Reflections on the Second International Peace Bureau Congress, Barcelona, 10/15-17/21

10/27

world peace conference

 I recently participated in the ICPB in Barcelona.  Not having previously known much about the ICPB, I was impressed by its breadth, depth, reach and potential. The Congress, led by ICPB’s Rainer Braun, featured a vast array of speakers including philosopher activist Noam Chomsky, UK Labor leader Jeremy Corbin

Jeremy Corbin

and former (future?) Brazil leader Lula as well as indigenous leaders like Binalaksmi Napram from the Manipur Gun Survivors Network as well as a truly diverse number of others. Like Bob Dylan, the Congress could well say I contain multitudes.

Undaunted by Covid, the Congress provided a highly creative hybrid model with 900 present (divided between auditorium and outdoor plaza) and some 1700 virtual attendees all linked in various ways through the Whova app facilitating plenaries and workshops and facilitating communication among participants. 

In the final plenary, both a stirring declaration and pointed Action Plan were delivered. A commitment  was made to take these forward to the upcoming World Social Forum in Mexico City and to meet next in an indigenous area in the global south. 

I was there specifically to participate in a workshop on Religion, Peace and Sanctuary coordinated by our own Susan Smith of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the International Sanctuary Declaration work team. The other panelists were our friends Maglaha Hamma, a Western Sahara Refugee and Activist with the Nonviolence Association of the Western Sahara (NOVA), currently resident in a refugee camp in Algeria; Runbir Serkepkani, Kurdish Activist  with Christian Peacemaker Teams, and the Aegean Migrant Solidarity Program and Chrissy Stonebraker-Martinez, Co-director of the Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America and FOR-USA Co-Chair. 

our workshop leaders

 

The Congress was committed to a wholistic view of peace, close to the Biblical vision of shalom, not simply absence of overt violence but with the establishment of as a  necessity, in short an affirmation of no justice, no peace. It was clearly evident  that economic injustice, worker exploitation, prejudice and discrimination on any basis whatsoever, male supremacy, white privilege and the predatory consumption of creation and its resources are all forms  of violence,]. Any peace work has to have a practice with an  intersectional ethic and analysis.

This understanding has a direct bearing for those of us who  work in Sanctuary as well. It is the various forms of violence explored by the Congress that force people into exile, often for their very lives. Ultimately the work of sanctuary must take into account the works of economic justice, social and political  inclusion  and a sustainable relationship with creation if we are to truly engage the global issues creating  people on the move. 

As for our ISD group, the need for more ongoing communication among ourselves is clearly evident. Beyond that we need to expand the circle. The  IPB has recently endorsed the Statement.  We should request the IPB to publicize the endorsement …and the Statement’s content…through their network and encourage others to endorse as well. We should study their Action Plan and see which of its recommendations relate to our work.  As soon as the documents and videos from the Congress are available, we need to make these available to our network.

This of course calls on us to upgrade our social media and communications capacity as soon as possible to establish a platform for the sharing of information regarding actions, practices and opportunities to move the principles of our Statement into action and provide a space for ongoing dialogue and reflection. 

The Congress provided a moment of hope in what can feel like a season of  growing despair. We have an important role to play in moving that work forward. 

ReplyForward

Religion, Peace and Sanctuary

 10/16

Sanctuary and religion panel

The International Peace Bureau held its second "Congress" in Barcelona, Spain last week.  During the Congress, I was on a panel in a workshop on Religion, Peace and Sanctuary coordinated by Susan Smith of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Muslim Peace Fellowship. My colleague panelists were: 

 Maglaha Hamma,  Western Sahara Refugee and Activist@Nonviolence Association of the Western Sahara (NOVA); Runbir Serkepkani, Kurdish Activist @Christian Peacemaker Teams, Aegean Migrant Solidarity Program;   and Chrissy Stonebraker-Martinez, Co-director of the Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America and FOR-USA Co-Chair.

Following is my presentation....

