Living in coronavirusworld 178: A parable. And a debate

 

9/28

Two turtles. Morningside.

Up early to finish my Yom Kippur sermon for my friend Rabbi Steve. In a normal year, we’d be at the  Bitter End, that iconic music club in the West Village. But this is not a normal year. So we gather instead on ZOOM.

Later, I walk through Morningside Park.  Spend some time with two turtles sunning on a rock. 

Tonight in Bible Study, we’re on to Matthew 21: 21-32. A story found in the three synoptic gospels and the Gospel of Thomas. The story of a landlord and tenants. The landlord keeps sending servants to collect the rent. They keep getting killed. Finally he sends his own son and the tenants figure they’ll get rid of him and take his inheritance. Jesus says that the landlord will “…bring those wicked wretches to a a wretched end” and rent the field to other tenants. Then he quotes Psalm 118 about “…the stone that was rejected by the builders..” becoming the “…cornerstone..” 

On the surface of it, this is  a problematic passage. It’s traditionally  been  used as “lesson” that the “Jews” refused to follow Jesus, lost their blessing and had the land taken from them as Christians were elected to take their place. A classic example of supercessionist, or replacement theology. With the predictable collateral antisemitism. It is nonetheless clear that the first servants are the early prophets, the next set later prophets and perhaps John the Baptist, and finally Jesus, the son. And the new tenants are, of course, the Christians.  We have to dig deeper.

Matthew, in describing the landowner, takes language from Isaiah 5: 1-7. Matthew’s writing context is either right before or after the fall of the Temple and the final victory of the Romans over the Jewish forces of national liberation. So he goes back to an Isaiah text that has to do with the victory by the Babylonian empire. In classic Old Testament form, the message of the prophet is that the failure of Israel to practice justice and righteousness for  its people brought on the occupation and exile. Not as a punishment, but as the natural consequences of breaking the bonds that tied a society together and rending the social fabric. The landowner is God, the vineyard Israel and the tenants the Jewish religious and political establishment. In Matthew’s typical scheme of writing, in essence, a new Torah, having Jesus relive the story of the people Israel, he’s making a prophetic point. As their ancestors had failed to live up to their end of the covenant, their contract, and opened the way for the Babylonians, so this generation has failed and opened the way to final subjugation by the Roman Empire.  Now the new Christian community will be given its chance. 

It’s easy to see the tenants as sharecroppers. They after all did all the hard labor to produce the crops. There is revulsion at the violence of the tenants’ punishment. But the point usually is, in the Gospels, that the punishments are self-created and  natural consequences, not external punishments imposed by a vengeful God. 

It is easy to see the unravelling of our own society reflected in the failure of the entrusted servants to do justice for our own people. We are creating our own societal falling apart.The message is clear. We are all tenants. It’s not about Jews and Christians and we as the new chosen people. We too have an obligation to  fulfill our side of the contract. In the violence against the son, we see John Lewis on the Selma bridge, beaten and bleeding, we see George Floyd with his breath choked out.  As we watch our society shaking and vulnerable, prophetic words speak clear. 

It is the eve of the Presidential debate.

9/29

Th eGreat (virtual) Race

Today’s 5K is the (virtual )Pittsburgh Great Race. As I make my way south through the streets of Upper Manhattan, I imagine the streets of my hometown and the course I have run  so many times. Wondering if and when  we’ll run together again.

Vino Levantino

Another one bites the dust....

I pass by Vino Levantino. Spent many nights there with another pastor friend of mine sharing a bottle of wine and Mediterranean Food.  And talk fo theology, ministry  and just life. We gathered there with friends when she lost a controversial  bishop's election. We followed one of the servers in a  music career. They just couldn't make it. Another Covid casualty. 

Pastor Heidi's Trinity Lutheran

Heidi has a virtual book launch for her Sanctuary: Being Christian in the Wake of Trump. It’s a good conversation, virtually speaking. I miss  the wine and cheese and casual conversation  between people.

And it’s the first debate. Its upsetting when your worst fears are realized. When you receive proof that yes, things are exactly as bad as you think they are. Though I shouldn’t be, I am still shocked by the crass bullying behavior of the President. How pundits keep wanting to act as if it’s a normal election somehow when this like nothing we have ever seen before. I feel sick to my stomach. Embarrassed. And when Trump tells the right wing militia “Proud Boys” to “stand back and stand by,”  as he all but says he won’t leave office, a growing feeling of fear and anxiety, 

We are all tenants. 

