross means constantly stepping around spiders and cleaning gum off the bottoms of our shoes. There is no resurrection by proxy. Our courage is displayed not in denying these frailties but in facing them;
      •ever willing to be still again
      •to listen again for the word that sustains the weary;
      •to announce again that true and hearty word to all grown deaf with grief,

      •to sing again: “Silently now I wait for thee, Ready my God, thy will to see. Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine!”

*See Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003, pp. 133-134 Press. And also John Dominic Crossan, God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now. HarperCollins Pub.: New York, 2007, pp. 28, 108, 117, 148, 204.

Circle of Mercy Congregation
Palm Sunday, 5 April 2009

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org