Give thanks. Always

4/8

Kimberley comes in. We agree the Shakespeare project is too far behind and will have to wait until another year. She’ll be leading worship next Sunday. On Thursday, she’s got a production at Union telling the story of Genesis through Broadway songs. Started as a whimsical idea, now becoming a reality. I want her to do it at West-Park in May. 

A woman comes in, just to look around. Turns out she’s Carmen, who was the administrative assistant to our friend Cornell when he was Stated Clerk of New York City Presbytery. He always stood by us. She’s always wanted to see inside here. She gives her best to Lilly, who also used to work in the Presbytery office.

Cara is teaching a dance lesson to her friend Lynn who is blind. 

Dale is yet another person who always wanted to see inside. He’s quickly joined by others wanting to look around.

Rudolfo is asking for assistance again. He seems tired of the demands of everyday life, trying to keep it together on the upper west side and wants to go back to Cuba. He’s almost too old to find the kind of job he could possibly get. He’s hungry and its too late for the pantry at SPSA. 

On the steps, Jerry is not looking good. Problems with his legs, feet. Hard to walk. His partner Anthony has been taken to the hospital, maybe not to return. Even though they’ve been together for years, they never married or even got a domestic partnership so he’s got no legal claim to their apartment. I feel he should go to Blessed Sacrament where Anthony was a deacon, but he can hardly walk. I’m worried. 

Cowboy Hat is in the chapel, playing the piano. Danielle comes to get me. I tell him he can be in the sanctuary but the rest of the church is off limits. I give him one hour to play the piano, then its Cara’s turn. He must practice, he says,  because what he is playing is sending a cosmic message.

After he leaves, Martin and Stephen show me that he has virtually destroyed our sidewalk gate by jumping up and down on it like a, well, madman. I’m very upset. It’s dangerous. RL had gotten it welded safe and shut. We’re going to have to ban Cowboy Hat Man.

I’m very depressed as time for Bible Study comes by. I’m very happy to see Marsha walk through the door. We decide to look at the other resurrection stories in the Bible and tonight do Matthew (28: 1-20), looking for differences. I begin by explaining that the debate over the  order of the gospels is far from over at this point except that all are literary creations. With different agendas. Matthew wants to connect Jesus with the story of Israel. Perhaps even his gospel is in the form of the  Torah with its own five  divisions or books. 

What do we find different?

• There are cosmic events, two earthquakes, when he dies 27:54, and when the two Marys go to the tomb, 28: 2. It’s only a sentence, but at his death, graves were opened and dead people walked into the city. You’d think that would have  attracted more attention, like the Walking Dead. A sign that the Messianic Age has begun.
• The stone is not already rolled away, an angel rolls it away. Appearing like lightning and dressed in radiant white, like the strange young man in Mark. 
• There are guards this time and they are scared to death. Who wouldn’t be? Why are they there? Clearly there’s a fear that followers will try to steal the body.
• the angel has the same message, Go to Galilee, where he is going before you.
• This time the women not only have fear, but also joy. And Jesus himself appears to them. His first appearance.  And this time they go and actually  speak. They were the first commissioned. The first witnesses. the first evangelists. All uncommon for women who were not even accepted as witnesses in legal cases.  
• The guards go and make a report and are offered money to tell the authorities they fell asleep and that the disciples stole the body. They agree.  Not likely. Like they’re going to admit to their commanders they fell asleep? They hatch a story told until this day. Matthew, writing years later, has to account for why so many did not believe. 
• They meet him in Galilee and worshipped him, though some doubted. Faith and doubt are not mutually exclusive.
• Just like Moses on the mountain, Jesus final words come to them from a mountain. The end of Matthew’s Torah. Jesus’ mission no longer to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, now to all the nations (ethne), all the people everywhere. The pre-crucifixion Jesus was just for Israel, the resurrected Jesus universal. 
• First gospel use of the Trinity formulation, father, son and Holy spirit. (Preceded Matthew by years, already a liturgical formulation.)
• His promise to be with you always is a shift to begin to explain why years layer he still hasn’t come back. 