YOM KIPPUR 5781

 

5781

Good morning.  I hope your fast is going well.

Wow! It’s been  a year since we’e been together and what a year it has been. I remember at the nend of last calendar year having  a conversation with a friend and saying you know, you just never know what’s going to happen next year that we can’t even imagine right now.And never has that been more true.

My oldest son…and my two grandchildren…live in Berlin. They were supposed to come visit in April. Of course that didn’t happen. We would have visited in August but as my son said, Dad it’s going to be a long time before they let people from the US come here. It’s now been over a year since we’ve  seen them. Like many of you, we have weekly family ZOOM meetings.  So a coupe of weeks ago, we’re talking about our current reality. Orange skies over San Francisco. Temperatures of 120’ in Los Angles and weather reports with the word firenado in it. Ten percent of Oregon burned to the ground. Hurricanes, floods and now “zombie storms.”  Killer  hornets. A virus that has killed 2000000 of our fellow citizens. And armed groups of Americans facing off against each other. My son says, Dad, I’m not sure if there’s a God or not. But if there is, and God wants to get our attention, uh, I think it would look something like this…

What I’m saying is if ever there’s a time for a fresh start, this would be. it. I’m fully ready to let 2020 go and just embrace 5781.

I’m in a Wednesday morning conversation group. There’s a woman who has the annoying quality of always looking at the bright side of things. Just when I’m ready to really enjoy being depressed about everything, she’s got to come up with something good. She keep saying that there have been gifts, new opportunities brought to us by the virus.  And I say, “Yeah, but it still sucks…” But she has a point. I remember, in the middle of the full lockdown, being in Central Park. How blue and clear the sky was. And I heard all these birds singing. I realized there was no traffic. No honking horns. No planes or helicopters. I remember having read that in Wuhan, they heard the birds sing for the first time in decades. With clear skies, many more birds were hanging out. 

I began taking closer notice of nature. The coming and going of tulips in the Conservatory Garden. An egret I saw every day in Morningside Park, sometimes journeying over to the Harlem Meer.  I began noticing turtles. How they look like I do swimming the breast stroke. They can quarantine in place by just pulling in their head. The way they come out and bask in the sun. The gingerly way geese walk on the rough pavement and their web feet then their smooth glide across the water. One day for twenty minutes I watched a squirrel eating pizza.  And one day, I had this realization, that all creation, all creatures, are perfect just as they are. (Well maybe not the platypus..) All creatures are perfectly deigned to do what it is they do and be what they are supposed to be. That thought was is serious tension with my conviction that we must always be involved in tikkun olam, repairing the world. And that  the most sacred part of life is that everflowing prophetic stream that has always fought for a more just, humane, inclusive and sustainable world. 

But then I had an even deeper realization, if all these creatures, egrets, geese, turtles, squirrels, are perfect, then so are you and I, in and with our imperfections. 

This is a season for repentance. And forgiveness, Reconciliation. And getting written into that book of life for another year. I so deeply appreciate and respect that Judaism has taught us that if you have wounded, hurt someone, you must ask them for forgiveness before going to God. Likewise, we are to forgive others. But here’s the thing….I am convinced that the hardest person for us to forgive is ourselves. As a minister, every time I lead a service I lead the prayer of confession and then give the assurance of pardon, “Jesus came into the world not to condemn, but to forgive. Know that who you are, as you are, you  are seen, are welcomed, are accepted, forgiven and loved.”In conversation with my colleagues, many of us struggle to accept that for ourselves.

I’m thinking of Adam and Eve. How they coved themselves because they realized the wee naked and were ashamed. Let’s be clear,,,this was not about not having no clothes. Or not about sex. They had just eaten of what? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil….which means they now knew the dfference…they were adults….the were afraid the seen as they really were…when we are aware of the content of our actions, remorse is good. Even guilt. If we take rseponsibility and act to make amends. Shame? Ah,not so good. It makes us want to hide, which causes all kinds of problems…

When my congregation studied the Torah, it took 2 1/2 years, every Monday, to read every word, we discovered that the “great commandant,” to love your neighbor as yourself, is in the exact center of the Torah, equal before and after. (Lev.19: 18) Like all the mitzvot on either side are ways to do that. But here’s the point….as you love yourself. You can’t love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself.  There’s ample evidence to suggest that people who join mobs, people who join hate groups, proud boys, what not, are people who are not able to love themselves. So my first hope for you on this day of atonement is that you can feel a sense of oneness with yourself. 

