The Irreverent Jordan River

In the summer of 2017 I took off the hats of wife, dog owner, and senior seminarian, and flew to the Holy Land to wear the hat of a pilgrim for three weeks. Our days were filled with Mediterranean food, long walks through the old city of Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside, a swim in the dead sea, and holy and mischievous fellowship time with my fellow pilgrims.

On a sunny Wednesday afternoon we drove to the Jordan River. Like many of the holy sites I encountered I had my own expectations and my own images of what these sites were going to look like, many of which took me by surprise. The Jordan River was no exception. We took a left off of the main highway down a gravel road, which dead ended into a dirt parking lot. Trees and wild grasses blocked any view of a river, but if you listened closely you could hear running water in the distance. We began walking down a muddy trail. There were piles of trash and abandoned liquor bottles strewn about. When we got to the bank there was an old abandoned maroon couch just downstream. There were cigarette butts and old fishing lines all along the shoreline and to say that this was not the holy Jordan River experience we were all anticipating is an understatement.

It was all very shall I say, irreverent.

But we dutifully formed a semi-circle on the shore and one of our leaders led us through a renewal of our baptismal vows. He gathered a few small olive wood branches from the shoreline and enthusiastically splashed us from head to toe with river water. Afterwards we were invited to step into the water if we desired. Most, but not all, of us began to remove our socks and shoes, roll up our pant legs and began wading into the muddy water. We splashed around, we felt the mud beneath us squish between our toes, and watched as birds, irritated at our trespassing, squawked their way past us in search of their lunch.

That’s when we heard the strange noises. Distant booms began to be heard. Every few minutes another thunder like sound could be heard across the blue sky. We were just north of the sea of Galilee, near eastern border of the country. What we were hearing were bombs going off in the neighboring country of Syria. Suddenly the river changed for us, or rather we saw it with a new clarity. We all had our own assumptions of what the river Jordan was supposed to look like, we recalled our deeply rooted biblical images of Jesus’ baptism, with a dove swooping down on all but serene and heavenly scene. John the Baptist as a wild man, inviting crowds dressed in white to wade into a crisp clear river, with a 4 part gospel choir singing in the background. But the truth is the Jordan River we encountered last summer, with its debris, abandoned furniture, and muddy water, is much closer to the Jordan River of 1^st century Palestine than any of our preconceived Christian fantasies could have guessed. 

Our scene in Luke opens with a list of characters known for war and violence, many of whom end up having first hand responsibility in the death of either Jesus or John. They represent abusive power and a corrupt political and socioeconomic system. It is situated within this cultural moment that the Word of God comes to John in the wilderness. The wilderness is a desolate, uninhabited place. In the ancient world it was considered one of the few places that God could still be heard clearly without the corruption that comes with urban living. It is here that John receives a message from God just as prophets of old, and John begins preaching throughout the region near the Jordan. He preaches of a baptism of repentance and the forgiveness of sins. He quotes Isaiah, “Prepare the way of the Lord…”

Isaiah was preaching to the people in exile hoping to return to Jerusalem and it would have resonated in John’s time as well. The people are waiting to be redeemed, waiting for the salvation of Jerusalem from the hands of the Romans. As john called people to the river he was calling them to get ready and to be prepared. Things were going to change, God was on the way.

And this God that was coming, is still coming. When we were on the banks of the river we realized how parallel the times are. John was engaging in a counter cultural movement that aimed to lift the lowly and cast the mighty from their thrones. My pilgrimage group gathered in a place full of political tension, only a short distance from a war zone in order to ritualistically remember our baptisms. One might hope that things would be different, that the disenfranchisement of that age would incomparable to how far we have come. That every child would be fed, every person housed, every medical need met. It might be tempting to fall into despair, that there is not enough good or power to overcome the blatant unfairness that envelops the world with regularity. But to do so would be to give up on the Christian Hope. Something new is about to happen John cries, so you better get ready. To be Christian is to break yourself open to the possibilities that might suddenly appear before you, even among a world seemingly lacking in justice and care.

