You Are a Perennial

 

Last week I posted, in distress, “consider the lilies of the fields."

And I did just that.

I walked to my front yard and looked at the lily in my front flower bed. No more blooms. A brown branch remained.

Dead.

I shared this over dinner, with a layer of cynicism. Amber responded, with classic eyes rolled, "it's not dead. It's just changing. New growth returns in the spring."

Mind. Blown.

I think there is a reason the imagery of the Sage was lilies in the field not sunflowers.

And I love sunflowers.

Still, sunflowers are annuals. They die. Lilies are perennials. They have bulbs. They return to a fresh form of beauty each year. They cycle through their growth.

My friends, in this fall season, may you see yourself and how you lead not as dead and dying, but changing. Look for the signs of growth that will give way to a new emergence of goodness and beauty.

You are a perennial.

Star-Lit Hope: January 6th Is Always Epiphany

We usually leave up our decorations through the 12 days of Christmas. We embrace the whole liturgical season, even as our tree starts to brown, decorations are more found on the floor than their proper place, and the Christ candle at the center of the Advent wreath begins to wear down. The last thing to pack away is the star. We hold onto that sacred symbol longer than anything else.

January 6th is always Epiphany, a story of a universal chasing after star-lit hope in the midst of royal fragility, oppressive empire, and isolation, fear, and the vulnerable agency of children at the center of deliverance.

Epiphany has always been mixed with narratives of tyrannical rulers, violent insurrections, and maniacal manipulations. To expect the American experience to be different is #exceptionalism. Still, the hope of the magi is ours, too. And we can choose alternate routes to those laced in what the powers that be, regardless of partisan affiliation, sell us. We may need to cling to Epiphany and its lingering liturgical illumination even longer than Christmas.

What’s your subversive hope?

How might you change routes as you live into star-lit hope this year?

Stir: AdventWord Day 17

Stir. Mix. Whisk.

The aim is to bring together. Every morning I do that with my four cups of bold brew, freshly ground coffee and four teaspoons of organic sugar in the raw. This bringing together is vital to my day’s beginning…middle…and end.

Stirring can also be agitation, a necessary shaking and disturbance of what is settled to bring about something new and better. Organizer and strategist, Priya Parker, says hosts need to stir up with intentionality our social and professional gatherings so to create beautiful intersections and relational bonds that would not happen on their own. You know, work the room with what Parker calls “generous authority.” This mixing risks aggravation and breaks up comfortable conventions; gracious disturbance also results in new relational networks able to bear fruit of generative and expansive community. Theologian Karl Barth calls this work “priestly agitation,” a candid and thorough task that curates varied expressions of God’s hope for the world.

This has been increasingly difficult in the midst of the last two years. Working from home, quarantines, social distancing, and the limitations of the size of social gatherings has reduced our willingness to create these diverse connections in the pursuits of health and safety. We need to get creative so our isolation does not breed separation and the perpetuation of biases that were already at oppressive levels. We all-the-more need to embrace healthy stirrings and holy agitations so we remember the world is better, we are better, when we welcome, pursue, advocate for, and even convene these unsettlings.

This was Jesus’ whole mission and ambition. Maybe this is why Immanuel is also known by another name- host. Jesus worked and unsettled the rooms of the world and made a way for the adventing of the better.

Promise: AdventWord Day 1

This time of year is about traditions and rituals, rehearsing familiar practices that remind us of all we love and who we love.

This time last year, those traditions were cruelly and terrifyingly disrupted, as isolation lingered longer than ever imagined. So we wrote little notes like this one after we put the tree topper away. More than a reminder of whose turn it would be to place the star on our festive ficus, it was a prayer for something better to greet us when we hauled the decorations out after the world made a full cyclical ritual around the sun.

Yet, masks we still wear and Covid still hovers over this holy season like a new traumatic tradition. And the promise of “God with us,” which centers the stories we recite these next four weeks, can feel both distant and broken still. So the waiting of #Advent once again is trivial and tired.

But it’s what we have. It’s what those who first conjured up these stories, maybe even lived them, had. As poet Nadia Shihab Nye wrote, these stories keep us warm in the cold, when #promise and pain are familiar ritual.

Also, a year later, four of six in our house are vaccinated, with the other two ready to be poked by year end. That keeps me a bit warm, too. It’s somewhat promising. 

---

This annual discipline is spurred by the good people at AdventWord.

Loosening Our Grip: A Sermon on Mark 7:1-23

Greg Klimovitz · Loosen Grip Mark 7

Video of Sermon Here

“That’s not how the story goes,” I said to the Canadian pilgrim next to me as the doors to the tomb slammed shut. It was very early in the morning on the first day of the week after the Sabbath, just like the gospel story. On that day in 2019, I had ventured alone from my hotel in Jerusalem, through the Damascus gate, winded my way through the empty and narrow streets of Old City, and into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where tradition says the empty tomb of Jesus is located. The wait was too long the day before and I was looking for a different ending to my ten-day pilgrimage. After taking the Eucharist in front of the open tomb, I was third in line when an ecumenical argument broke out between two priests responsible for their tradition’s worship on opposite sides of the sepulcher. Whatever the dispute, one priest presumed it was enough to shutdown visitation. My fellow traveler leaned over to me, “Did we just get barred from Jesus’ tomb?” This marked the end of my Jerusalem journey. Despite the disappointment, I logged the homiletical illustration and kept walking. But I did not forget. 
 