But the other is important too. My tradition used to have  a rule that if you came to the communion table with something against someone, something broken, you were supposed to leave and geo take care of it before taking communion. By the same token,I almost feel like people really ought to make healing of relationships part of the Yom Kippur experience. Yeah, I know there’s not much time left. But try this between now and when  you break your fast, try to think of one relationship that is broken, or not right, And try to think of just one thing you might do to begin to open the door to healing. (It’s never easy…a step at time.) Nothing brings more joy to God than healing of relationships.  Being at one with each other is a big step towards atonement with God.

My hope for you this Yom Kippur 5781 I that you might experience yourself as one known and beloved by God and one capable of loving others and engaging in the holy work of Tikkun Olam. That you might feel your onenesss with God, Adonai, Hashem, the Creator, the Spirit, the source, the nameless one…however you experience holy reality….that this may that be yours.

(Now…as Passover seders end with Next Year in Jerusalem, I’d like to say next year at the Bitter End…may God preserve that special place until we can meet again there…)

Living in coronavirusword 177: Erev Yom Kippur

 

9/27

what the world needs now

Sunday afternoon. Erev Yom Kippur. Time for a family brunch in Brooklyn before Kol Nidre and the fast.The community trying to figure out  the High Holy Days in the midst of Covid 19. One of us enjoys progressive High(er) Holy day services from the Kitchen in San Francisco. Another will preach for Sim Shalom online Yom Kippur morning.  New Covid hot spots are popping up in the Orthodox neighborhoods. My boys live in Crown Heights, a neighborhood that has successfully (so far) navigated gentrification.

Memories of Ebbetts

Jackie

I walk down a (for me) previously unexplored Sullivan Street. The street that used to lead to Ebbetts Field, the home of the Dodgers, now terminates in a public housing project. Much to my surprise, I find a "Dodger Playground” with a Jackie Robinson mural right over, the fence with gates  that echo the original  Ebbetts architecture and tribute to long gone heroes and days. In the very center, the one and only world series championship of 1955. The Dodgers leaving broke Brooklyn’s heart. The identity of the old Brookyn was inextricably interwoven with the beloved Dodgers. Jackie Robinson changed the game here. The new minor league Cyclones do their best to keep a connection with that past in the midst of the funkiness of Coney Island. All this foreign of course to the new hipsters that now define the word Brooklyn. And the urban hipness the NBA Nets. The Dodgers were victim of a squabble between their owner Walter O’Malley and urban one man driving force Robert Moses. It is fitting irony that a ballpark built to mimic Ebbetts sits exactly where Moses wanted it and the Nets play in an arena on the land O’Malley wanted. The Ebbetts flagpole near by.  

Fish pool 

On the corner of Sullivan and Stoddard is a house with a pool in front filled with Japanese koi fish. 

We ZOOM with my son and  grandson in  Berlin, kept separate from us  for over a year by the virus. All is of the return of live students to school in their new hybrid mix. And lament over the inescapable non-democratic  realities of election college and the Supreme Court. And the constant anxiety over an election process that no one can truly see what might happen. We hold our breath. And hope we are inscribed in that Book of Life one more time.  

Living in coronavirusworld 176: A day with no relief

 9/26

Make America Care Again: Live and let live

An over six hour Presbytery meeting on ZOOM can leave you feeling drained and exhausted .  I got to deliver my report on being a commissioner, a representative of New York City Presbytery to the first virtual assembly last June. I spoke of the good, the bad and the ugly. The good being how the grass roots had fought and organized to open up what was to have been an hermetically sealed Assembly dealing only with necessary and essential institutional issues.  Thanks to many of hours of hard work, we were able to produce a decent statement in support of Black Lives Matter and repenting of systemic racism,  and a statement on Covid 19 as well. The bad was the Assembly’s refusal to listen to the voices from the Black Women and Girls Task Force on the unique disparities of their experience. And the ugly was the commissioner who held up a preborn lives matter sign during an 8:40  memorial fro George Floyd.  My colleagues also reported. One spoke of learning the need to listen. Another of the possibility of reconvening Assembly and how she had already spoken to represntatiess of Eastern Korean Presbytery for their support. 