My work in global just migration comes as part of my commitment as a person of faith to building a more just, humane, inclusive and sustainable world. 

Yesterday, many of us had a guided tour of the exhibit on the plaza of the history of violence in Central America and its impact on migration and asylum seeking.  That is where my story begins.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Shortly after dawn, in October 1992, my friend John Fife and I went out to meet the student volunteers who would go out every morning to photograph that day’s harvest of mutilated bodies dumped after another night of terror  in the ongoing massacre, genocide of the poor carried out by the death squads of the US supported Salvadoran regime.  The photos had to be taken before sanitation crews removed the bodies for disposal. The photos would be kept at the diocese office and were the only way families could find out what had happened to their disappeared loved ones. 

We were there on behalf of the Presbyterian Church seeking to understand what was causing so many Salvadorans to risk their lives crossing the deadly Sonoran desert to come to the US. John was involved because one  morning there was a knock on  his door and someone was there seeking shelter. When he heard the story, John opened the doors of the church. And inspired by an ancient tradition whereby fugitives fleeing for their lives could claim respite and protection within the doors of the church, the Sanctuary Movement was born.

In the next year, I would go to Arizona and travel with John across the border to visit refugee detainees in a Nogales, Mexico jail, once even encountering  someone I had once met in a Salvadoran prison,  and then facilitate and accompany one of these “pilgrims” across the border to a safe haven on the other side. 

In 2007, I was visiting Berlin with a group of clergy from New York City.  We were meeting with Pastor Juergen Quandt at the Heilege Kruez church to learn of their work with asylum seekers. Pastor Juergen described how their work had begun by responding to Palestinian refugees from the Lebanese Civil War in the 80’s. I told him that it reminded me of the work that we had done with Central Americans doing those years and he responded, “that’s where we got the idea.” 

I knew that it was important for those involved in this work on both sides  of the ocean to meet one another. 

One year later, with the help of the Halbreich Foundation and the 

Fellowship of Reconciliation, and Stony Point Center, church asylum workers from Germany traveled to Arizona to meet with their colleagues from No Mas Muertos  and other groups involved in Sanctuary work. A year later a return visit to Germany would take place. We began to understand the parallels between the life threatening realities of the Sonoran desert and the Mediterranean Sea for those risking their lives seeking asylum.

After a few years’ hiatus, the resurgent world migration crisis led us to come together again, made easier by the emergent global communications technologies.  

In 2016, our work group produced the International Sanctuary Declaration.  It had two main purposes:  the first was to arrive at a common set of principles for those engaged in this work. The other was to begin a process of advocacy that could result in internationally recognized protocols for just migration,. Here is the Declaration:

INTERNATIONAL SANCTUARY DECLARATION (English first, en español abajo)

We express our deep concern for the well-being of the refugee children, families and all migrants currently arriving at our borders, as well as those struggling to live within our borders. In response to the increased numbers of people around the world who are being forced to leave their home countries, and the simultaneous increase in punitive enforcement in many receiving countries, we affirm the following principles to guide and inspire our efforts to respond:

Compassionate Response: We care deeply about refugee children, families and all migrants, and we urge our countries to have open arms to protect them and preserve their human dignity. We reject detention of migrants as a violation of human rights and dignity.

Due Process: We advocate for fair and timely legal proceedings, competent legal representation, and due process for children, asylum seekers, and all migrants.

Family Unity: We uphold and respect the unity of families as a basic human right.

Restorative Justice: We desire revitalization and healing of our borderlands, not militarization. The only long-term solution is a holistic approach that prioritizes safety and opportunity for migrants and addresses root causes.

Civil Initiative: As long as our governments are not adequately addressing these humanitarian crises, citizens have the right and responsibility to respond with an approach that follows the mandate to provide sanctuary when needed and, above all, to love our neighbors.

Based on these principles, we covenant with one another to work together for just and humane response to all migrants both at our borders and within our countries. We call on our governments, and the governments of all countries receiving migrants in response to the current and ongoing international humanitarian and refugee crisis to embrace these principles.

