Let me see again

10/28

At the end of a hard week, I find myself once again at Good Shepherd Faith. After reading Mark10:46-52, I begin my "prompting," as they say here....

Mmm. It has really been a week. Again. Having lunch in Greenwich Village with an old friend, a journalist. Her phone hoes off. Bombs found in Obamas mailbox. Hilary's mailbox. The phone will continue to ping every time a new bomb is found. It's hard being a journalist, she says, when you have bene declared an enemy of the people.  And then yesterday, the news of the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, my home town, and where I worked in an interfaith ministry for 10 years. The shooting took place during a baby naming ceremony. At least eleven dead.

Pittsburgh strong....

All this while I still struggle daily with the knowledge that I now live in a country that separates parents from children. And puts children in cages. And, for some unknown reason believes it is necessary to take away rosary beads from detainees.

(And has expressed an interest in taking a look at our genitals...)

These are difficult times we are living in.

I don't say this to depress you. But theology is always done in context, and this friends is our context. And it is always the work, the life, of the faith community to figure out what it means to be  a faithful Christian in days like this. And the preacher's calling to help with that task.

And so...the one they call Blind Bartimaeus. One of my favorite characters. On the surface of it, a simple story. A man who is blind, and a beggar, hears that Jesus is passing by and calls out to Jesus for "mercy." As always people tell him to be quiet. Don't disturb Jesus. (Or us.) But nevertheless, he persists. Jesus asks him what he wants. He asks to be able to see again. Jesus tells him, "Go your faith has made you well." And Immediately he regains his sight. And he follows.

OK. Anytime we have a story like this, we walk into a bit of a theological mine field. It's easy to just dribble the homiletic ball down court and go in for the easy lay up, the slam dunk. Just believe in Jesus and everything will be ok. The catch is, it seems to leave the impression that there is a direct connection between faith and physical well being. (well there is but don't go there yet..)

I have been part of Presbyterians for Health Education and Welfare for many years. We are a community of ministry networks, one of which is the Disabilities Concerns network, One of its members once pointed out to me that in his version of the song, he would sing "I once was blind and I still am" One of my West Park members  once brought that up to our then music director, who was African American. He responded, "Oh but that is just a metaphor." And she said, "Yeah, like wash me and I shall be whiter than snow?" ( She herself lived with MS.) And he thought and said, "Oh." We forget that that the power to control metaphor us yet another expression of privilege.

When I worked in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I has a friend who had been a student at Oral Roberts University. He had been born with a withered leg. His fellow students constantly prayed for his"healing" and when his leg didn't change, they actually got angry with him, He obviously did not have faith. Ultimately, Oral Roberts himself had to intervene and tell the students that God's ways were always mysterious.

Here's the point...Jesus tells him... before anything has happened, "your faith has made your well." He does not say, "Your faith has restored your vision" It is after Jesus' announcement that something has already happened that his sight is restored. That's the thing with Jesus, watch what has already happened before we see it. (Here comes a metaphor) Archbishop Tutu during the struggle against apartheid used to say "We have already won. The other side just hasn't realized it yet." Tutu's announcement of what God had already done helped the people experience an inner liberation that could help sustain them in the ultimate victory of external liberation.

In this story, the man's vision being restored is only an expression of what as already been achieved.

So what does that have to say to us today? What is the good news? Well, I think a lot of us are having problems with vision. With what we can see. Bob Dylan sang, "How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky? How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?"  I know I feel like another Dylan song, "It's not dark yet, but it's getting there..."

There's two different vision problems here. Some  of us cannot see the consequences of words that are said and policies and what they are doing to people in real life. That words can give the permission to unleash acts of darkness, acts of evil. On the other side, some of cannot see a way out or what to do or where it all ends.

Like Bartimaeus we cry out 'Lord have mercy on me. Let me see again..." As the old hymn said ,"Open my eyes that I may see.." or the old hymn sung in the midst of the potato famine, "Be thou my (remember?) vision.."