John in the gospel Luke pushes against the status quo of his day by reminding us that earthly rulers will pass away, and that we must prepare our hearts for the reign of God that on its way.

My pilgrimage group pushed against the status quo by promising to continue to proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ, even in a world where that expression has been hijacked from its true meaning or forgotten or abandoned by those who have witnessed its hypocrisy.

And you, my siblings in Christ, you too are already a part of this story. For it is not just people who flocked to the river in John’s time, or pilgrims journeying through distant lands that live the prophet’s words. Anytime a group of faithful individuals gather to pray, asking for grace and forgiveness, the status quo is shaken. By your presence here today you are saying no to the shackles of injustice and saying yes to the ethics of equality and peace. By your presence you are acknowledging that God showed up, and that God will do so again.

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

God is coming. Get your heart ready.

Amen.

References:

Feasting on the Gospels--luke: A Feasting on the Word Commentary. Westminster John Knox, 2014.

Bodies Matter-A Blue Christmas Service

As part of my undergraduate studies I took one semester of human anatomy and physiology. Along with the usual classroom and book work a large portion of this course was dedicated to lab work. Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon I would make my way across the snowy campus to Leon Johnson Hall, the tallest building on campus. If you took the elevator to the top floor you were met with breath taking views of every mountain range that surrounds in the Gallatin Valley. But the 9^th floor of Leon Johnson wasn’t where they kept the human anatomy and physiology Lab. Instead, I would enter the old elevator and press the ‘B’ for basement button. The light that was meant to illumine the button and reassure the elevator passenger of their destination was barely a twinkle. I thought about all the students who had come before me, taking the ride down into that damp basement where a darker side, or at least more distant kind of humanity awaited them. And there was no hiding or denying what you were about to be tasked with. The smell of formaldehyde greeted you as soon as the elevator doors opened. A short walk down the hall led to a room filled with anxious nursing, pre-med, and microbiology students. We would review what area of the body we would be exploring that day as a group, before pairing off and walking into an adjacent room. The cadavers were laid out on steel trays, and we would examine the bodies as respectfully and gracefully as bumbling, nervous undergrads could manage. After what felt like an eternity we would remove our latex gloves, gather our books, and head back into the elevator, feeling the floor pushing us up toward the crisp fresh air of the outside world. 

But even after I would leave the basement lab I couldn’t stop thinking about those bodies. Who’s mother were you? Where did you grow up? What was your favorite food? What were your regrets? Questions swirled in my head.  I began to dread going into the basement. I couldn’t dissociate who these bodies were enough for me to do my work. After several weeks I sheepishly asked my professor to drop me from the course, and the following semester switched to almost all agricultural related micro classes instead of medical ones. 

What I at the time deemed as an academic failure has become a spiritual turning point. I couldn’t separate who a body was from the life it had lived. But I’ve come to understand that we as humans, and certainly we as Christians, are not meant to. Bodies matter. Episcopal Priest and writer, Mary Earle, writing on illness notes, “God cares for everybody, literally every human body…We are to receive our bodies as works that have been intimately fashioned by God. We are embodied souls because we are so created, the loving works of a God who fashions us with great care.” We cannot separate our physical selves from the spiritual beings within. But sometimes our bodies or the bodies of those we love, betray us. On an otherwise perfectly ordinary day a phone call, a diagnosis, or an unwelcomed pain, physical or emotional, can bring our worlds tumbling down. I recall the wrinkles that appeared on my mother’s face during the months my father underwent chemo, the coldness of my friend’s hand as she told me she lost her baby, the sound of the last few breaths of my first patient death as a hospital chaplain. 

Our bodies can be read like stories, every scar, every stretch mark, every limp or daily ailment telling a part of the tale. And this is to say nothing of the invisible wounds and scars each of us is carrying around. Grief, loneliness, depression, anxiety, these all too often taboo demons mock and torment us. They tell us we are alone, not good enough, and that no one can understand our story. They try to make us forget who we are and to whom we belong.

As we approach the celebration of Christmas, the celebration of God becoming incarnate, of God becoming a body, I am reminded of Colossians 1, He is the image of the invisible God…For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” There are many days where I think of my own body, broken in its own way, and the bodies of those I love, broken in their own ways and wonder, “These bodies God? These feeble keepers of our souls that bleed and bruise and lament and crave? Is God pleased to dwell here?”