Later that year the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church would endorse the statement as well as many other faith based organizations.  Another round of visits would begin in 2018 with representatives from our  expanding circle of colleagues.  Our last pre-covid visit took place in November 2019 to Tucson/Nogales, El Paso/Juarez and Stony Point, New York.  Today we have an ever expanding work group with participants from the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe and Africa who are involved in the front line of  just migration work. 

I come to this work as one who seeks to follow Jesus. My tradition finds inspiration in our commonly held Hebrew Scriptures…or Old Testament…and the Christian New Testament. Throughout the Five Books of the Torah, (Law, or better teaching) there is a constant call to care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger at your gate. (EG Deut.10:18). At the very center of the Torah with as many verses before as after is this verse, Leviticus 19:18

¹⁸You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord.

This is the verse that Jesus in Mark 12:31, (and Matthew 22:39)  would quote as the most important commandment, the essence of loving God is loving neighbor. 

…The most important commandment is to

30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your 

soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

 31The second is this ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

There are at least 18 variations of this quote in the Bible.

In my reformed tradition, we understand ourselves to have a responsibility for the stewardship of creation. That work is guided by a vision of shalom, a peace that is not simply the absence of violence but is a wholeness, including justice….

But for me, faith is not proof texting or assent to theological proposition but is a way of being, a life lived. 

So for me, this struggle for just immigration is a basic expression of faith. 

Not for me, However….it is more than an expression of faith, it is an expression of being human. The story of humanity is the story of people on the move. For us , there can be no distinction between so called economic refugees and asylum seekers.  All are people in motion, nearly all as a result of political policies beyond their control.  Everything from the texture of our hair to the color of our skin to the words we speak the food we eat and the religions we practice are the result of people in motion encountering one another. And coming together. There is no language, culture or religion that is pure;. The stream is everflowing and unique particularities come together only for their own season ready to make their own contribution to the stream. Which then flows on. 

On a spiritual level, for those of us who claim the identity of Christian, it could be argued that the whole Biblical narrative is one of people on the move, from Adam and Eve sent out of the Garden to the Hebrews fleeing Egypt to Babylonian exile to Jesus' family fleeing for their  lives to Paul's travels throughout the Mediterranean... The story of God's people is the story of hujmanity. We are all part of what AI Wei Wei has called the “human flow.”As part of humanity, we have a responsibility to see that the flow continues with as much compassion, humaneness and justice as possible. That is our calling, that is our work.  And for me, that is what it means to be faithful…..

 

An open letter on Nicaragua.....

10/15

Father Luis

I wrote the following letter to Father Luis following the events at Holy Rood. Since he has not responded, I am making this an "open letter".....

Father Luis

I write you as a colleague pastor and  companero in the ongoing struggle to create a more just, humane, inclusive and sustainable world.  I am writing specifically about the mass and presentation yesterday at the Holy Rood Church 

I share your analysis of predatory  imperialist capitalism as being the principal threat to the peoples  of the earth and the earth itself and a truly demonic force. I have been with you in events under the aegis of the Revolutionary Communist Party and have been a guest on their Revolution Nothing Less web show. 

More specifically I have been involved in solidarity with Nicaragua for nearly 40 years now. I chaired  the Presbyterian Church USA Central American Task Forces between 1982-89 and co authored reports setting our church’s public policy in opposition to the US intervention in the region, most specifically the Contra War.  We declared Liberation Theology to be the most significant development in church theology since the Reformation, indeed a new reformation. 

With others I stood on the border between Honduras and Nicaragua to put our bodies between the Contras and the Nicaraguan people. This was the first action of what would become Witness for Peace. I have travelled extensively throughout the region. And have been involved in Sanctuary work for almost 40 years and was a cofounder and coauthor of the International Sanctuary Declaration and work group.  For years I served on the board of a small family foundation that made annual grants to Pastors for Peace and for many years have been on the faculty of the Newark School of Theology teaching Liberation Theology.