Jesus tells us "your faith has made you well.." Can you believe it? Can we believe it enough to claim our "wellness," our vision, even in these days of darkness? Can we proclaim what we see?

Go, your faith has made you well.....

Amen

And we have our conversation. The pianist feels its not fair just to criticize one side. And he has his own litany of examples of liberal incivility and worse. That would be a long conversation. The short answer is that to be neutral in a conflict of unequal power is to side with the oppressor. The voice of the soloist is sweet and light and comforting as a ray of light breaking through. Soon enough tis back to the cold windy street again.





Gospel Mark 10:46-52

46They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. 47When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" 48Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" 49Jesus stood still and said, "Call him here." And they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take heart; get up, he is calling you." 50So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51Then Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man said to him, "My teacher, let me see again." 52Jesus said to him, "Go; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Housing Our Future:Now

10/25

It was a beautiful day for a march. Though it felt a bit more like Thanksgiving than Halloween. Crisp fall air. And sun. We gathered at 86th Street and Second Avenue to march to Gracie Mansion, Mayor Di Blasio's home. The march was in support of the "House Our Future" campaign...a call for 30,000 new homes. The point was obvious, I think. The mayor  has his home. A lot of New Yorkers don't.

A crowd that would grow to 250-300 or so is gathering. Marc Greenberg, Director of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing (which I chair), asks me to help hold our banner.

Bob Brashear and Marc Greenberg with the banner

"Looks like a good crowd," he says. His broad smile reminds me that this is what Marc lives for. The gathering  of people, the marching, the chanting, the never ending struggle for housing justice that he has remained faithful to for decades.

The housing crisis which blossomed under Bloomberg has only worsened under Di Blasio. We now have record numbers of homeless, approaching 61,000. One third of those are working poor. Ten percent of city school children are homeless. It is scandalous. More so because Di Blasio campaigned as a progressive, promising 30,000 units, a promise yet to be delivered. (In more ways than one, Mayor Di Blasio, not unlike President Obama, came into office with a strong progressive base. And instead of using that base for truly progressive change has instead fallen into more traditional liberalism. Sad because the base is there...)

The march winds down 86th to East End. What do we want?Housing. When do we want it? Now. If we don't get it...shut it down..Hey, hey, 30K...and more chants. The crowd gathers.

In the crowd

A bombastic heckler is barely heard. There are homeless people working people, faith community people. People sharing their own stories. What will it take to be heard?

The Interfaith Assembly has been faithful to this witness since the "Kochville" occupation of City Hall Park thirty years ago in 1988. (See John Jiler's Sleeping With the Mayor ....https://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Mayor-Story-John-Jiler/dp/1886913145.) Founded by a faith community trio of steadfast witnesses Marshall Meyer, Dan Berrigan and my predecessor, Bob Davidson, Marc has led the IAHH through these many years. There would be no better way to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Kochville than action on the 30000 badly needed homes.

Test question

10/7

Welcome Evgeny

Today is a very special day in the life of Beverley Church. For the first time in many years, they are welcoming a new member. Evgeny came first as a handyman but was attracted to the fellowship and has decided to become a member. And this is an occasion for celebration!

But first, my reflection for the day....

It's good to be back, and as always, there's a lot going on. Today is Worldwide Communion Sunday which means when we break bread together later today that we will doing so at the same time with brothers and sisters all around the globe. That's a powerful thought...to be part of a worldwide family of followers of Christ with a loaf that symbolizes one true loaf and  a cup that is our common shared cup. 