It is basic Christian doctrine that each of us is made in the image of God, that is, every body, no matter how broken or frail or tired contains within it a part of God. But in the midst of crisis, grief, and all other emotions and conditions that fall under the holiday blues, that image may be blurred, making it difficult to see the sacred that we are meant to see and experience all around us.

Another word for this phenomenon is hopelessness, another, despair. To be human is to at some point make the psalmist’s cry, “How long, O Lord? How long will you hide your face from me?”

This time of year is full of efforts to create giddy, childlike magic by putting up twinkling lights, decorating, baking, and shopping and wrapping gifts, but the real power is in knowing that God has not forgotten us. God has not forgotten you. God reached down and was born a human body. One that knew love and loss, friendship and betrayal, beauty and despair. God in Jesus knew the human condition. God knows your condition. The difference the incarnation makes is this: while hopelessness and grief and despair are all human conditions, they are not divine ones. God despairs with us, God companions us through the pain, but God does not leave us there. No matter how we strive for a life devoid of death, trauma, or grief we cannot escape it. It is a normative condition of our broken world. While our efforts to avoid or ease our despair can at times be in vain, our hope for a light in the darkness never is.

I don’t know what darkness you are in today. I don’t know what old scars or fresh wounds are causing you pain this holiday season. I don’t know what makes you nauseous to think about or what keeps you awake at night. But I do know there is power in the light of God. There is power in knowing that “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” 

This evening there will be lots of light. The light will be easy to see because it’s all in one place. But as we leave the light will change. It will go from being in this place, to all places. Sometimes this makes the light harder to see, and we can find ourselves in the dark again. But God loves every body, including yours, as broken or worn out as it may seem. It is ready, just as it is to be a bearer of the light, it is already being redeemed. So don’t leave the light here, take it with you. Come close to the light when you need to and remember that God is near.

Amen. 

“Take heart; get up, he is calling you.”

Reagan Gonzalez
10/28/18
St. Matthew’s Episcopal
Lincoln, NE

I spent the last few days traveling to and from Gering, Nebraska, along with the St. Matthew’s delegation, for the Diocese of Nebraska’s 151^st Annual Council. During our time there we were participants of and witnesses to all the joyous and Holy Spirit-filled ministries that make up the Episcopal Church in this state. We heard ‘ministry moments’ where individuals from around the diocese stood up and shared stories about a particular ministry their church had taken on.

We passed a diocesan budget and resolutions pertaining to the governing bodies of the council.

We had small group discussions about each of our own ministries and churches.

We ate together. We prayed and worshiped together. In all that we did we celebrated being the body of Christ in our own unique way from one end of this vast state to the other.

After the long drive back home yesterday however I was greeted by the news of another mass shooting that had taken place in our country. 

While the Episcopal gathering in Gering was praying Morning Prayer yesterday a gunmen entered another worship space and opened fire on the congregation. As you have seen or heard from the news eleven were killed and at 6 were wounded in the shooting that took place at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Armed with anti-Semitic slurs, an assault rifle and three handguns the gunman had no other objective than to spread hatred and cause pain through a violence that has become all too familiar in our current climate.

My Jewish and non-Jewish friends took to facebook and other social media platforms with words of mourning, anger, and shock. Some posted information about memorial services or prayer vigils to be held in the coming days. Some simply quoted portions of psalms or other religious texts while I as your preacher wondered what you might need to hear today, and how I was ever going to find words adequate enough to meet the magnitude of despair that an event like yesterday brings.

The clearest way forward seems to be to remember that when times feel darkest we must lean all the more into faith, even when that faith feels like only a hope for goodness and a hope that maybe there is something more powerful than the dark.

And it is darkness we encounter in today’s gospel. There is the physical darkness of Bartimaeus, the beggar on the roadside outside of Jericho, and there is the social blindness of the crowd who try to make him be quiet amidst his cries of acclamation in Jesus’ identity as the Son of David. There is also the blindness of the disciples who up to this point in the gospel of Mark are not clear on the Messianic nature of Jesus’ calling and presence among them.