I could list more but will only add that I have gone to jail many times and  an active cultural worker and member of the Peoples Music Network. 

I do not list these as a boast but to indicate to you the profound struggle I had to go through to come to a point of deciding to break solidarity with the current Ortega-Murillo regime. To do so is not to break solidarity with Nicaragua, because Ortega and Murillo are not Nicaragua. As you are aware, the decision to break solidarity is one that can come only with critical analysis, reflection and prayer especially with regards to potential outcomes. My solidarity with the Nicaraguan people remains steadfast and ultimately requires my opposition to Ortega-Murillo.

During recent years, I have been to Nicaragua as recently as 2019.  I have met with mothers of children killed in the protests, families of political prisoners, as well as religious and political figures including those who remain connected to the regime. I have travelled to  Costa Rica and visited with the exile community there. Including students who not only have been expelled and cannot return but who have had their records erased as if they never existed. 

I have met with artists like Carlos Mejia Godoy, the creator of La Misa Campesina, and his brother Luis. And Katia Cardenal, the voice of the revolution. They are now in exile and cannot return. Politicians like Victor Hugo Tinoco, a FSLN guerrilla and foreign ministry deputy and UN. Ambassador, arrested and imprisoned. And now even revolutionary hero Sergio Ramirez has been charged and a warrant for his arrest issued! 

Are you aware that before his death Ernesto Cardenal, author of the Gospel of Solentimame, said of the Ortega regime, “it is a robbery of the people and dictatorship not a revolutionary movement”?

It is clear to me that Daniel Ortega has betrayed the revolution and tarnished the legacy and name of Augosto C. Sandino (presente.) What was presented in the service and Moncada’s presentation was all the right words, but does not reflect present reality.  It is the myth of what we wanted Nicaragua to be, el nuevo amanecer. But today it is not.

One image that will remain from what I observed yesterday  is of a well dressed young white woman physically barring the entry of a working class Nicaraguan woman in humble clothes to an event in solidarity with Nicaragua. Although well intended I am sure, the irony was jarring.

When another woman tried to pass on a letter from over 500 solidarity workers…including Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and Margaret Randall, it was torn to shreds and tossed back.

More painful is what took place outside. It pained me deeply to see privileged white “progressives”shouting at a group of Nicaraguans who for the most part were minimum wage workers. Calling them “self hating Nicaraguans” who “should be ashamed of themselves.” The Nicaraguan group included people who had fought as FSLN guerrillas and served as diplomats. And a student exiled just last weekend. I was assailed as being in league with the CIA. Such behavior is shameful and unacceptable and surely not consistent with Jesus’ project of liberation.

In recent weeks, opposition leaders have held Jornadas with biblical reflection and critical analysis of the current situation including testimony from political prisoners from Honduras, EL Salvador and Guatemala. These families of political  prisoners see themselves in common cause. Ortega has become more a traditional caudillo and not a true revolutionary.

I am well aware of the history of US intervention in Central America. And continued trouble making. But that has nothing to do with those who are in legitimate opposition. In the ’80’s we used to say “ I don’t have to believe everything the Sandinistas do is right in order to know that everything we do is wrong.” Today the reverse is equally true…”I don’t have to  believe what the  US is doing is right in order to know what Ortega-Murillo are doing is wrong.”

My fear is that progressives…many of them people of privilege …will be willing to sacrifice the people of Nicaragua to preserve their belief in a myth.  We speak of autonomia…privileged progressives cannot proclaim themselves more knowledgeable about  what to do than Nicaraguans themselves. 

My only request of you at this point is to be open to a conversation with a representative group.  And see what might develop from that conversation,  Those who wish to see the revolution restored  to its original values deserve a hearing.  We say “Jesus es el camino la verdad y la vida.” Surely we can engage in struggle to discern what is true.

In peace and in hope for a better world…

Rev.Dr. Robert L. Brashear

Robert Brashear is moderator elect of New York City Presbytery, He serves on the national Central America Work Group reporting to the 2022 General Assembly (having chaired 3 Task Forces in the '80's) He is also on work group of the International Sanctuary Declaration.