We also have another holiday weekend. Columbus Day Weekend to be exact. We've travelled a long way from when I was a kid and we were taught in school" in fourteen hundred and ninety two Columbus sailed the ocean blue....":
* He never actually set foot on this continent.
* Turns out he was not a very nice guy, to say the least
* This was not in fact India and the people who lived here were not Indians but they've been stuck with that ever since 
* Though this week I saw the "Israel Unite in Christ" people out on Lexington and 116th and following up on one of their fliers discovered that on subsequent voyages that  Columbus actually did think  he had discovered the "12 lost tribes of Israel"

Israel Unite in Christ

* And Columbus' discovery would eventually lead to a genocide of native peoples in this hemisphere..
* Last year when I was in Argentina, there was an alternative celebration held in a recently discovered historic black neighborhood featuring indigenous people and their music and dance 

Anti-Columbus Day celebration, Parana, Argentina

Not "discovered"

* But in Central America when I was there, the day was celebrated as "el encuentro...el dia de la raza.." The vast majority of Central American peasants are mestizo...mixed native and European a direct result of Columbus' visit...
SO it is complicated.....and Italians are none too happy about all of this..

And we've lived though a very rough and divisive week...like which week isn't?  Where it seems like the Republicans wanted Kavanagh approved just out of spite and we wind up with a President mocking a woman who had been abused. A shameful action in what has been a shameless administration. It is depressing....

So what's happening with Jesus this week? Looks like he's being examined by hostile conservatives determined to make him look bad. With test questions...

Starting with a question about divorce. And his answer is hard....
 "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 7'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

It is for this reason the Catholic church has never allowed divorce. And for most of our history our own Presbyterian church wouldn't accept a divorced pastor. Nor our country a divorced President. It was really seen as wrong...But what was Jesus really saying? If you look closely, the way the divorce has worked was that a man could get a certificate of divorce for his wife. She would have no recourse or defense. A man...and not a woman. And if a woman wanted out and the man disagreed, he could hold her in bondage forever. 

And in Jesus' society, divorced women were the most vulnerable, as vulnerable as widows.  Jesus' hard line here is not standing up for an institution, marriage, it's standing up for vulnerable women.  You don't have to ask where he would be. He'd be side by side with Christine Blasey Ford...and every woman who's ever been abused. That's what this verse means and what Jesus means.

Therefore it makes perfect sense that the next topic to come up for Jesus in this passage is children..because his disciples are discouraging their presence. In his society, children were only slightly less vulnerable than women. But beyond their vulnerability, there's something else about them....the way they receive the kingdom...and when I try to understand this, I think of my grandson, y'all know what I'm talking about....the way he looks at the world....that sense of awe and wonder like a very special gift is   being opened just for him.  That's how Jesus wants us to receive the kingdom...not like a careful rule book, not as a disciplinary measure...but as a truly awesome beautiful reality. 

How do you think Jesus feels bout this? Last week the NewYork Times reported:
In shelters from Kansas to New York, hundreds of migrant children have been roused in the middle of the night in recent weeks and loaded onto buses with backpacks and snacks for a cross-country journey to their new home: a barren tent city on a sprawling patch of desert in West Texas.

Until now, most undocumented children being held by federal immigration authorities had been housed in private foster homes or shelters, sleeping two or three to a room. They received formal schooling and regular visits with legal representatives assigned to their immigration cases.

Friends ...this is our country...this is our government...Jesus is in those tents with those children....

Take a look at the Jesus we meet today under hostile questions meant to test him. He takes us away from debates about  doctrine or rules to compassion for the vulnerable...and if he is with them, he is surely here with us...

Let us allow him to show us where and how we need to be. And live in the confidence that  he will be with us as we respond...