I don’t know which blindness you most associate with today. The blind disciples who follow without really looking? The ones who walk right through the deep mysteries of life without knowing they are even there. The blindness of following the status quo? The ones in the crowd who hush Bartimaeus.  Who hush those who aren’t in their inner circle and therefore don’t need to be heard. 

Or the blindness of Bartimaus? The one who seeks, who is calling out in the darkness for light. Not just to see, but to see again, to be restored and to be brought back into light that at some point was taken away.

The good news my Beloved is that no matter what blindness is afflicting you, there is healing light. 

While they may have to wait until the end of the story the disciples experience the light of resurrection. They witness the power of life over death, of God through action saying, violence will not be the end, I will redeem even this. I watch the sunrise every Sunday morning remembering those disciples who witnessed that first resurrection morning light.

The crowd surrounding Jesus and Bartimaeus also find sight. They are converted from a crowd that hushes and berates, to a crowd that calls, that invites, that makes a way for Bartimaeus to reach Jesus, “Take heart, get up, he is calling you.” May we be so open to Jesus’ presence to change and become open to the needs of those around us.

And finally Bartimaeus: The faithful blind man who somehow through faith sees Jesus without being able to see. Who will not be silenced in the presence of the one he knows can bring light, restoration, and hope. The one who knows that healing cannot be separated from following. “Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way,” we are told. Even in our darkest moments may we have the faith that hopes for the regaining of our sight.

In this world full of blindness and increased acts of cruelty taking place based on that blindness it is becoming increasingly necessary that we show love and support to our neighbors, especially those different from us. That we do not plead ignorance and remain in the dark, but with the help of God we come into the light and stand up when we need to stand up and speak out when we need to speak out.

In the General Thanksgiving prayed in our Morning Prayer service we lift these words to God, “Give us such an awareness of your mercies that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, but giving up ourselves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days.”

Now is the time to step into the light, where not only with our lips but in our lives we stand in support of our Jewish neighbors. Our Muslim neighbors, our homeless neighbors, our refugee neighbors, and all others who walk this earth with us.

Adam Greenwald, a Rabbi acquaintance from Los Angeles, had this to say in light of yesterday’s events,

“Despite the deep rage and profound heartbreak that I -- and, I suspect, most of you now feel -- I urge us all to respond to his hatred with a renewed commitment to love:

To love one another, and to stand heart-to-heart in solidarity with our Jewish family all around the world that weeps today as one…To love and thank the first responders, who put their lives on the line, captured the perpetrator, and cared for his victims. And, to continue loving the stranger -- to show this brutal person and others like him, that we will never stop believing in and building towards a world built on compassion and goodness. As Holocaust survivor, Paula Lebovics, said…just this past Sunday morning, "they can't make us into people who hate."”

Yesterday was a day of darkness, and if you need to sit in that darkness for a little while no one will hold that against you. But when you’re ready, when you grasp onto the faith inside you that whispers of hope, in that moment, take heart; get up, God is calling you. Regain your sight, and follow.

Amen.

Unspotted by the World

Reagan Gonzalez
10/7/18
St. Matthew’s Episcopal
Lincoln, NE
Proper 22

I cannot escape hearing it.

Anger and dissatisfaction ooze out of every news channel. My friends and relatives get into arguments on Facebook. Radio talk show hosts and podcast producers converse on the vile nature and moral corruption of whichever side they are speaking against. Exasperation and frustration from both sides has left our country more polarized than ever and I cannot escape hearing it.

Jonathan Haidt in his book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, writes, “Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.”

I myself have to frequently convict myself of only watching and listening to opinions that affirm what I already believe and what I already reject. As a person of faith I know I am held to a standard of higher power. That although I am of the world I am not to be consumed by it, or as our 1928 Prayer Book birthday prayer says, to be left unspotted by the world.