Nicaragua: La Lucha Sigue

 10/12

Sandino presente

La lucha sigue Reflections on the Misa Comunitaria-Popular en Solidaridad con Nicaragua, Holy Rood Church. Washington Heights. As I enter the church, it all looks so familiar. Strangely, I am confronted by a tall, well-dressed, blonde white woman. “Why are you here?” she asks. I notice she is wearing a yellow wrist band, most likely indicating she’s on some kind of security team. “I am here for the mass, for the presentation,” I say. She eyes me suspiciously, then directs me to a check-in table for vaccination and ID checks.

My friend is with me. He is a former Sandinista militant and diplomat. He tells them that he is here to worship. And that he is here with me, his pastor, so they let him in. We will later learn that two dozen or so other Nicaraguans are being kept outside the church, denied entrance. The police were called by the security people, arrived, and quickly left. I see the ageless Joe Friendly with his long gray hair, baseball cap and video camera. He’s videoed every peace event I’ve been to on the Upper West Side for over 30 years. I guess his presence makes this event official. Sandino el Hijo The mass has been billed as a service for “Libertad, Autonomía & Solidaridad Frente a las Sanciones Estadounidenses. Dejen a Nicaragua vivir en paz.” The service unfolds in predictable ways. I could have been in a Managua “Street Mass” in 1982 with fireworks and a bullhorn- wielding priest or a “People’s Mass” in 1983 with litanies declaring parish martyrs “Presente.” But this Mass was even more partisan than those had been. The first reading was a poem by Rubén Darío. The congregation responded: “Palabra del Señor. ¡Gracias a Dios!” Sandino is referred to as “Tu hijo”; his portrait hangs beneath a draped cross.  As much as I love Darío and Sandino, this was a bit beyond what my Reformed tradition feels comfortable with.

I agree with the pastor’s analysis that: “...imperialist capitalism is the principal enemy of the people and the earth”. But I’m surprised that the “therefore” seems to be unquestioned support for “la lucha”, that is, the current Ortega-Murillo regime as the true embodiment of the Sandinista revolution. I know the chants ....Sandino vive, vive, vive....la lucha sigue, sigue, sigue... I am in the sweltering heat, crammed body to body, in Cine Sandino in Jalapa. We’re on our way to the border to put our bodies between the Contras on the other side of the Honduran border and the Nicaraguans. My friend, Jorge Lara Braud, a liberation theologian of the Reformed tradition, is preaching. The chants ring out. The glint of machetes waved by campesinos flash in the air.

Every time I hear those chants, see Sandino in his Tom Mix cowboy hat, I wish I could be there again. I had been thrilled to stand in solidarity with “The People”, to stand with the Nicaraguan “David” against “Goliath” US. The service proceeds as if nearly 40 years had not passed. I want to sing with full voice: “Adelante, el frente Sandinista” and join in the lucha against “el yanqui, el enemigo de la humanidad." I want to sing: Si Nicaragua venció, El Salvador vencerá y Guatemala prepara ya con fusiles de libertad Somos Centroamérica, una nueva humanidad

But then I remember...Carlos Mejia Godoy and his brother Luis Enrique are in exile; banned from their beloved homeland. The composer of “El himno Sandinista” cannot be in Nicaragua. Denis Moncada When the pastor introduces Denis Moncada, the current foreign minister, my Sandinista friend rises with his Nicaraguan flag. The tall blonde walks over and stands in front of him, seeking to block him. She uses her selfie mode to photograph him. Father Barrios  la bandera When the Eucharist is celebrated, I debate going forward, but ultimately do. The body of Christ is larger than any partisan expression. My friend comes forward too, bringing his flag. He seeks to engage the pastor but is met only with a smile.  When the service is concluded, there is a break to celebrate birthdays and then Moncada speaks again. The classic litany of revolutionary successes: The literacy campaign, the campaign against childhood diarrhea, more healthcare, etc. All 40 years ago. (To make similar claims for their response to COVID would be disingenuous....that has been an unmitigated disaster.) The history of US intervention is recited. And today, he assures us, el pueblo has the right to choose their leaders. (With the seven leading candidates in jail? I ask myself) And the people can voice dissent, continues Moncada. So long as they don’t threaten security.