I did not forget what happened when tradition and the things of worship become so front and center, idolized even, that they shut out those who longed merely for a glimpse into the sacred possibility that death is not the end. I did not forget what it felt like to be on the outside, not even permitted simply to look inside. I did not forget this was the witness of multiple church traditions on the same grounds where the one who called us to a radically inclusive love rose from the dead and rolled away the same stone these priests now put back. 
 
I hope I never forget what happens when we abandon the commandment to love and extend welcome in favor of a tight grip on human tradition.  I believe this morning's gospel story will help me- all of us- to remember to loosen our grip so we can receive and extend God's grace. After all, we cannot hold hands with clenched fists.
 
This morning's lectionary is somewhat challenging, as it warrants some familiarity with the context of first century Palestinian Jewish life and Temple practices in the shadow of an oppressive Roman empire. But the story is also playfully written. Mark 7 is a beautiful illustrative spiral that moves from a small center of characters to a larger crowd and then back to a smaller center again. Mark offers a literary pulse that reminds us of the expansive love found in Jesus’ newly organized community. 
 
We begin with the small center of Pharisees and scribes, those who held fast to the Torah and others charged with drafting legal documents related to who could be granted access into the most sacred of Temple practices.  Mark says "they noticed" that Jesus' disciples were eating with unclean hands. The Greek here is κοιναῖς (koinais), the same word can be translated not only as defiled, but also common. It's the same word used for the type of Greek in which Mark writes his gospel. Koinonia Greek. Common Greek. Street Greek. The Pharisees and scribes are concerned because those who follow Jesus are not doing their religious tradition and liturgical practices right- not washing up before worship. They are, in the minds of the institutional leaders, flippant and irreverent in their common approach. The disciples are then given the same kind of side eye some may give millennials and teenagers for texting or Instagramming in church without realizing they just may be participating in worship in their own and more common way- possibly capturing an image of the sanctuary that catches the light just right and pairing it with a quote from the preacher. NOW is your moment🙂

 
"Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders," they ask the Teacher, "but eat with common hands?" It's in that moment I imagine Jesus finding a rock, hiking up his robe with traditional prayer tassels just visible beneath the fringe, and taking a seat as familiar to ancient students in the presence of a teacher.  Jesus then quotes Isaiah, whose writings called to mind how a time of exile when these traditions affirmed a belonging to God and need to care for a the marginalized as they lived in captivity. Jesus follows with maybe the most potent verse of the whole Markan passage, "You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition." It's as if Jesus was saying, "Remember- love is law. The rest hold loosely." And if they were not taken back in that moment, Jesus leans forward and calls out the collusive practice of Corban- an ancient religious and economic tradition and legal loophole to defer assets to the Temple instead of to their family. The economic practice is so obscure and debated among scholars that this section of the lectionary splices it out altogether.  Yet it is important- the same critics of Jesus' common and ordinary disciples are the ones who use the Torah to evade responsibility to even their parents and elders, the economically vulnerable, and give it to the religious institution instead. Their grip is so tight on preserving tradition that they miss its foundational goal- to create rhythms of mutual care and welcome in a world dominated by narratives of violence, power, and exploitation. Your tradition is void of God, Jesus tells them. 
 
This first small pulse of Mark's narrative is followed by Jesus' call to the crowds, quite possibly a mixture of Jewish and Gentile people. The heartbeat is louder here, although shorter in address, "Listen to me, all of you, nothing from the outside makes you unclean by going in. What comes out is what can pollute a person." Listen to me, Jesus says, in contrast to these scribes and Pharisees and their marginalizing obsession with now exclusionary traditions. My way includes the common folk like you. You can participate. Here you can find belonging without knowing the words or rituals and other religious insider speak. You can feel the relief. Maybe you, I hope, have experienced it before, a moment of intense and uncommon welcome when you needed it most. 
 
The story then pulsates once more, as Mark tells us Jesus leaves the crowd and takes the conversation inside the house. Here things get real fast, much like when I call a family meeting when my kids just don't seem to get the messaging of our family motto- "don't be a jerk"- or more pastorally every morning before school, "you are loved to love."
 
Inside the house, which is another subtle reference to Temple throughout Mark (think of the hole in the roof of a house where two friends lower a paralytic to the feet of Jesus speaking once again to the scribes), Jesus declares all foods clean and calls for reformed hearts that cease all forms of greed, exploitation, slander, and anything that mirrors exclusion- to include beloved traditions and worship practices once held so very dear and sacred. Again, love is- and always has been- the goal of the law. 

Friends, I could continue to nerd out on the context of this lectionary gospel and its beautiful heartbeat and potent pulse that speaks into our times as much as theirs. But I offer you just one more. If you opened your Bibles, you would notice the NRSV jumps from versus 15 to 17. Yes, sixteen is missing. It is believed that ancient manuscripts were not consistent. What did the questionable line say? "Let anyone with ears listen." 
 