Many of the conflicts going on around us are led by individuals on opposing sides genuinely acting on their own religious and faithful convictions, however. Sometimes it is those acting out on their religious beliefs that the worst of humanity is seen. It is no wonder we desire to group ourselves into ‘us’ and ‘them’ and to the best of our ability we try not to leave our group, for anger is exhausting. It wares us down and leaves us wondering what is wrong with those who disagree.

If we are to live, neigh survive, this world as we have made it however, then we have to look beyond the anger, both in ourselves and in those around us. I think if we look deeply enough we will find something else. We will find fear. Deep down the real question behind whatever topic, whatever issue is at hand is, what are we afraid of?

At the end of today’s gospel we are given an image to help us through this question.

In the midst of Jesus and his disciples having a serious discussion people are bringing children to Jesus in order that he might touch them. The disciples don’t see the value in this and they rebuke the people. “Let the children come to me”, Jesus says, “for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” This image of Jesus with children gathered around him is one of the most popular images in all of scripture.

Within churches paintings and prints of this image are usually strategically placed near or in the nursery or other Sunday school class rooms. While this may call sweet images to mind I would actually argue that it is us adults who need the reminder of this image more than children.

There are at least two things from this image that I hope to leave you with in order that you might find hope for your days. The first is that if we are to receive the kingdom of God as little children, then we must acknowledge that we are not finished growing. We are still learning what it means to be in relationship with God and each other. The work does not stop at adulthood, but we should still be growing in faith, in relationship, in awe and in wonder. If we lean into Jesus’ words a burden is lifted. You don’t have to have everything figured out and it’s ok not to have all the answers. Unlike the disciples who view the children as less valuable of Jesus’ time compared to them or others, Jesus reminds them that it is the children, the weak, the forgotten, the social underdogs for whom Jesus is looking out for and seeks to raise up. Br. David Vryoff, of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, writes, “Children of God, never mind your weakness; it is what qualifies you. Never mind your feelings of inadequacy; it is God’s work, not yours. Simply make yourself available, and let any need to impress others, or prove yourself worthy, or achieve success. What matters is that God has chosen you, and that God claims you as his own.”

This leads us to the second thing we can learn from this image and that is, that deep down we all have an inner child that needs to be loved. No matter how you were raised what adults all have in common is that in one way or another we all had to figure out how to survive childhood. When I find myself getting angry or frustrated with the world around me I know deep down that there is fear.

Fear of the answers to questions that many of us have been asking our whole lives. Will I be heard?

Will I be valued? Am I loved? Am I worthy? Am I safe?

These questions lie at the base of almost all arguments we make and interactions we have.

I don’t know the future of many of the questions we face together as a community and as a nation, but regardless of sides, beliefs, and opinions it is clear that our current political dialogue is a toxic one. We have an obligation to look inward into our own fears before we act out in ways which divide us further. We have an obligation to listen to the fear and pain of others, without mockery or bullying.

When you feel overwhelmed by what is going on in your life or in the life of our nation or the world, hold onto this image of Jesus. He is still inviting you to come and gather around him. To bring to him those fears and questions you have, all your pain and sadness, and your joys as well. He is inviting you to sit at his feet and be comforted and protected, to bring your inner wounded self to him and to rest.

In our climate it is tempting to be like one of the disciples in today’s story, to drive others away because we think we know better or have it all figured out. As gatekeepers who judge who is worthy of time and attention. But We don’t actually get to choose who Jesus will or will not gather around him. Instead we have to strive be like the children who come to Jesus seeking to be blessed and to witness the blessing of others.  

Dearly beloved, bring your whole selves to Jesus, let him gather you and hold you safe.

Amen.

Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Vintage Books, 2013.

New Traditions

Reagan Gonzalez
9/2/18
Proper 17 Pentecost 15
St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church
Lincoln, NE

This past May I had the privilege of attending a classmate’s ordination to the diaconate in Montgomery, Alabama. The day before her ordination we decided to go into downtown Montgomery and visit the new Legacy Museum, opened in partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative, the museum seeks to educate on the enslavement of African Americans and the US’ subsequent racist history. The museum is only a few blocks from the original slave auction block and the museum itself is in the building that once held slaves prior to being auctioned off.