Just before Moncada speaks, the Nicaraguans waiting outside are finally allowed in. Up to a point. I hold on to the image of a Nicaraguan woman, humbly dressed, seeking to come down the aisle, only to find the tall, blonde protector blocking her way with one of those large golf umbrellas. She moves from side to side as the woman seeks to pass. I’m certain the blonde woman felt that she was “defending the people” (¡No pasarán!) but I found the image to be full of irony. An old white woman, typical of the octogenarian peace activists I know so well, asks the obvious question about CIA designs on Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, and Moncada gives her just the answer she expected. (I love my old West Side Peace Action activist neighbors. When the Soviet Union fell, the joke was there were more Communists on the Upper West Side than Moscow. My church hosted many of their meetings.)

As the Nicaraguans pose questions about political prisoners, they are loudly chanted down. And the priest calls an end to the “dialogue.” When a woman attempts to deliver a letter signed by over 500 solidarity workers, including Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsburg, and the founders of “Witness for Peace”, it is torn up and thrown back in her face.

confrontation on the steps What happened later, outside the church, disturbed me profoundly. The Nicaraguans gathered on the sidewalk; the Ortega supporters looked down on them from the steps. From above, the self-styled progressive Ortega allies, mainly white, with a few Latinx and Afro-Caribbean folks, leaned over and waved a large FSLN flag in the Nicaraguans’ faces.  A white guy in a black sport coat and white cowboy hat with a hammer and sickle pin began to taunt los Nicas. “I’ll pay your way to Nicaragua,” he says. “You hate your own country.” This to people who can’t go back. (Our group includes a just-exiled student. And others whose names are “on lists.”) Another, even louder, white guy yells : “You people rape and murder nuns! Literally!” He is somehow confusing working-class Nicaraguans in 2021 with 1980s Salvadoran death squads. (Yes, I visited the surviving sisters of the murdered nuns in 1982 and shared dinner with them...) “You are self-hating Nicaraguans ....You kill your own people...You hate your own people...You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

The well-dressed white man is yelling at a crowd that includes workers, people who fought in the revolution, a former diplomat, an exiled student, relatives of political prisoners. My friends ask me to speak and as I begin, yet another white guy in a suit begins to shout at me: “Are you here for the CIA? Will you even now dare to denounce the CIA?” One of the Nicaraguan women says “White privilege...” The Orteguista chants go on: “El pueblo unido”... Seriously?

I am shaking. We eventually leave and head to a local Salvadoran restaurant for pupusas. Later we notice a small number of the Orteguistas at an outdoor table, enjoying native food in solidarity, I suppose. I consider going over to attempt a rational conversation but think better of the idea.

I am filled with so many thoughts....

First ...for many on the American left, it is impossible to let go of the myth of what we wanted Nicaragua to be, what we thought Nicaragua had become.

As Bruce Cockburn sang: “In the flash of this moment, you’re the best of what we are...don’t let them stop you now, Nicaragua.” We want to hold on to that and not confront the reality being suffered by Nicaraguan people today.

Perhaps more darkly, for the die-hard Orteguistas, there’s probably a dose of old-fashioned Leninist “end justifies the means” ethics in play here. If to defeat the capitalist imperialist project led by the CIA one must deny the reality of a generation of Nicaraguans and abandon them, so be it. The ultimate triumph will justify such actions.

As one who has lived as part of the Christian left, I saw in the Sandinista revolution a true sign of hope. I loved quoting the mythic story of Father Miguel D’Escoto who, when told by a Cuban that they could see a place for Christians in the revolution he said: “No. In Nicaragua
Christians are the revolution.”