I wonder if readers and interpreters throughout history recognized the importance of this text and wanted to underscore the riddle's central role in our call as disciples. It is Jesus' call to listen and hear the widest of welcome yet. And I wonder, was the Syrophoenican woman, who shows up in next week's lectionary, one who had such listening ears. A Gentile woman, unfamiliar with Jewish traditions, brings her demon-possessed daughter to Jesus. She confronts the Messiah’s own practice of welcome and dares Jesus to extend her daughter the same favor he  has to the insider Jewish people. And Jesus is moved to empathy and exorcism. This one of my favorite stories. Have fun next week, O preacher.
 
Faithful of Morrisville, do you have the ears to listen to the pulse of Scripture's proclamation to each of us, a pulse that moves our circles of welcome wider and wider, even beyond the limits of our traditions and sacred practices? Do you hear Jesus' unconventional call that breaks through barriers of who is considered in and not content with anyone being left out? Do you hear Christ's call to loosen our grip on what once was and “how we used to do things” so we can grab ahold of what is becoming, as terrifyingly unfamiliar it may be? 
 
I read a great article this past week by Christina Colón, titled, "What Is Church Now?" 

"If the pandemic showed us anything, it's that people can worship from anywhere, in anything, with anything- even apple juice and Ritz crackers. Why should the future church not be the same? As we reemerge, pastors [and congregations] face a moment... to ' practice that resurrection,' to find innovative and impactful ways to be the church in their communities. We can lament and grieve what was lost...'But can we also make room for something new?'"

There has been so much trauma over the course of these last two years. I am with you in what feels like endless and unresolved grief felt in our congregations. It is real and must be recognized. I also believe new openings in our communal practices and liturgical traditions have been cut so our worship is starting to feel more common. Sure, complicated. Unconventional, without question. Exhausting and sometimes frustrating, with the tensions between virtual, in-person, or hybrid gatherings over zoom, no doubt. But I do believe, we are seeing a new awakening in terms of what matters when it comes to our worship and work and witness as the people of God. I believe the pandemic has not been completely wasted when we have loosened our grip on what counts for the church and embrace fresh possibilities to make who we are and what we do more accessible than ever to those who have for too long been on the outside looking in. We also have an opportunity to be so commonly compassionate in a time when every day we learn of yet another natural disaster, manifestation of racism or xenophobia, thousands of God’s beloved fleeing their homes looking for refuge after a twenty-year war, food insecurity in our own neighborhoods and cities, or the perpetual rise of covid variants that can be minimized by the common practice of mask wearing and vaccinations. I guess what I am saying, are we willing to look towards what we consider the purpose of our traditions and the pulse of our practices? What might we need to hold loosely? 
 
As your Associate Presbyter in this Presbytery, every time I have felt wearied and wondered if what we do has any meaning anymore, I learn of another way the Spirit has moved through the faithful with ears who have heard and responded to Christ's call. I preached in a church where a ZOOM screen was set up next to the table for Eucharist to make space for both on-line and in-person, masked worshippers. As I looked out there was a visitor who was there for the first time just because she was looking for a church still doing communion safely to remind her of Christ's love that extends from her home country of India all the way to the suburbs of Philly. During the prayers of the people, a virtual participant shared their 25th anniversary of sobriety. Don't even get me started on how I well up every time I see a child lift a cup of juice and piece of bagel in front of their computer, participating in the sacrament in a way previously considered taboo in a sanctuary. 

I have seen ministries in southwest Philly transform their parking lots, no longer being used as much given their virtual worship, into lush gardens of fresh produce. In a part of the city where access to nutrition is so limited and sparse, they have an abundance and give it out freely. Another congregation continues to furnish their unoccupied manse to house the influx of refugee families whenever the city alerts them of a need. Then, this past week, we distributed our second wave of Covenant Fund Grant dollars to partnerships with hospitality networks, new forms of Christian education for children, coffee houses and ministries to young adults with various disabilities, collaboratives to provide programs to senior adults who have felt isolated for so very long, and opportunities for churches to extend community and welcome to LGBTQIA+ students at the University of Pennsylvania. Friends, this is what happens when disciples of Jesus throughout your presbytery loosen their grip on what once was and remain open to fresh practices of the resurrection. And it is happening in this Bucks County Congregation, too. Do you have the eyes to see and ears to hear this common welcome that is as much for you as it is for your neighbors near and far? 
 
Before we close, let's go back to Jerusalem where Wajeeh Nuseibeh sits at the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Wajeeh is a Palestinian Muslim whose family has held the key to this ancient Christian church for centuries. Why? Christians fought so much over their traditions and practices that they had to give the key to an "outsider" so the place of Christ's tomb would not become a perpetual battle ground. So every day for 500 years, members of his family have climbed a tall ladder with an ancient key in his grip to unlock the towering doors for pilgrims, patrons, and priests alike. I'll never forget shaking his aged hand and sharing my words of gratitude to this practitioner of God's common grace. Wajeeh Nuseibeh's family has modeled welcome and love when the church lost its way, prioritizing tradition over God's universal commandment to love. What about me? What about you? What about each of us? May our eyes and ears be opened afresh to Christ's greatest commandment to love God and neighbor as ourselves. May we hold traditions, even those most beloved that once served a sacred purpose, loose enough so we can grasp keys able to create new openings for God’s gracious welcome. In so doing, we just may honor tradition best. Amen. 