The moderator of that Task Force,  the Rev. Keri Allen, gave us an in depth overview of the report. Speaking of both the invisibility and hypervisibility of Black women and girls. (As per Brionna Taylor.) Adultification and sexualization of young Black girls. The experience of institutional and interpersonal violence. Rooted in toxic theology. The need for gender equity, to move from pro-choice to reproductive justice. And how the Assembly could not bring itself to explicitly name this exploitation. Rev. Allen also named the Presbyterian Church as having been the “most prolific” of slave holding churches, its colleges, universities and seminaries built on the backs of exploited  Black women and girls. Capital stolen from Back girls’ wombs. The highest murder rate of Black trans women. The overpolicing of Black bodies. Once again I was reminded of the breadth and power of that devastating report. 

The meeting itself descended into polity chaos as approving the minutes provided the opening for a two hour fight. At root were institutional issues clearly impacted by systemic racism. It was painful to see members of the Black community attacking  each other.  It becomes increasingly clear to me that an institution that is historically and intrinsically white in culture and structure, even when bringing BIPOC persons into leadership positions, will remain captive to white domination until there is a conscious an intentional project of deconstruction of the whiteness of that culture and structure. In fact, white privilege and power will be strengthened because now it will be legitimated by the presence of BIPOC persons. Still worse, these representatives will have been made accomplices in  their own oppression. I say that with  people I care for and respect in both sides of very emotional arguments. Some of would be  very upset to read this. But that’s how insidious white privilege is. 

Happy birthday

When it’s over, I need a walk to clear my head. I see its someone’s birthday. 

Ready for the vigil

I go to the Lucerne where the One Heart Upper West Side has decorated the scaffolding pipes in preparation for a vigil to protest the mayor’s removal of the residents. 

I finish at the Gate with two musician friends. The conversation is filled  with anxiety over continued lack of work and income and the upcoming election. 

It's a day with no relief. 

Living in coronavirusworld 175: So much evil in the world

 9/24

Black lives matter 5K

For the second day in a row, drama on 115th street. Again, the sounds of commotion through my window. I go outside to see a city garbage truck stopped. There’s a large bag on the street in back of the truck. The bag is moving. And a pool of blood growing. A circle of neighbors watching. My neighbor who spends her days sitting outside, watching, one of those, as Jane Jacobs puts it, eyes on the street, is staring. I ask her what’s up. Turns out someone had put their dog in a garbage bag. When the workers hit the compactor function, and heard pained sounds, they realized there was something moving  in the bag, The semicrushed dog was still alive. They removed the bag and lay it in the street. 911 was called. The animal ambulance is on the way. My neighbor is starting to tear up.  I just can’t believe it she says. How could  anybody be that cruel? So sad.That poor dog. Dying a slow death. So sad. The ambulance arrives, the dog gently, lifted up, put in the back. Lights flashing, the ambulance  takes off. Accompanied  by a two police car escort with flashing lights and sirens. My neighbor says, There is so much evil in the world these days. So much evil. Thank God there are still people with good hearts…so sad..so much evil…I watch the police cars clearing the way for  the ambulance. I want to believe they would do the same for my neighbor. I hope he makes it, but I don’t know...I just don’t know…she’s says.

Hari Krishna

I do the Black Lives Matter (virtual) 5k down the west side of the park. At least two jazz ensembles out on this beautiful day. 

Jazz in the park

And at the circle, I see the Hari Krishna people are back. Sigh, I have not missed them,

I stop at the Gate on my way home. A TV news reporter is interviewing co-owner Siobhan about the struggles of trying to survive the covid crisis. Limited capacity (25%) occupancy can begin next week, But no bar. With 12 tables ,that means only 3 available. The city just announced that outdoor dining can continue through the winter. Siobhan is not sure they can afford the tents. It’s a tough go for sure.

                                                                  at the Gate

 I tell my dog story to my old friend RL. He thinks a minute, You know, someone’s poor. Got a sick dog.Can’t afford ASPCA. Don’t know what to do…maybe they’re not cruel, just overwhelmed. I think about this But am still haunted by the dog.

Less than 24 hours after our meeting to organize support for the residents of the Lucerne the Mayor announces once again he is moving them out, This time to a downtown Radisson. A neighborhood vigil is being organized.

I head home to watch my actor  friend in an online benefit for Emily’s List, for the support of  women candidates. There will be  ZOOM plays and a spoken word artist, And of course I will end the night with our open mic. 