Matthew has clearly upped the dramatic quotient. I miss the  ambiguity, simplicity, tension of Mark. After our months long journey through Mark, much as I enjoy the compare and contrast, it’s just not as satisfying. It was a good study. But I’m feeling worn out. The madness has gotten tiring. To enter into   it, see the world through those eyes and hold on to your own grip on reality, it’s wearing.

I’ll go off with Stephen and Jay to watch the NCAA final between Louisville and Michigan. I’m very proud of Jay. He’s pulling down A’s at Bronx Community College and has been accepted to Colorado U for the fall. Hopefully Kim Jong-un keeps it together and Jay can go, despite a shift in his reserve status from red to green.  Another successful end to an Occupy story facilitated by Stephen. I have to stop and give thanks for that. Give thanks. Always. 

Second Sunday in Easter: The gates of hell, loosed

4/7

There are those days when the universe just seems to slip out of gear. Today is one of those.

Stephen is practicing today’s hymns as I arrive. Cara arrives shortly thereafter. 

No Andre today. Attendance will be small. Not unusual for the Sunday after Easter. No small rolls at Barney Greengrass today so a bialy will have to do for communion. That’s a new one. 

The two large mirrors that appeared out of nowhere are still against the wall.  

There will be visitors. An Asian man and Kathy and Don, two of Amanda’s friends from Seattle. Don is an artist with a show currently open on Long Island. Cara overjoyed to meet friends of Amanda’s.

Goddess Sculpture by Don Haggerty at the BJ Spoke gallery, Huntingdon, Long Island

Just as we’re beginning, Marc discovers there’s no juice coming to the Zoom recorder so we’re int searching for extension cords, etc. Now we can begin.

Today I’m talking about how Easter is not just a day but a season. Easter continues. Not just one Sunday.  A season. It runs 50 days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost. In this season,we have time to examine evidence concerning the resurrection. And to explore what resurrection living, living resurrection means...

First....the disciples have heard Mary’s testimony,  that she had seen the Lord..but they apparently haven’t believed it because they’re still behind locked doors. ( It says for fear of the Jews....the actual word there  is ioudaiou, literally Judeans...there’s a Galilee/Judean split here...but more accurately, we should say religious authorities, or...well, it’s a problem...but be very clear, it’s not about Jews qua Jews, not our neighbors nor any historic Jewish community...the use of the word Jews in John has been responsible for centuries of anguish and suffering of the innocent...you just can’t read this aloud unless you’re willing to talk about it)

Then...Jesus  suddenly appears...how do they know him? He shows them his hands and side...I want to come back to that...He breathes on them...like the breath of Spirit...the breath that blows across the primordial waters of creation....this is like creation beginning again...this is John’s Pentecost....

Then, the situation with Thomas...the so called doubting Thomas...he won’t believe it til he sees it...until he touches it, feels it ...and so Jesus shows him, invites him to touch...

Jesus shows them...and they believed....the question is, what do we need to believe? For Mary, it was the sound of her name being called in a way no one else could. For these disciples, it was the wounds of Jesus...

This is what I want us to see...it was Jesus’ wounds that made him who he was...identified him....even though he was resurrected, and apparently able to pass through walls...what convinced them was his wounds...

As for  Thomas, he wanted to see ....and touch....the wounds convinced him. His wounds make Jesus who he is. And we who we are. His wounds enable others to believe....and ours? What happens to our wounds?

Henri Nouwen, one of my teachers at Yale,wrote of the wounded healer....that’s us.....our wounds make us who we are, even as we have been healed....

As Henri wrote, 

The man  who articulates the movements of his  inner life, who can give names to his varied experiences, need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering. He is able to create space for Him who heart is greater than his, whose eyes see more than his, and whose hands can heal more than his.

― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

To acknowledge our wounds is not to hold on to them but to allow them to be transformed into the means, the process of our own healing and others...