Shake It Off? Rejecting Anti-Welcome and Moving Towards Liberation

Greg Klimovitz · Shake It Off: Sermon on Mark 6:1-13

A sermon delivered on July 4, 2011

"Just shake it off."  I remember hearing these words often as a kid. And it was before Taylor Swift was born...literally. I was an avid baseball player from the time I was four through my freshman year of college. Predominantly a catcher, I was prone to getting hit by a foul ball, wild pitch, or a hitter’s looping backswing. I have many scars and sore joints from those sixteen years.

But where did this phrase come from? Do we believe the movement of "shaking it off" can distribute blood flow and reduce swelling? Does shaking it off ease pain? Or is shaking it off yet another way we teach young people, especially boys, to suppress their emotional responses and just move on without showing that something truly hurts and a wound has been inflicted?

 

Just shake it off. As a little league coach these days, I have committed not to use this phrase with kids, whose bodies and brains and minds and emotions are changing as designed. Suppressing natural and healthy reactions to pain is not my MO on or off the field. Sometimes there are injuries to the body and spirit that cannot simply be shaken off. 

And they shouldn't be. 

God knows, for real, the many traumas endured these last eighteen months, whether the pandemic or the endless social ills, cannot merely be shaken off. The pain experienced is a signal that something is not right and aid and relief is needed. To say shake it off in the American cliched verbiage only buries hurt, leads to neglect, and delays healing. Shaking it off is not equivalent to resilience; it can be damaging denial.

 

So why does Jesus go there? Shake it off, Jesus? Surely the Messiah had more compassion, empathy, and concern for those wounded by others and the oppressive systems of the day. But before we lean in, let's pray.

 

We come to today's text and Jesus gives the disciples a packing list.  How I wish this was all I needed to bring whenever loading up our four children into our minivan and traveling even for a single night at the grandparents. 

Staff. Sandals. Clothes on your back. 

No iPads, device chargers, stuffed animals, or pillows. Not a single suitcase. It is simple, quick, and warrants a dependency on the community care provided by those soon visited.  It prevents being burdened by too much stuff and assumes welcome and having enough at destination. A parent can dream, right? But, is there more to Mark's incorporation of this Messianic and Apostolic packing list than merely the reduction of stuff so the hatchback will close and whoever is riding passenger can actually put their feet on the floor? If you are familiar with Mark, you know that there is always something more.  

 

Mark 6 is right on the heals of two significant stories interwoven together: Jesus' healing of a woman plagued by hemorrhage for 12 years and a 12 year-old girl resurrected from the dead. But this all happened in a neighboring town.  Mark 6 begins in Jesus' village and among Jesus' people of Nazareth. They have known him since he was a boy...and they liked him...until now. Jesus is in the local synagogue, where he grew up and studied under local rabbis, and on the sabbath.  In this sacred space on a sacred day they take offense to his teachings.  We know why, too.  Jesus is breaking sabbath, his disciples are not fasting, he is touching the untouchables, and welcoming the unclean.  Jesus is traveling back and forth across the sea (hold that reference), casting out demons and sending them into swine in Gentile land.  Even more, Jesus has a following of fishermen, tax collectors, and sinners called disciples.  Jesus has spent much of his young life shaking off convention to make room for those often excluded from sacred centers and, ultimately, pushed out of Nazareth as a "prophet without honor" as an echo of Ezekiel 2. So Jesus shakes off their anti-welcome and heads elsewhere to come alongside others shaken off and dishonored by religious and political communities alike.

 

But that is only the beginning. Packing lists. Take nothing with you except your staff.  No bread. No bag. No money. Staff. Sandals. Clothes on your back. Twelve of them, sent out with little to nothing to take with them. Twelve of them with a packing list of immediacy. If you have the eyes to see and ears to hear, you will notice Mark's echo of Exodus.  Remember the mountain? Remember the sea?  Remember the wandering in wilderness before entering strange lands? Remember the 12 tribes? And it began with a newly liberated Hebrew people with a rather short packing list, eating unleavened bread with staff in hand, sandals on their feet, ready to pick up and go at a moments notice as they leave captivity and venture towards freedom, "This is how you shall eat [the Passover lamb]: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly” (Exodus 12:1). Is Jesus provoking a new exodus?  Is Jesus calling out a new people of God to pursue liberation in a new land, to shake off the manifestations of Egypt and anti-welcome in their time and place?  YES.

 

Jesus calls and sends out his disciples, again an echo of Ezekiel, into the neighborhoods of Israel that had rebelled from God’s story of liberation, to cast out demons and heal the sick not to prove divine status but to send away old lines of exclusion and draw the circle wider...as wide as the infinite love of God.  And if they and their new way of being in the world are not received well among a rebellious people, shake your sandals and leave that place in the same sort of prophetic dust that covered Pharaoh's chariots as they crossed the sea and towards a new life of freedom.