Thank God there are still people with good hearts…so sad..so much evil…

Living in coronavirusworld 174: Who is my neighbor?

 

9/24

Police drills....

 Sounds of commotion on the street outside my window take me away form my work to see what’s going on. A woman is lying in the  street. The middle of 115th . Cars are backed up and honking their horns. A woman who has just left work at the school across the street persuades the cars to back up and clear the street, but the street starts to fill again. I join with a neighbor to move one of the heavy water filled street barricades into the center of the street to block traffic. The school volunteer tries to engage the woman. “ Ma’am, you got to get up an out of the street.””Why?”  "Because the cars keep coming and they come fast and they can’t see you and you don’t want to get run over.” “Why?” “Hey you're not safe here.” “Why?” Lots of neighbors are gathered around. Trying to figure out what she might be on. She raises to an elbow. ‘I need a cigarette” she says. The man next to me says “I got one. ” “Newport?” She says, “Gotta be a Newport.” ‘Sure,” he says, “that’s what I got.” I notice he’s got Marlboros, but I’m not about say so. “Bring it here” she says, “No, you gotta come get it,” he says. They go back and forth on this awhile and finally she drags herself to the sidewalk, The school worker gets her up to  the steps. The man gives her the Marlboro. She lights it and inhales, looks  at him with a scowl. But the drama is over. Took about half an hour or so. Every other week or so, I see someone out on the sidewalk, just laid out. Where I live, I see a lot of broken, troubled or in trouble people. Mostly Black. The homeless camp on the corner of Morningside and  110th,  mostly  Mexican. The vast majority of troubled people  I see are BIPOC, as they say these days. (Black, Indigenous, People of Color.) An objective  sign of our societal sin. A painful daily reality.

I go on to the bar around the corner to met a friend and share this  story. The weather is mild and overcast, I’m feeling the clouds. I’m tired of the Covid keeping your spirts up routine. It’s exhausting. Small disappointments, slights, grow in the way they weigh upon me. Just tired of it. Of everything. 

The Center Board meets and the focus is on how to be an arts producing organization in the midst of Covid. We’ve been cleared for video production in the sanctuary bu thats it. A virtual “season” of sort sorts being put together. A longtime arts administrator on the board repots that citywide, 62% of all cultural workers are out of work. Income down, building expenses rising, and still we go on.  One resident arts group is moving out, no longer able to afford rent to pay fo space they can’t use. We’re counting on a virtual “gala” to save the day.

The Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing has called together a community meeting of the faith community to talk about the continuing neighborhood controversy over homeless people being housed in boutique hotels. There are clergy, lay people, social workers, the Manhattan Borough President, the neighborhood’s State Assembly rep and just plain neighbors.  And homeless residents are here to speak for themselves.  In response to well funded NIMBY (not in my backyard, though we’re not supposed to use that  word) complaints, the mayor declared he would move the resident back to shelters. And began displacing people with disabilities to do that. Advocates struck back and stopped him in his tracks. Only  40 some removed. Over 200 remain. Things are at a stalemate.

As supportive  as we are of the residents, it’s  very clear that the mayor blew this. He moved people in the shelters into the hotel because of the reality  that the shelters were hot beds of Covid with no PPE to speak of or social distancing. But from the beginning of this  fiasco he had no coherent plan. You don’t move unprepared homeless people off into a gentrified neighborhood  without  telling them. Inviting the community to help solve the problem. The antis were first to respond with vitriol and money. As our Borough President pointed out, it’s not the first time. The best of supportive housing programs hav been met with pushback and hyperbolic reactions. Still, every action of the mayor has been wrong, strategically. Thankfully supportive people in the neighborhood organized as well. And stopped the move that would have displaced people with disabilities. Committed to  the project of working together  to improve the situation.

Project Renewal has been  organizing much  needed services for the residents. Neighborhood settlement  house Goddard-Riverside has been working on activities and serves. A grassroots organization, One Heart Upper West Side arose to show positive support and seek to develop rcaltonshio with the residents. And resident spokespeople like Shams da Homeless Hero have begun to emerge to give the residents a voice. Their own voice. Clergy from non-denominational  Christian churches and Jewish neighbors have come together to organize spiritual “walk and talks.” One church has adopted a hotel and begun a sermon series on “who is my neighbor?“ And given $10000 to Legal Aid. New ideas begin to flow. My old congregation would like to do something involving sharing meals together . Marc Greenberg of  the IAHH has done what he does best, drawing us all together to see what we can do. 