We do not continue to hold on to them in the identity of victim, but allow ourselves to be transformed...we see Jesus’ wounds in each other...and we see as well  the resurrection...the stories are all around us...

Our wounds make us who we are. But they can be transformed into instruments of healing for ourselves and others. That is one reality of resurrection living.

In closing, this week marked the 45th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr....we need to make sure that his memory is not tamed...that his passion in pursuit of justice continue to transform.....

During my sermon, I hear Christopher come in and walk the length of the balcony and back. I recover from that only to see that the graybearded man in the cowboy hat has entered, raising my anxiety. He does come forward for communion.

We end the service as, always, with our circle.

Cowboy hat disappears. Cara comes up to tell me that he’s smoking something in the men’s room. She wants to be empathetic with him as she with all prime numbers, as she calls them. But....As Stephen and I go to check it out, he’s coming upstairs. I say he’s got to go, he says, I drove the smokers out of here, chief. How can they accuse me of doing what I condemn? Consider the source, chief....He goes outside, circles back around and back in the front.

(What I really want to be doing is talking to Amanda's friends, taking time for them to really understand the church, the Center....but...)

I’m informed he was cooking up smack. The people from sanctuary are starting to arrive. The mirrors are part of a worship set they’re constructing. Cowboy hat is back playing repetitively and intensely on the piano. We’re talking to Sanctuary folk about the mirrors. Someone trying  to enter the church house has been stopped by someone else who is suspicious and protective so that someone is now complaining about the other person who is complaining to me about the other person. Jeffrey from Sanctuary and I are trying to get them outside. 

Sorry. Yes I know. But you can’t talk about that here now.

And the Cowboy hat. And I look up and Rudolfo is standing in the middle aisle with a confused look on his face and Rachelle is on her way in looking for storage space. I have to get out.

I step outside. Stephen follows me. The gates of hell have been loosed, I say. He laughs. And nods. The whole group, cowboy hat and all, are still in the sanctuary buzzing around. Stephen asks, What are we going to do? And I say, the way I see it, it's time for the 2 o’clock service. I’m done.

So we meet to talk about his plans for concert negotiation and other contracts. I look inside the sanctuary, Sanctuary is about to begin. I am going to walk slowly, very slowly, home....

Second Sunday in Easter: Joy Unspeakable

5/1

Open the doors. Sweep the steps. Get ready for church. Put the bulletins out. Put on the white alb, New Mexican stole. I’m singing How Can I Keep From Singing?, look up, startled to see a visitor. She tells me she’s just enjoying the music. Rachel arrives and I help her through the doors with her walker. 

Amy was on her way from Queens but got caught at the RFK Bridge by the 5 Borough Bike Race. So it will be a capella again. Hope Andre arrives soon. As we gather, I share the news that Hannah has died. Tall and quiet. Had a special closeness with Katherine. One of the last of the first African-American members of the church, live-in domestics who decided to come to church closer than Harlem.  She worked for the same family for 30 years. Raised children. Then she got sick. When they were sure she wouldn’t be coming back, they said  thank you and hired someone new. After all, she’d been slowing down.  She was always the first there in our SPSA years. Helped set up the chairs. And never missed an Easter Sunday service in the Park. I feel very said we didn’t know she was in the hospital. Or died. I will miss her. 

Our lessons today have a lot to do with perishable v imperishable. And How we believe.

The Gospel says that the disciples were shut away behind locked doors for “fear of the Jews”....well, not exactly..who were they? They were all Jews...The point here  is not about Jews, but about fear.  They are afraid even after Mary’s report, they are locked up,shut in, behind closed doors.  Again, that’s the easier place to be. As a small group, easier to keep the doors shut. Mistrust outsiders. Keep things tight-knit, self-contained. Controlled. About fear. Who do we lock the doors against? 

Another question. What’s up with Jesus’ hands and feet? Why do the  wounds remain? Even after resurrection? Wouldn’t it seem logical that if Jesus were raised, he would be made perfect? All wounds healed? 