 

Jesus' hometown in dust?  Sacred space, place, and rituals in dust? Tradition and law in dust? Conventional wisdom and all you once believed to be true in dust? If it holds people captive...yes. If it wreaks of Egypt and Pharaoh...yes. The Jesus movement and those who follow the Way, are to be all about exodus. Everything else is dust. And if we pay attention to the parables of Jesus throughout the gospels, they are all about dusting off from Pharaoh's empire in temple and town. It is shaking off the shackles of captivity and anti-welcome.  So, yes, Jesus said, "shake it off," as in be liberated from oppression and rejection and find renewed belonging in the kindom of God, where we hold all things in common and all people called beloved.  

 

Still, what does this all have to say to us in our time and our place? I believe, in essence, it hinges on discipleship. Are we as individuals and communities of faith, even on “sacred” national days of supposed independence, willing to shake off the dust of anti-welcome and long-histories of oppression and move into real and localized expressions of inclusion and concern for the common good?

 

To shake off oppression, injustice, and isolation from community.

To shake off economic systems that perpetuate poverty and homelessness.

To shake off prison systems bent on racial biases and propped up by corporations.

To shake off unclean spirits of violence and the idolatry of weapons and war.

To shake off narratives of acquisition and never having enough.

To shake off white supremacy, homophobia, racism, and the characterizing of Indigenous peoples.

To shake off ableism and ways society excludes people of various physical, social, and mental abilities.

To shake off all that exploits creation and the earth God so loves and calls good.

To shake off myths of achievement that teach our children what matters most is climbing to the top.

To shake off toxic relationships and those bent on bullying behaviors.

To shake off resentment and hatred that only poison our mind, body, spirit, families, and neighborhoods.

To shake off anything that infringes on the foundational truth that each person is a beloved child of God and beautiful reflection of the Divine. To shake off pre-pandemic patterns of existence as individuals and communities that were never healthy and whole.

 

As Octavius Catto, 19th Century African-American martyred civil rights activist, child of a Philly Presbyterian minister, and one of the greatest baseball players of his era, once said as he shook off anti-welcome in his day and pressed for a more just world, “There must come a change which shall force upon this nation that course which providence seems wisely to be directing for the mutual benefit of peoples.”

 

Friends, as disciples of Jesus gathered and scattered, we have been sent by Jesus to liberate and heal in strange places and in unconventional ways. There are sure to be detractors and fair amounts of rejection along the way.  It will be uncomfortable and require dependency on more than your own efforts. So pack lightly and when tempted to quit or return to the privileged norms of Pharaoh's empire, shake it off. Shake it off not as a means to dismiss pain or suppress hurt, but to be released of the power anti-welcome may have over you, your neighbor, and the divine belovedness you both bear, which can never be shaken off. Yes, shake off the dust of this not-love, leave Pharaoh's chariots behind, and move towards a new kind of exodus found in the gospel of justice, peace, and joyful welcome in Spirit-filled community.

O how I love how churches in Greater Philadelphia and beyond have lived into this exodus-laced change and worked to shake of the dust of anti-welcome through collective work and witness: gardens cultivated to provide nutrition alongside neighbors in Chester to shake off food apartheid in that city; collaborations with local networks formed to extend inclusive coffeehouses for youth and adults of various ability levels to shake of the ableism in Delaware County and beyond; kitchens have been flipped into food pantries for those battling hunger and poverty; grants secured to construct tiny homes for those vulnerable to housing insecurity; Clergy have linked arms in protests and marches and committed to courageous conversations on anti-racism in both their communities and congregations and presbyteries; Pride festivals sponsored and hosted in parking lots; after-school programs offered in the midst of a pandemic so children do not fall too far beyond and yet stay safe; faith communities have continued to adapt mediums for worship and fellowship gatherings, leveraging digital platforms and technologies to shake off the isolation so many have felt in the midst of this pandemic. The list goes on as we live into what it means to be a Matthew 25 people.

 

My kids and I recently have found a new love in the music of Jon Batiste, jazz musician who wrote the score for Disney's Soul and the band leader for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. On his latest album, We Are, Batiste has a song, “Freedom,” appropriate for today's text and the recent national holidays of Juneteenth and July 4^th : 

When I move my body just like this

I don't know why but I feel like freedom (freedom)

I hear a song that takes me back

And I let go with so much freedom (freedom)

Free to live (how I wanna live)

I'm gon' get (what I'm gonna get)

'Cause it's my freedom (freedom)

The reason we get down, is to get back up

If someone's around, go on let them look

You can't stand still

This ain't no drill

More than cheap thrills 

 

Faithful friends, we have endured much as a people these last 18 months. We have also had our eyes and ears opened to so many cries for justice and deliverance from generations of anti-welcome. May we hear Jesus' call to shake off this dust as an invitation to reach back to that ancient song of freedom God's people have been singing throughout the ages and in empires past and present- including this one. This song invites all people to move their bodies, imaginations, and faith communities in such a way that lets go of shackling systems, stories, and old patterns of existence. No, we cannot stand still. This ain't no drill. We cannot stay the same. Discipleship demands we embrace redemptive change and move towards welcome and mutual care. So what needs to be shaken off in your life and in the church for this to happen?  What is weighing you down from hearing of your belovedness or leaning into proclaiming and extending it to others?  Let go and dance ‘cause it’s not only your liberation, but also that of your community and the world God so very much loves.