This is what is clear:

* Homelessness was at record numbers before Covid. The mayor had failed to come up with any effective response. 

* Covid complicated the problem by making the shelters hotspots

* The mayor exacerbated the situation by basically dumping people in a gentrifying, traditionally politically astute neighborhood. 

* Already Covid weary people responded negatively 

* The mayor quickly buckled

* The residual good heart of a historically progressive neighborhood found itself and responded

* The Assembly brought together a potentially effective collaboration of neighbors, government, social services, faith community and homeless people speaking for themselves.

All this is many times more difficult in coronavirusworld, but. If there’s anyway to find an effective, workable solution, this is it. 

Living in coronaviruswolrd 173: Hope and hot water

 

9/23

Bears on Columbus

“Boil the frog”

Joel tells us that’s the song he’s working on. Referring of course to the old story about how if you turn up the heat a degree at time, the frog won’t jump out of the water until it’s too late. And it feels like that’s where we’re headed.

We're talking today about James Cone and Cornell West. We remember the many Wednesdays we met at Tom’s restaurant and James Cone would be in the back booth waiting for Cornell West and Dr. West would stop on the way back to talk with us awhile. For both of them, blackness is a concept bigger than skin color. Dr. West talks for example about “..brown and white sisters and brothers discovering their inner blackness.”  I remember teaching Dr. Cone’s Black Theology to my theology students in Newark and how hard it was for many white and even some Black students to come to terms with a “Black Jesus.”

Dr. Cone was one of the first to challenge the idea there was anything like a pure  theology. What we were taught was a theology that was always a culture informed Western European white theology. I worked hard to teach  students that all theology is contextual and that they need to be able to identify and understand their own culture (in the broadest sense)  and context to be able to create their own theology. We see theology through our lens of American individualism. The Old Testament prophets, on the other hand, critiqued the religion of  seeing God only within their own group. In scripture, there is alway a tension between the individual and the group.

Joel grew up with what he referred to as “trickle down theology,” that is if you save individual souls,   they’ll do the right thing and all society will benefit.  A spiritual version of Reaganomics. Steve P reminds us of Jesus’ blood trickling down. And then reminds us of Erich Fromm’s concept of social narcissism where the self disappears into the mob which it sees as its greater self. For Dr. Cone, blackness is a mentality. A way of living in an oppressive society. And the essence of Black theology is to  allow the brokenness of the body of the Black Jesus to be our inspiration.  Brokenness can be the pathway to healing for both individual and society.

(As to what is seen, Archbishop Tutu reportedly said “if you were arrested for being a Christian, would  there be enough evidence to convict you?”)

There seems to be a sense that self-hatred plays a role in the attraction of the mob, or authoritarian leaders. How will we behave under dictatorship? Clyde recalls Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia and theatre. I think of the role of the church in East Germany during the DDR days. 

(How do you sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? Rehearse.)

Joel likes the wheat and tares parable.That we are all both. And that relationship means valuing the relationship over being right. 

Steve P reminds us that the two great commandments go together. Love your neighbor as your self. And that only those who  love themselves can truly love their neighbor. People who love themselves don’t join mobs or follow dictators. We speak of Martha and Mary and Jesus saying that Mary had chosen the better part when Martha complained. Steve P argues that Martha should have come to sit and  study as a student as well. I agree, but Jesus should have said, Let's all do the dishes so Martha can join us.  (All tautologies are useless. By definition, he says.) Then repeats that we need hope, and that if hope has an object, it is not absolute.  He sees the story of the father and son in Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyoyic speculative fiction novel The Road as dramatic example of the kind of  hope he is talking about.

As the water gets ever hotter, our weekly conversations nurture the hope within us. 

open fridge

As  I walk the Upper West Side, I see another Open Fridge for free food. 

Joel and Carrie’s weekly Wednesday night Gluey Zoomy Show in its own whimsical way brings its own rays of hope as it reminds us that we are the glue that keeps each other together through these times.

Living in coronavirusworld 172: a question of authority

 

9/21

Lives depend on it

Tonight we’re looking at Matthew 21:23-32, which means we’re dealing with the issue of authority. The story begin with Jesus in another confrontation with the religious establishment, “chief priests and elders.” Contextwise, Jesus has just had a triumphant entry into Jerusalem, healing people, children crying out Hosanna and has just disrupted the Temple by turning over tables and chasing out  the money changers. Enough to disturb the peace. Now he’s teaching as if he has authority to do so. Where did he study theology? Where did he get an ordination? From God? From a rabbi? Or on his own? It's a trick question. To answer risks a blasphemy charge.