Following the sermon, we officially welcome Evgeny as a member of the church.  It turns out that even though he had grown up in the Soviet Union, his grandmother had secretly had him baptized. We go through the reaffirmation of baptism liturgy and welcome him as a member, including the laying on of hands. Following communion, Evgeny goes downstairs to finish preparations for the celebratory feast he has prepared. And for a final benediction, I she these words from Lutheran Pastor Anna Blaedel:

blessed are you who are raging. 
blessed are you who are mourning. 
blessed are you who feel numb. 
blessed are you who feel sick. and tired. and sick and tired.
blessed are you who refuse to turn away.
blessed are you who need to turn away. 
blessed are you who keep breathing deep. 
blessed are you who are tending to your own needs. blessed are you who are tending to the needs of another.
blessed are you who have been calling. 
blessed are you who have been organizing.
blessed are you who have been testifying. 
blessed are you who have been hearing. 
blessed are you who have been resisting.
blessed are you who feel broken open beyond repair. blessed are you who are raw beyond words.
blessed are you who are working hotlines and crisis care centers and bearing witness to the forces of violence and trauma unleashed and unloosed. 
blessed are you who are marching. 
blessed are you who are weeping.
blessed are you who preach and know that divinity resides in despised, abused, violated flesh. 
blessed are you who know deep in your bones that you are good. and beautiful. and beloved. and sacred. and worthy. and believed. and held. and capable of healing.
beyond your wildest imagination. 
blessed are you who remind others they are good. and beautiful. and beloved. and sacred. and worthy. and believed. and held. and capable of healing beyond their wildest imagination.
blessed are we when we dare to dream of a world without sexual violence, without white supremacy, without misogyny, without police brutality, without anti-trans and anti-queer violence.
blessed are we when we stay tender. 
blessed are we when we stay fierce. 
blessed are we when we dare to imagine repair, and transformation. 
blessed are we when we labor together to make it so.

Then we go downstairs to celebrate with a classic Russian feast including just a touch of коньяк. It has been a very beautiful day.

Celebrating

Welcome Evgeny

2Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" 3He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" 4They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her." 5But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 7'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

10Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

13People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." 16And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

Fahrenheit 11/9

9/28

A conversation with Michael Moore

Went to see Michael Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 11/9....and who should appear but Michael Moore himself...

This movie is important. Michael seeks to understand what happened, why it happened, where we are now and what we might do.

As far as what, beyond the Russians and other attempts to subvert democracy, Moore chronicles well the responsibility of the Democrats for their own defeat. Including their own subversion of democracy in the nomination process and essentially ignoring serious class issues. Taking too much for granted.

Trump is seen not as a cause but a symptom of a system that is already far gone with rot and decay. The situation of Flint, Michigan, for example, happened long before Trump. The issues around its water are nothing short of criminal. And President Obama, whose arrival was viewed as their salvation, instead took photo op sips of the water essentially dismissing danger. And those who gave up and decided not to vote were enough to cost the Democrats Michigan. The subsequent use  of Flint as a staging ground for military training exercises....including bombing!...was almost surreal beyond belief.

We are also reminded that President Obama deported more immigrants than any previous administration, use drones to take people out and continued the decline of democracy.

The comparisons of the rise of fascism in late Weimar Germany and Trump era USA are chilling. Most chilling is the juxtaposition of the burning of the Reichstag and 9/11. While Moore is not arguing ( I think) that 9/11 was as the conspiracy folks call an "inside job," it was nevertheless exploited to expand unchecked government power (the Patriot Act) and start a new war in Iraq for no valid reason. That is seriously frightening.

We see the rise of openly racist armed angry  people and it's almost enough to cause one to give up. Thankfully there are signs of hope...
* The student activists from Parkland, Florida
* The campaign of Alexandria  Ocasio- Cortez  and other women.
* The campaign of military veteran and former Trump supporter Richard Ojeda in blue collar West Virginia.

It feels overwhelming right now. But, as Sharon Welch says, Cynicism is the prerogative of privilege. We cannot allow ourselves to fall into it.
Neither can we wait for a great man or any one on a white horse.  We need to remember the slogan of those now fighting for democracy in Nicaragua.....solo el pueblo salva el pueblo...only the people can save the people. And the time is now,

                                                ****

Michael stayed after for questions and answers. And we reminisced briefly about his visit to West Park during the Occupy Wall Street days. The struggle continues....