coroavirusworld 91: Hope

6/22

Duck On the pond. Morningside. 

For the first time in many months, I get an iced coffee from favorite coffee shop and sit at an outdoor table in the cool of the morning to plan my week. I have missed that. The hair salon next door seems to be taking appointments

Melba's al fresco

Ready to meet the mayor

After a long hard day of writing and strategizing, I go out for my afternoon walk. As I near the corner, I see flashing lights of police cars and tv trucks. Usually a bad sign. I take breath.  The I see that Melba's,  the famed soul food restaurant has set up tables and created an alfresco restaurant that cradles the corner. It has a jaunty feel to it. AND the mayor is coming to dinner to mark the occasion.  Hope.

Walking home I’m thinking how this is going to be. We’ve gotten used to quarantine. Redrawn the boundaries of our lives. Gotten used to our cages as one of my songwriter friends will say later tonight. There’s something about this makes me nervous.  Uneasy about new options and choices to come. I’m happier cooking when I have 2-3 items given and have to figure out what to do with them than when it’s a totally open field. 

                                              Leonard Cohen "Story of Isaac"

Only Russ shows up for Bible Study tonight so  we have time to catch up. Upstate they had their first dinner party. The text tonight was to have been Genesis 21: 8-21, the binding of Isaac. I had intended to play Leoanrd Cohen;s Story of Isaac. 

It’s still such a haunting story. Many possible interpretations. We know however, that  in the Bible, Isaac never talks to Abraham again.  The story also appears in the Koran ,only with (most likely) Ismail. Ishmael.) In the Muslim story, the son knows what is going on and submits. And encourages his father to follow through.Allah relents terms of. Future greater sacrifice. Muhammad? Or?…The hors of the ram are in what becomes the kaaba. A different Islamic concept of obedience and submission is at the core here. What remains is how the story relates to our current time. Cohen’s song was clearly a Vietnam era song. We live in a country whee generations of Black children have been sacrificed , against their will, for our benefit. As Leonard sang, Just according to who’s plan?  And …you must not do it anymore…

Back to  my songwriter’s group. The continuation of Jack Hardy’s Songwriter’s Exchange.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hardy_(singer-songwriter))   After last week’s debacle when I completely forgot my tune. This time I’m ready. Still anxious. Always aware that many of these writers have devoted their life to this work and the event is truly about craft. Craft is work.The song has come together. It’s ready to be performed. From a scrap added  to Dylan to a song of my own, they’ve helped bring  it into being.  As I think of my song song, and Bev Grant’s go about Whose Streets and Carolanne’s song about writing and breathing,  I ponder how the events around us are dominating our writing. And why not? That’s all we talk about. I haven’t written about anything but the virus and Black Lives Matter all year. 

Most of our songs reference directly or indirectly George Floyd. I keep going over that moment, after having begged please, he calls out Mama, knowing he will die. And the knee stays. And the others stand by, casually. And he does in front  of us.  I can’t see how any truly human being can see that and not be convicted. Not know something is terribly, terribly and irrevocably wrong. That’s what’s different. And why in the short weeks, our whole self undestanding is unraveling. That maybe  something in that one word, the one cry broke through, made the crack that begins to bring the empire down. That what was there from the beginning can no longer be ignored. Hope.

The fireworks are now so loud, not only the dogs but now car alarms are bing set off.

...And a Cup of Cold Water..

7/2

At Oakdale

Oakdale, Pennsylvania is still its own little town in what is now the ever expanding greater airport sector of Pittsburgh. Once a farm town, it’s most historic moment was probably the great munitions factory explosion of 1918.  And probably more than one recent devastating flooding experience. There’s a long tradition of girl’s softball. A corner store/deli named Sil’s where I was  greeted with a slivovitz toast to welcome 1995. And a Presbyterian Church I was blessed to serve in 1994-1995.

Some in Presbytery were surprised when I went there because by reputation they were conservative evangelical and I was thought to be beyond liberal.  But in the sermons I preached before I came I took the Bible seriously. Very seriously. And I could see their highest value was community. As was mine. They had just been through a young pastor who had demanded a much beloved community member  who would do anything for the church had to give up what the young pastor deemed to be an immoral relationship. That was not going to work in Oakdale. 

I will always remember the elder who said to me, Pastor, sometimes you just have to set principle aside and do what’s right. And of course we shared Steelers. And Pirates. And Penguins. Black and gold. 

There was also a marvelous mythic story about one of the community’s only Jewish members facing down the Ku Klux Klan, cooking a potato on the burning cross and staring the leader into beating a hasty retreat from this clearly dangerously crazy person. 