So Jesus responds with his own question. About John and his baptism. Of God? So why not listen? Or? They know the people are behind John. He’s got the numbers, so to speak. They don’t want to rile the crowds. So they say “Don’t know.” And Jesus responds with the first of four parables. About two sons, one who says he won't do what the father has asked, then changes his mind and does it. The other says he will, and then does nothing. Who did the father’s will? Tax collectors and prostitutes will get in first.

On first reaction, Marsha doesn’t see a connection. Just another Biblical nonsequetir.  But Amberleigh senses there’s something there.  The question of authority is answered by who gets it. John Wesley said that even when we see the prostitutes and tax collectors get it, we still don’t go in.

I recall that John, by tradition, was a child of the temple. Son of a priest, a tall steeple preacher. Herod, the ethnarch, the local ruler under authority of the Romans, had built the temple. And he built the mikvahs, the ritual baths for purification, to resemble pagan Roman baths. John is so  offended, sees the temple  so corrupt, that the goes out to the wilderness and says, we’ll do it in the river. It’s an act of subversion, of insubordination, what they call in Latin America propaganda of the deed. Jesus is cleary down with John. (John also reminds me of Jay Baker, son of televangelist Jim Baker who with his tattoos and punk vibe, went to the streets and started his own Revolution church.) 

So who are we? What authority do we have? One thing is clear: empty yeses are broken promises. It is God who shakes up our understanding of God, the demon that keeps us stuck in the status quo.  In looking at these conversations, we recall Voltaire who said a person is judged by their questions, not theie answers. From PostChrisitan comes this question: “If you could completely realize the mission of [your] congregation today, here, and now, but in order to do it, you’d have to close the doors of [your] church and walk away forever, would you do it?”( p. 197) Would we leave our temple and head out to the wilderness? 

Prostitutes and tax collectors get it. And will get in first. The moral and social outcasts. (Remebering that the author of Matthew was by tradition a tax collector himself. For the religious establishment, it would be better to not come in at all than to follow these outcasts. Jesus is saying  that authority is established by what you see. Changed lives.In her new book, Sanctuary, Being Christian in the wake of Trump, my friend Heidi Neumark recalls a memorial service for sex workers who had died during the year. Candle wax dripped on the communion table from the memorial candles. She decided the wax should remain, an expression of what the table really means.

Counter culture

We talk about authority. In churches, the culture is as important as the polity. Real authority may lie outside the elected leadership. Marsha knows that the work of community organizing is uncovering leaders. As my mentor Philip Newell once told me, leaders are people who have followers. Structural authority, cognitive authority over against organic, intrinsic, authority. Control over the act of freeing, of liberation. Marsha has a deep love of Wagner’s Ring Cycle ( as far as Wagner goes, the truth and beauty of the art us stronger than the weakness of the artist.) For her, the moral of the Ring is the Power of Love over the love of power as Wotan sacrifices his authority to free humans from the gods. It has been a very good conversation. Especially as we all stare into the face of growing authoritarian power. The  church must stand with John and Jesus, a counter culture to empire.

9/22

make it clear

My friend Rabbi Steve calls. We meet in the patio garden of Double Dutch Coffee. The weather is a cool and sunny September day. It would be perfect except…hey, we’ll take it. It’s hard to get past the daily anxiety. As if the election were not enough, we’ve now got the Supreme Court crisis as the President  and his congress push to get a nomination through before he election. It will take for republicans to sated against their reversal of the precedent they set when they refused to allow Obama to make his appointment in his last year establishing a new precedent as they called it. “You can use my words against me” said Lindsey Graham. Well….here we are. Fires, hurricanes, floods. People facing off with guns. Nature in revolt. Zombies would not surprise me. Things families can longer talk  about. And no confidence the election can resolve anything. The Covid death toll in the US has now reached 200000. Like the entire population of Akron, Ohio or Des Moines, Iowa or Spokane , Washington pr Richmond, Virginia; just gone. In such a time how do we celebrate Rosh Ha Shana? Yom Kippur? The days of awe?

A good day for a long walk. Afternoon drinks  with good friends. Breathe, just breathe.