 

A Benediction in Poetry

  

shake it off

we tell young ones

send away the pain

subtly

dust yourself off

wipe away the tears

and press on

as an image of strength

as though unharmed

unfazed

by injury or trauma

but what if it hurts

what if the wound cannot be shaken

what if you are not ready to get up

to move on

maybe shaking it off is not resilience

maybe it is damaging denial

suppressing reality

burying emotions

neglecting what makes each of us

human

 

what if

 

yes, what if we do not have to shake off

the pain

but what caused it

to reject anti-welcome

to send away not-love

and linger longer in dreams

for something better

and move towards

in time

our time

a new reality altogether

May we do so in the name of the Creator, Savior, and Sustainer. Amen. 

Vaccinated: First Dose for the Common Good

Pfizer Dose 1

It’s easy to romanticize the experience of getting vaccinated. For me, it was a fairly ordinary civic duty merged with traffic to downtown Philly, hunting for a parking spaces, hitting a pothole or twelve, and waiting in a line in temperatures 20° colder than yesterday. PA weather this time of year is dumb.

The morning was also surrounded by a stop at the Belmont Plateau, where I began a virtual retreat for the next two days, conversations with a former seminary intern coincidentally behind me in line, and a walk along the so-very empty pathway on the Delaware River where padlocks and chalk art call out for hope. In these spaces, I was reminded of the connectional realities of not only the church, but also and more belovedly- the human family. This commonality is the sacred Energy that made this day possible for so many before and after my single-dose injection.

I didn’t cry. Maybe a little. Mostly I thought about all I have hoped for these last 14 months. I thought about brilliant scientists and researchers who pulled off this global miracle. I thought about those who were not able to make it to this day, because even a miracle wasn’t fast enough. I thought about those who still lack access or fear the vaccine for a variety of reasons. I thought about the smell of my stale breath behind a mask and what could’ve been if more people would have been willing to endure a tic tac for the sake of the common good. I thought about medical personnel and chaplains, therapists and volunteers at vaccine and testing sites. I thought about officiants at funerals. I thought about my children and wife, my closest friends and family. I gave thanks, lifted a prayer, looked for a piece of chalk to add my own word of hope (no luck), and now hold on hope for another day. I dare to believe there is enough energy, intelligence, imagination, and love to get us through this hell until heaven is on earth and all is right and good again. I dare believe resurrection is happening and will happen...even when such belief feels so very trivial and mundane, even terrifying. I trust this is not the end, but a new beginning...of beginnings.

You are loved to love.

#GetVaccinated #PfizerMiser #NextRightThing #LoveNeighbor #COVID19

Holy Saturday: The Shadow Between Lament and Liberation

I have been to this spot many times, born and raised within an forty-five minute radius of Annapolis. I have many memories walking with family and high school friends along the edges of the harbor and the narrow bricked streets. I love NapTown. But there was something different about yesterday’s venture. 

Maybe it was the shadow of the Naval Academy that is the epicenter of the city, which I understand very differently now than in my youth. Maybe it’s how I watched my children masked up and playing tag just close enough to the edge of the pier to make mom and dad’s heart stop for a moment before we yelled to be careful and knock it off. Maybe it’s because we passed by a church where friends of mine serve as co-pastors and I found hope in their witness in the capital of my beloved Maryland. Maybe it’s because my sister and brother-in-law live here now. 

All of this may be true. But as I sat at home late last night, what I could not get out of my head were the symbols and statues, plaques and quotes that reminded visitors and locals alike that these waters are where Kunta Kinte touched down alongside so many other African siblings transported across the Atlantic and sold into slavery. Here. In Annapolis. Where my family grew up. Where children play. Where the privilege sail. Where I sip my coffee. Where the governor lives. These waters are beautiful. They also have a story. One I did not learn in my youth. It was covered up and dismissed in shame and ignorance. 

On this Good Friday, in the midst of these last twelve months, this reality hit me differently than in previous visits. And on this Holy Saturday, when we linger in the lament and loss of One murdered by the religious and political systems of his day, I grieve those who have been victimized by the powers in both spaces of my own. I consider the many around this nation who live in the shadows of this empire, even as children run and play, wondering if they are the next to have their dignity slandered, bodies wounded, and lives claimed. I wonder about the Kunta Kinte’s of 2021, whose stories are not always told and remain in bondage. I wonder how I will tell their stories to my children so they can live and love alongside them for the sake of the justice and jubilee for which Jesus died.

Holy Saturday is hard. Holy Saturday is a shadow cast between the despair of yesterday and the hope of tomorrow. Holy Saturday is when we dwell in this shadow and covenant once again to hear the stories of the many for whom the Jesus story is more than a truism but their lived reality. Holy Saturday is when we remember the waters of our baptism that dare us to come up and out of the shadows of death and move together towards newness of life. Holy Saturday reminds us of the complexity of life, both beautiful and tragic all the same. But Holy Saturday is not the end. 