I believed liberation theology was the new reformation. (I have taught liberation theology at Newark School of Theology.) I made nine solidarity trips to Nicaragua in 7 years. I believed...

Learning a more nuanced truth has been hard. I returned to Nicaragua about 10 years ago, and

then again in 2019. What had been a fluid situation in 2011 was now calcified. To cite only a few examples, I found:

• Former Sandinista Foreign Minister and presidential candidate Victor Hugo Tinoco in prison.

• Hero of the Revolution Sergio Ramirez declared an “enemy of the people” with a warrant out for his arrest.

• Los hermanos Mejía Godoy and Katia Cardenal - the voices of the revolution – forced into exile.

• Over 300 dead protestors

I have met with exiled university students whose academic records have been erased with malicious intent, as if they never existed. I have met with mothers of murdered children, and with former revolutionaries, who have had their houses raided by black-and-red bandanna wearing mobs, people who had put their lives on the line defending these colors of the revolution.

I understand more than ever the importance of my Reformed Calvinist conviction that no person, no party or movement can ever fully represent the will of God. All will fall short; all will be held accountable. The challenge has always been to discern how long one can be in critical solidarity before active opposition becomes necessary. That discernment requires study. And courage. Sadly, the truth is, you can start with Jesus’ Gospel of Love and wind up with the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, or with the Doctrine of Discovery and the Salem witch trials or

believing that Donald Trump is the second coming and that vaccinations are the Mark of the Beast. You start with Marx’ passionate regard for the well-being of humanity and wind up with Khmer Rouge genocide and Sendero Luminoso and well-dressed white guys yelling at Nicaraguans,  the “everyday people” as Sly said. Ultimately, I find myself with my old compañeros, Miguel Unamuno and Ignazio Silone. Unamuno, the chancellor of Salamanca University, responding to the chants of “Viva la muerte” in the Spanish Civil War. Ignazio Silone, author of “Bread and Wine”. Both antifascist, anticapitalist, Catholic, existentialist, humanist Christians. Trying to deal with the fickle paradox of political reality. That is where I am. I can only be a Christian, a follower of the path of Jesus as I perceive it, seeking a more just, humane, inclusive, and sustainable world. The people of Nicaragua have suffered long and hard, forced to live through the same realities over and over and over again. But they are persistent. A movement is growing that seeks to forge alliances between political prisoner support groups throughout the region and develop an ongoing contextual theological exegesis of their struggle to rebuild spiritual resilience.

In the 80s, the world still was trapped in an East/West, Left/Right paradigm. Today it is authoritarian autocracy versus participatory democracy. We need to understand that shift and how to respond. The sound of angry shouts still rings in my ears....  for Nicaragua The people of Nicaragua will live.....

witness

Worldwide Communion Sunday

 10/2

the heron

S S

On Worldwide Communion Sunday, I am once again with my friends from Beverley Church. And still meeting virtually, as we have since March of 2020....

So here we are. It’s officially fall now. And today is World Wide Communion Sunday, And as we look out across the world today, what do we see?  Covid continues to plague the world. We are in this weird in between place where there are different rules everywhere you go. You don’t need anything to get into the ballpark but you have to show vaccination to get into their club. To see my mom in her assisted care facility, it’s been fairly simple  recently but Friday I had to be tested. The concert I attended last night required vaccination proof, contact information and masks. And you’ve got to wear a mask to take any transportation….train, buys, plane or taxi…yes and Uber too.We are still living in coronavirusworld. And in a country where we ended polio and childhood measles with mandated vaccinations, all of a sudden vaccinations are controversial. I literally heard someone outside my window last week talking to a friend convinced that the covid vaccination shot was the mark of the beast. I got my booster Thursday  and spent all day Friday in bed. 

The weather gets wilder and the water gets deeper.  And it’s not just Louisiana and Haiti. I’ve got friends in Brooklyn and the Upper West Side who have lost a life’s worth of papers and records and art work and other  irreplaceable items in our last big storm.  