The point is, they make him who he is, even risen. Us too. Our wounds define us. Eve when we are healed, even when we move on, then scars remain. They can connect us, or separate us. 

Then there’s the so-called Doubting Thomas. He had his own Gospel. His own followers. Much of what you read about him in John represents the dialectic of Thomas v. John. It’s polemic. But let’s take the story as it is. This is the only place in the gospels  this story appears.  (My friend Melissa asked , why did Thomas need to touch the wounds? Why didn’t he just ask for a  hug?) Thomas is being concrete. Won’t get fooled again. Remember, he was the one who said, let’s go with you to die ..It’s a question of seeing is believing v believing is seeing. Thomas  asks the questions no one else will. God always responds to our  true questions. Not necessarily in way we want.

This story is ultimately about our resurrection.  From the death of fear, because that is what fear is, death, to being sent out alive. But it requires the Holy Spirit, the breath of the Holy Spirit, like in the Valley of the dry bones. Like at creation. This is John’s Pentecost.

Once Thomas has seen, once he has made his confession, it is the end of story. No need for more. (And this was the original end of the Gospel of John.)

I need to spend a little time with 1 Peter. It's about us being protected...God active and present...seen/known...

Back in the day, folks used to have a walk around  Bible inside of them. A store of scripture in their head and heart through which to understand the world. So a story...

Back when I lived in Tulsa, I had a friend named  Cheryl. She’d been a student at the University. Had gone on to seminary.Now was back to be ordained. She asked to stay at my place. 

The night before her ordination, we went to a Native American pow wow at Mohawk Park. Watching the Indians make their slow moving circle. An inner circle of elders drumming in the center. The fancy dancers twirling  around the periphery.  When we got ready to leave, I discovered I had lost my car keys. Nothing to do but to call AAA. Get a ride back to my place, get my spare keys.

The AAA pick up arrived. The driver was an old Indian. Long silver hair, tied back in a pony tail. Good laugh lines crinkling his eyes. He looked around. Ah pow wow, he said.  On the drive, he talked of pow wows past. And of the 49's that followed. Don’t know why they called them that. They were kind of after parties for the young people. They’d sit around the fire, share beers, songs, jokes. I went to one once, at Pawnee.

He remembered one particular 49. One particular Indian girl.  The way her skin shone in the firelight. Her shy eyes. The softness of her skin. The cool of the night and the dampness of the grass. Brother, he said, that was joy unspeakable. Joy unspeakable....I realized last night her was quoting the  King James Version of 1 Peter 1:8 . Just the right Bible verse when he needed it.

I realized that somewhere in this resurrection life there needs to be joy unspeakable. What is our joy unspeakable? Where is our joy unspeakable?

I brought my sermon to a close. As the offering was collected, I sang How can I keep from singing? With Andre adding some piano. P____ adding her high little voice from the  pews. I added the verse from Pete Seeger:

When tyrants tremble sick with fear and hear their death knell ringing

When friends rejoice both far and near, how can I keep from singing?

In prison cell and dungeon vile, our thoughts to them go winging

When friends by shame are undefiled, how can I keep from singing?

I reminded the congregation that hr wrote those words in the peak of the Red Scare. In honor of those who refused to cooperate with the House Unamerican Activities Committee. 

As we prepare for communion, Hugo reminds me that it is international workers’ day. It fits with a communion. The work needed to plant, harvest, mill grain. How it must be  ground. And grapes tended, ripened in the sun, crushed. bread of life. Vines and branches. And I remembered May Day in Berlin.

After worship, Session meets. I bring them up to date on the activities if the week.  How it’s time to move beyond how cool it is to be back in the church and are we committed enough to make it real? A solid crew stays to work. Hugo and I take down the Ester signs. Mc Alpin Hall is swept clean. We begin the unpleasant task of making a bathroom usable. We are pouring ourselves into this building. Into these bones. May the  Spirit breathe into us. Make the rising real. 

work crew