Tomorrow can and will come. 

When the Church Is No Longer the Preferred Place to Love One Another: Maundy Thursday

This is not a well-nuanced reflection; instead, they are raw questions in light of a recent article posted by NPR. What is below are my modest musings shared on Facebook and Instagram this past Maundy Thursday and now rest here as a reminder to continue to ponder where and how the Spirit is moving among us...and beyond us...and despite us...

Maybe it’s because people are finding other ways to love one another faithfully and courageously?

Maybe the church has stopped washing feet and chosen the path to perceived greatness instead?

Maybe it’s because we have no longer made the Table an open space?

Maybe it’s because we have lacked courage and willingness to risk for the cause of justice and liberation?

Maybe it’s because we don’t know how to forgive, only how to throw stones?

Maybe it’s because the little children do not feel welcome to come into our worship spaces?

Maybe it’s because people are finding the walls built by religious institutions are less preferable to the welcome found in spaces outside these traditions bent in self-preservation?

Maybe it’s because the history of violence and white supremacy are not only rooted in these institutions but also watered by them in our present era of oppression?

Maybe it’s because the last four years were propped up by those claiming Jesus as Lord when, in reality, mammon, power, and privilege were their deities of preference?

Maybe it’s because a new Pentecost is happening, which doesn’t refer to the digital revolution and zoom Bible studies, but the following of the Spirit into the diaspora and beyond what we consider church?

Maybe it’s having our eyes and ears opened to see and hear what Gcd is doing in the multi-cultural, inter-generational, non-binary, and interfaith witnesses of neighborly love and empathy outside the realms of patriarchal and heteronormative systems draped in faith language.

Maybe it’s because God’s goal is not for filled pews and pulpits and congregations but for a new world completely, where all are welcome, find belonging, have daily bread, are relieved of debts, have their human dignity validated, and wars are no more.

Maybe it’s because America is not the epicenter of these dreams?

Whatever it may be, I actually find hope in this survey. Maybe it’s because the truth is out and just maybe we will lean into the real cries and concerns, even apathies about religion, and all be better for it?

What’s your maybe?

Paint Brushes of Protest: Palm Sunday as Cultivated Resistance

One of my favorite prints in my office is by a Palestinian artist, Suleiman Mansour. And the Convoy Keeps Going was included in a now-sold-out set of postcards I purchased at the Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem. Often presumed to be a Banksy work, which speaks to the erasure of Palestinians by Western collectors, this small replica of a larger mural conveys much of the struggle of those who live in the midst of on-going apartheid in the Holy Land.

Banksy has always been one of my favorite artists. Mostly because of his mystery and subversion of...everything. Yet, when we made our surprise stop to the mysterious graffiti activist's museum devoted to the Palestinian struggle for liberation, I shrugged off purchasing his pieces because I was drawn to Mansour's. The paraders carry a gun loaded with a palm branch, paint brushes instead of swords, and a key wielded for opening whatever locked door awaits the end of their route of resistance. As they make their convoy in the midst of tourists on the sandy beach, much is conveyed about one of the oldest of human struggles for dignity, validity, and freedom.

And I could not help but think of Palm Sunday and the parading of another Palestinian in the midst of crowds carrying branches of resistance, longing for liberation in the midst of another empire of ignorance and oppression. Much like this print with a confused origin, this narrative is often erased of the pervasive power in the protest. Despite each of the four Gospels' inclusion of the events and contextualizing prophetic and subversive first-century imagery, the story has been white-washed. 

Palm Sunday is a profound quest for justice and jubilee not by way of empire, but through a freedom ride on the back of an inexperienced, rookie ass in solidarity with those most marginalized, exploited, dismissed, and ignored. Palm Sunday is a convoy of courage to elevate the voices and narratives of those long silenced by the dominant culture. Palm Sunday is when the the oppressed are empowered to cry out for salvation, "Hosanna!", and find it not in a war horse but a Palestinian Messiah on the back of a pack animal- carrying the burdens of long-suffering people. And the weapons of this movement look less like those of a violent army and more like imaginative artists and activists who carry branches of life, brushes of color, and keys that unlock new openings through systemic injustice that have excluded and shut out too many for far too long.

What does this mean for us, in our time and place?

In the midst of a lingering pandemic? In the wake of back-to-back mass shootings, which continue to expose our unmitigated idolatry of gun violence mixed with racism and the objectification of Asian American, Asian, and Pacific Island siblings? In the on-going struggle of Black and Brown neighbors? In the erasure of Native persons throughout this land that is not our land? When, despite the mounting deaths, the church continues to prioritize the preference of those in the pews over those who protest in the streets, naive to the truth that this is why they take to the streets versus speak from the pews in the first place?

I know I have found so much wisdom these days in the poets and painters, dreamers and placard carriers, photographers and film makers of our generation. They, like those in Jerusalem that day, have been led the way and called out, devoting their efforts to the "dreamers, seers, griots and truth tellers who refuse to let us fully descend into the madness" (Jon Batiste, We Are album cover art dedication).