Weather is part of what drives people from their homes and we’ve now got more people in motion than any other time in history. And migrants die in the desert and die in the Mediterranean and we still don’t seem to know what we’re doing on our border. 

After 20 years, we are finally out of Afghanistan but after that the less said the better. 

In politics, we are hopefully divided, one side won’t talk to the other and that’s just the Democrats. 

And today people all round the world are gathered around the communion table to celebrate our sharing in our own expression of the worldwide community of those who follow Jesus and by so doing participate, become the living body of the risen Lord.

So what is Jesus talking about today? Our gospel, Mark 10: 2-16, finds Jesus in another tricky conversation with the Pharisees and he spends most of his time talking about divorce with a little about children tacked on at the end. And how does that connect with Worldwide Communion Sunday? Well, let’s see….

First, a word or two about the Pharisees. They are always coming off as the bad guys, but hey, maybe not always so. When it says they were testing Jesus, that’s not necessarily mean spirited.  That’s just what they do. They would do it to each other.  My Jewish rabbi friends do this all the time. It’s like a trip to the gym for your head. A theological mental workout.  And Jesus always gives a good as he gets. 

And let’s admit right upfront that what Jesus says here has caused much pain for many people over the eons. For this reason, the Catholic Church still forbids divorce to this day.. and goes though all kinds of ecclesiastical gymnastics to make annulments work. What happens to the children of an annulment? A friend asked when we discussed this text, And by this scripture, up until recently even divorced Presbyterian pastors would find it next to impossible to find a call.

And due to this passage, we resisted marriage equality, though the fact is, once we bent on divorce, there was no more reason to oppose marriage equality.

And why does a story about children come up next? Well, just hold on…

First, what’s up with Jesus and divorce? Remember ….in Jesus 'world, marriage was essentially a property transaction. That’s why if a man had sex with another man’s wife, it was the man he had hurt. Not the woman. That’s why only men could declare divorce, not just for infidelity, but even simple displeasure, the burning the dinner angle. And leaving a woman divorced was to leave her ….and her children…vulnerable and unprotected.

Jesus’ first point is marriage is not just about property rights. It’s about relationship….and marriage….and sex itself…are to be taken very seriously … Jesus wants us to be intentional about what we do.  And he begins to even the  playing field among men and women as to divorce.  And adultery. It’s moved beyond patriarchal property discussions to talking about honoring relationships….

Now just having talked about divorce, Jesus finds his disciples shooing away children who had been brought to him for blessings….so Jesus comes off on them. So when Jesus says:

"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." 

I want you to be clear what’s going on here. This is not one of those romanticizing ah the innocence of children moments. He’s into a something deeper.  And here’s our connection…

In Jesus society, if women were lesser than, then children were the least . And in a world where Jesus always shows preference for the least of these our brothers and sisters, then children are the least of the least. You see what the connection here is? Both women and children are those who we must stand in solidarity with. 

I will add though…there is this ….when I watch my grandchildren discovering the world, I see in the eyes something we have  often forgotten…a sense of wonder.., like everything they see for the first time is amazing.

My mom is in hospice now. Thankfully, there is a beautiful little lake behind her facility, a little less than a mile around. Her favorite time of day is when one of her children wheels her around the lake.  We look for where the ducks and geese are and try to get close if they come up on shore. There’s one heron who if we are lucky will make an appearance. We notice the wide variety of trees and realize that like so much of creation, the variety is not necessary, it just is.  We see all the neighborhood dogs with their owners. And because my mom bene knows when will be the last time, she looks at everything like it was the first time and I try to see to with her eyes.  That’s how Jesus wants us to see his kingdom with awe and wonder…and on a day like world communion Sunday, as if for the very first time.

A kingdom where the least of these matter…are welcome and taken care of and we do this just because that’s who we are …and why we are…

So on this world wide communion Sunday, when our moment of sharing bread and cup comes, let us look into our savior's eyes, each other’s eyes as if  for the very  first time. 

In Jesus name, Amen.

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.