Once you pass the ticket booth you are greeted by an old red brick wall. From floor to ceiling words painted in white read, “You are standing on a site where enslaved people were warehoused.”

You then enter the first exhibit, the slave pens where holograms of enslaved peoples tell you there story. You continue weaving through history, from enslavement, to the days of Jim Crow and lynchings, and finally to the realities of mass incarceration, where it is noted that while African Americans make up 11% percent of the United States population they represent 40% of our prison populations.

The last room you come to contains wall to wall shelves that hold glass jars. Each jar is filled with soil from around the US and so the room is filled with a warm glow of earth tones from green moss to yellow sand to dark brown mud. The soil was collected by local communities on sites where a lynching had taken place, and each jar had the victim’s name written on it.

The jars are arranged by date, and I quickly began to scan the rows looking for locations that were familiar. I found several jars containing soil from counties near where I was born in West Texas and where I went to seminary in Austin.

I couldn’t find jars from Montana or from the state I was about to move to, Nebraska when a docent of the museum approached me and showed me the way to a touch screen computer in the corner of the room. The screen contained a map of the United States, “These are only the lynchings where people have collected soil on their own accord,” he said, pointing to the jars, “This map will show you all the lynching sites that have been reported across the United States.” I could tell from his inflection that ‘reported’ was a key word in his sentence. I hesitantly clicked the state of MT and the number 2 popped up with red highlights around the counties where the lynchings took place.

I backed up and pressed Nebraska. The number 5 appeared on my screen. No names or details were given, simply three red outlines. Cherry County, Douglas County, and Otoe County.

When we look at the gospel of Mark using narrative criticism we will find that all authority figures in the gospel in some way embody the opposition of the rule of God or what God intends for the world.

The character of Jesus through interaction and dialogue often reveals this rule of God and rebukes those who aren’t comprehending or living it. This is true of both Roman and Judean leaders, such as King Herod, and in today’s gospel the Pharisees and Scribes.  

They witness some of Jesus’ disciples not following ritual purity laws and they quickly point this out and ask Jesus to explain why some of his disciples have neglected to follow the tradition of the elders.

Before I go any further I would like to clarify two things about this passage. The first is that in first century Judaism there was a stark difference between being ritually impure and being morally impure. While the disciples who did not wash their hands made themselves known as rebels of a ritual tradition, it did not mean a rejection of their moral character or expose them as individuals of questionable faith. This is important to note because Christians have unfortunately frequently used this passage along with others to condemn and judge those who think or worship or live differently than themselves.

The second important note is that Jesus is not teaching the Scribes and Pharisees why their Jewish traditions are irrelevant and therefore why they should become Christians. Jesus was Jewish and was theologically quite in line with the Pharisees, that is why they bickered so often, much how we often quarrel with those we almost agree with. Therefore, this passage is also not meant to berate or denounce the Jewish faith for a superior one.

Jesus’ reply includes the naming of the hypocrisy that is present. Pointing out that it can be a slippery slope to abandon the commandments of God in exchange for human tradition. “It is what comes forth from the heart that defiles humanity: wickedness, envy, pride, not what goes in it,” he says.

This Gospel, although our earliest, was still written down around 70 years after the time of Jesus. The fact that this story was included and written down for the sake of being read over and over again, heard by generations of Christians means that hypocrisy is not just something that was in Jesus’ time, but in the early church, and in today’s church as well.

The lesson for today is to ask ourselves in what ways do we choose human traditions over living God’s rule in our lives?

When I learned about the lynchings in Texas, Montana, and Nebraska, I wondered who would fill those victims jar with soil not yet collected, not at first understanding that perhaps with God’s help that person could or should be me.

After hearing the story of Mollie Tibbets, the Iowa woman who went missing while out on a run and who is now a household name, I began looking up statistics of missing women across the country. I learned that over a dozen indigenous women from Montana alone have gone missing in 2018. I stand here before you as a woman of God and a priest in the church and with remorse tell you I didn’t know any of their names.

All of these situations are tragic, but it has become apparent that we have and continue to leave those who are most vulnerable within our society to fend for themselves. We have permitted their stories to end too soon, or in some cases we have left it up to God to be the only one to remember them.