It was a beautiful year. After having my own interest in music reawakened, I shared that gift with them. A pastor/lounge singer friend of  mine and I put together a band and did a special Christmas concert. And my aunt helped put together a Christmas choir. And my friend Dan joined us and we did music together. He gave me a set of new strings when I left.  

After 20 years, last year I was coming back to Pittsburgh for  a wedding. And wanted to play a gig so I called Dan to join me. And he invited me to join his band for a church street fair and Sunday morning.  I met the new pastor, a dynamic young woman named Robin who had come to them following a painful congregation split. She basically wrapped them in love and opened the doors wide. At the street fair …and on Sunday morning…the new emerging inclusive community was clearly visible. (A visible as tattoos!) Her supportive camp director husband and new child were welcome additions to the community. I could feel the quiet vibrancy and grown sense of self-confidence. 

So I was saddened to learn that this year Robin and family and returned to New Zealand. And so I made plans to come back to Oakdale and share a Sunday with those who had remained faithful. And of course sing with Dan….

Dan and Bob

These were my reflections in the Sunday before the 4th of July…

                                                                     

                                                                 ****

                                           And a cup of cold water….

There is so much that we could  talk about. It’s the  4th of July weekend. The first thing I  think about is not fireworks but cook outs…hot dogs hamburgers, baked beans, especially baked beans the way my mother made them. …In New York City where I live, the day this is the public swimming pools open....

I have two very distinct memories…It was 1976, the bicentennial year…I had been invited to Pawnee, Oklahoma for the annual Pawnee nation reunion and pow wow. An elder in my congregation was the former chief. In Tulsa, he worked for the postal service. But with his people he was a chief. For the week of the pow wow, all economic differences from the outside world were set aside and the people lived communally from a common store house. The pow wow opens with “flag song”…not the Star Spangled  banner, as I light have expected, but a song about the young men who went away to fight for the US in foreign wars… a welcome home  for those who came back and a song of morning for  those who did not…One of the sons was a trader in Indian jewelry. And he gave me a ring from the southwest of turquoise and coral..It’s gone through a lot, been lost and regained twice. But I have essentially worn it every day for 40 years…and am wearing it today.

It was 1983 in Nicaragua…during the peak of the  contra war…Our country, my country, supporting those contras.  So I was understandably shocked to see our flag flying high at their foreign ministry…we always honor countries that are celebrating  their revolutions they said .

Set all that aside a moment…I want to get deeper  into the 4th…but through the scriptures…

First, the story of Isaac… in all honesty, this is a troubling and disturbing story…what is its point? What is it about? Remember how Isaac and Sarah could not bear children? And then finally Sarah gets pregnant and laughs…and that child is Isaac, the sound of laughter…Isaac…the one he loves…(Uh, but what about Ishmael? Ismail? In Islam, it’s him…well, actually, it’s a complicated history, but most Muslims believe it was Ismail/Ishmael who was bound. And Abraham  tells him what is going on and and he agrees and encourages his father..and rolls over so his father won’t see his face. So it will be easier. We could certainly explore that. 

But imagine how Abraham would feel…asked to sacrifice his beloved son…isn’t there a question to ask here?…

Is this really a test? Some say the real test was that Abraham was supposed to refuse…BUT…that doesn’t seem accurate to story..

Historians say this story is a mythic explanation of the end of child sacrifice. among the Hebrews.  BUT…stay inside the story..some say this experience affects Isaac for the rest of his life…that he never felt quite completely  safe..always somewhat wary of this strange God.

Was this really about Isaac’s faith? (“God will provide…” he says. Does he truly believe this? Is this an affirmation, when God provides the lamb?)

Dan and I sang Leonard Cohen’s telling of this story…he wrote it at the peak of the Vietnam era…he saw sacrifice of children as not inspired by awe for wonder or wrestling with a demon or the lord…or mystery…….(I need to say, I believe we could use a draft….where all of us must share the define of our country equally…we would  all wrestle with the sense of any particular war …instead, for most of us, wars are fought by other people’ children…wearing camo sports uniforms isn’t quite enough….) 

Okay…Question one ….how would you feel?

 God honors Abraham because: 

…since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me….

One could argue, that in Jesus, this is exactly what God does….

But I need to be honest…I can’t roll with the idea that we are so bad, God requires a blood sacrifice to excuse us and set us free and thereby kills his own son…this is not someone, this is not a God  I would want to be with…this is a frightening  character…

BUT..what if God is saying…I love these people so much, i want to know them them. What it feel like to be them….I will join them in their midst…I will send my very son to live with them…show them how to live…even if knowing them, it will me cost his life…I‘ll go that far…for love…And that is a God I can go with..