I keep Mansour's print in my office as a regular reminder and charge to self to devote my vocation to the same. I keep it there to stir confessional questions: In my work and witness, where am I in the painting? Am I among the convoy or seated with toes buried in the sand as the struggle passes me by? Do I parade alongside those whose hosanna cries echo two millennia later or remain unconcerned about the struggle that has cast shade on my privilege?

The answers are not as clean as I would like; my life is endlessly reformed and reforming. Jesus, hosanna! Save me. Save us. Save all. Ride on through our places of suffering and silence and carry our cries for something better and far more beautiful than what we presently know. And may your grace cover a multitude of our individual and corporate sins. 

On Serpents, Scepters, and Storied Remedies: Lent 4 and Numbers 21:4-9

The winged staff with two intertwined snakes, or caduceus, has been an icon in American medicine since 1902. The image is rooted in ancient Greek and Roman mythological stories of healing and resurrection. In the midst of the pandemic, we likely have become more familiar with an alternative, a lone snake wrapped around a single scepter. This adaptation has potential origin in Sunday’s lectionary from Numbers and serves as the central emblem of the likes of the World Health Organization. As we lean into the one-year “anniversary” of COVID-19, these medicinal symbols have transcended mere imagery; they are known by real names of doctors, nurses, scientists, researchers, and the great cloud of witnesses we call emergency and frontline workers. We may also know such saints as neighbor or aunt, spouse or child. They have been pillars of hope who have kept our eyes up and out as we look for liberation from our individual grief and healing from collective pain.

In Sunday’s Old Testament narrative, those who wandered the wilderness lost one of their own pillars. Aaron, their priestly comforter and interpreter of Moses’ works, had died. Their grief still raw, the people of Israel wondered if they would ever make it to the promised land or if they had been left for dead. Fleeing oppression in Egypt, they found themselves endlessly fighting new oppositions to their freedom. The deaths mounted and pleas for deliverance paralleled complaints against Moses and God, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness.”

This prayer likely mirrors our own from the last twelve months, which makes God’s initial response concerning. Instead of the divine compassion of Exodus 3, God sends poisonous serpents that bite the people (Numbers 21:6)? There is no simple interpretation of this text of terror. As empathetic theologian and minister, all I can fathom is those who first lived this narrative were looking for a source of their suffering in much the same ways we do. In their storied world, they embraced this narrative to endure the trauma: if God was the sender of the serpents, maybe this same God could provide the deliverance for their wearied bodies? So they prayed. Moses did, too. And God intervened, through Moses, with a bronze serpent wrapped around a pole, “and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live” (Numbers 21:9).

The circumstances of the perpetual Lent we have endured since last year leads us to look for redemptive truth in our own wilderness wanderings. In the abundance of grief, we are desperate for the healing, harmony, and liberation promised to us when we began our faith journey. Instead, we have been bit by the poisonous serpents and forced to mourn the death of yet another loved one or facilitate yet another (virtual) funeral. We lament as we notice the venomous fangs have punctured social, economic, political, and religious systems, some becoming aware of the wounds for the first time. These snakes inflict suffering on individuals and communities alike, manifested in pervasive poverty, school-to-prison pipelines, mass incarceration, racial biases and related violence against Black and Brown bodies, discriminatory wages, rise of white supremacy, and the complicity of those of us who have the privilege to opt in or out of the intersection of our faith and the real pain of our neighbors. COVID-19 has also unleashed a brood of snakes by way of inequitable access to testing, medical care, and vaccinations. In light of it all, we are increasingly overwhelmed, tired, and a fair share of complaints layer our prayers. One thing we know, contrary to the narrative of our ancient wandering siblings, God did not send these malicious creatures into our midst; we did. This is the hard confessional truth of Lent.

Nevertheless, God sends us remedy. In the person of Jesus, our caduceus has been raised on behalf of all who suffer and grieve, promising to resurrect life out of even the most despairing of human trauma. This same Jesus, then, raises us to embody cruciform remedies as Christ’s creative work in and for the world God so loves (Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:13-17). This is discipleship. This is what it frames our agency in the gospel and balming bravery in a world desperate for healing, hope, and movement towards a reconciled future. Vietnamese poet, mystic, and activist, Thich Nhat Hanh, says it beautifully:

They don’t publish
the good news.
The good news is published
by us…
Listen! You have the ears that can hear it.
Bow your head.
Listen to it.
Leave behind the world of sorrow
and preoccupation
and get free.
The latest good news
is that you can do it. (“The Good News”)

My kids have figured out Lent is longer than forty days- forty-six, to be exact. The liturgical season does not count Sundays. They are our break from confessional fasting and hallowed centering on the resurrection before us. Sundays are bronze serpents intertwined on the pole of our pilgrimage, which remind us God is with us and before us. As we continue the long Lenten road, may we create space to remember and celebrate the good work happening all around us. May we find remedy in this biting age through the witness of faithful people who rise up as publications of harmonious hope. May we look to these sacred sending stories as echoes of the latest good news- you can do it! Better said, in Jesus Christ, God has done it. By God’s grace, look and listen. Amen.