We have made it a human tradition, an American tradition, and too often a Christian tradition to forget our violent history and to remain bystanders in a world that says certain lives don’t matter as much as others. This is the hypocrisy that Jesus is speaking about and against in today’s gospel. The Pharisees are restricting access to the sacred by emphasizing tradition over people.

So where do we go from here? How do we live into a resurrection narrative that we believe means that when God sees violence, suffering, and death God says, this isn’t the end. How do we take our faith seriously enough to admit that human tradition is not always in line with God’s intentions for the world and where is our hope for another way?

Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, says that, “We must get “proximate” to suffering and understand the nuanced experiences of those who suffer from and experience inequality.” Stevenson’s understanding is that ‘if you are willing to get closer to people who are suffering, you will find the power to change the world.”

So today, in our small way we will begin, and we will do so with God’s help.

It took me a long while of searching through article after article of Nebraska history, but I finally found the names of the 5 black men killed by white angry mobs in this state.  

They are:

Will Brown

George Smith

Henry Jackson

Henry Martin

Jerry White

Today, it is not only God or those who were close to these men who remember them. We will too, and by doing so we are in a very small way coming close to our somber past, becoming proximate to a suffering that needs to remembered in order for it to be reconciled to God for healing.

While we were not in control or responsible for the evil that infected the hearts of those who hurt these men, we, as disciples of Jesus are called to name and stand against any similar evil we see today.

To come close to our uncomfortable past that we may start a new human tradition, one where we live out our Christianity by seeking justice and hope for all the people of God.

May we, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, put aside the comfort of human tradition, in order to be God’s new creation, the body of Christ, given for the world God is still creating. 

While we know that hearts can be full of evil things, let us show another way, where hearts are full of love, justice, and mercy.

Amen.

Stevenson, Bryan. Just Mercy. New York, NY: Spiegel & Grau, 2015.

https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/blog/empathy-and-social-justice-the-power-of-proximity-in-improvement-science/

https://eji.org/

On the Eve of General Ordination Exams

No poem or prayer seems to do the trick.
No words or song quite fit this feast.
It’s Advent and Epiphany and Lent all rolled into one.
Hoping, Seeking, Desert Wandering.Christmas and Easter and Pentecost too.

The whole bunch have arrived at my doorstep.
Their billowing liturgical colors bleeding together.
“Have hopeful expectation,” calls out Advent.
“But better be on your knees,” adds Lent,
“Should there be a need.”

The Magi stop by for a drink.
Following Epiphany around makes for a lot of
Repetitiveness, it turns out.
At dusk the light keeps turning up,
And they’ve dedicated themselves to greeting it.

Christmas and Easter stand together in a corner.
Pixie dust gold wafting around them.
Like Mothers watching their toddlers from another room.
We see each other, but they are
End-of-the-week Merrymakers.

I ask Pentecost for a private conversation.
Veni Sancte Spiritus into the next room over.
“I know it’s not technically your season,” I say.
“I’ve rented my room for the week,” she replies,
“Day or night, just give me a ring.”

Trying to pretend sleep will come,
I see them off to their cathedrals and chapels,
They’re a lovely bunch, but the dullness of
A summer visit from Proper 23
Sounds altogether wonderful to me.

Library Carrel

Originally published in Soul by Southwest, a journal published by Seminary of the Southwest's Center for Writing and Creative Expression in the Spring of 2016.

Mustard yellow chair,
cold metal desk,
and a name tag label.

Means that are
more ordinary
than could have
been foreseen.

Ordinary in that
they are simple:
wood, metal, cloth, paper.

I too am simple:
bone and blood and flesh.

Yet, here I sit
or stand
or kneel
and see most
extraordinary things.

I don't know
if I am fleeing
or entering
a desert.

But there has been
manna before.
And surely
there will be again.

Water from the rocks
flows through this place,
and we are invited to drink.

We seek the complicated,
the revelation,
the decorated epiphany.

But some days
these things will be
in the form of

mustard yellow,
cold metal,
and a name tag.