Leonard Cohan doesn’t judge Abraham..he allows the mystery..and awe..to remain …when my father’s hand was trembling with the beauty of the word…

He does criticize those who sacrifice  children with no vision, no wrestling with demons or God…

And here’s where I’m easing back into the 4th of July…are there ways in which innocent children are being  sacrificed today? Or perhaps what kind of world are we  leaving our children?  I’m asking you to answer that question, talk about it with your friends…and ask what then are we to do?….

I can’t leave this without a word from Jesus..(that’s, after all, why we’re here…) Jesus says:

whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

The wife of my predecessor pastor at West Park, Evelyn Davidson believed that the LGBTQ community felt abandoned by the church …and that in Jesus name we were called to show a different face, the face of Jesus.  So she set up a water table to pass out cos of cold water to hot marchers ash the PRIDE march. Literally a cup of cold water in Jesus name…To this day, volunteers pass out water on PRIDE Sunday at the Evelyn Davidson Memorial Water Table…And so I ask you…who is hot and tired?  Who is thirsty? For water? Thirsty for love? Oh if only every child were as loved as the children I know of this  congregation…

That’s what we do…we can offer cool water in Jesus name…to ALL  and I do mean ALL God’s children…..

Let those with ears to hear, hear….

Amen

                                         ****

Our music was truly fun.

Bob, Dan and Jamie

Terry who as a teenager played for Oakdale is still there at the keyboard 22 years later. We sang Dan’s Johnny Cash inspired “C-Minus Christian” and closed with my Teddy Mape’s memorial “Rest Awhile..”

                                                                     "Rest Awhile"

                                                                             ****

I shared these words with my final prayers…

You were truly blessed by Pastor Robin…she brought love and light and laughter back here….you have courageously stayed faithful both before and after her and as you prepare for a  new pastor you bring that faithfulness as a gift…

In the future, we will need communities that can sustain themselves with or without a pastor…it all depends on mutual accountability…this is what is needed..

1.Be there for one another…always

2. Study together …with discipline and commitment

3. Worship…celebrate…share at a deep level…without reference as to how, when or where…

4. Act together…

You can do this…you have done this

Thanks for all you gave to me and my family…

                                            ****

There was time for goodbyes to so many special people. Like the Kehms, part of the glue that holds it all together.

Bob and Eleanor

(Along with so many more..) And recovering my shoes as I left to go to a Pirate game a year ago…and found them here in the same place a year later…and yes, on may way to another game today….

Why was Jesus baptized?

1/8

We are gathered to celebrate the Baptism of Jesus. Our special music includes Jesus the Light of the World, Take me to the Water, Jeremy and I do Bob Ferguson’s On the Wings of a Dove, Wade in the Water and Down to the River to Pray…as always, a joy to sing with Jeremy.

After scriptures, here is our refelction: 

It is Baptism of Jesus Sunday.

71.7 % of the earth is water, the oceans contain 96.5% of the earth’s water

Our bodies are  50-65% water, and bodies of infants are 75-78%

There can be life without light. Life without air. But there is no life without water. 

Water looms large in the the Bible beginning with creation, the flood, crossing the Red Sea, and Jesus baptized in the Jordan

Our creation story has roots in the Babylonian story with the ultimate defeat of the great sea monster of chaos, Tiamat. (Though our Biblical story does go a radically different direction) Although as my friend Pastor Heidi  Neumark likes to point out, and recent events have made clear, Tiamat is never far behind "chaos and confusion” were the words used to describe the scene at the Ft.Lauderdale airport where five were killed and another eight injured…It is a sign of our insanity when the question is asked “Well was this terrorism or just another typical American mass shooting”? Tiamat is never far behind..

Until we took to the air, water was our fastest way of getting from one place to another..the rivers, and later canals…my great grandfather spent some time as a drover on the C&O canal…I’ve often  fantasized taking a long river trip…and of course the oceans..

My son watched the movie Titanic the other  day….and I pondered the awesome overwhelming power of water overwhelming the human hubris that thought we had created an unsinkable ship..and of course as always, there were significant  class issues involved in the Titanic tragedy as well…

Water continues to be a serious political issue whether it’s drought in California, the failure to provide potable water to Flint or what we have done to our rivers and streams, not to mention the ocean..

All goes to say, no wonder water is one of the central symbols of the Christian faith…and today we celebrate, commemorate the  baptism of Jesus and consider our own…the official end of Christmastide

First of all what…

1. Here comes John the Baptist (again!) … Jesus’ cousin, his father aTemple official, a child of privilege, born into religious/political establishment 
2. He has gone out into the wilderness (like the Essenes and Nazirites))
3. He has adopted a ritual, rooted in Jewish purity rites, the mikveh,  suggesting that the  whole religious institution has become so corrupted, we all need to be converted again
4. And so Jesus comes to be baptized

Before we get to why?  Lets reflect on relationships. Jesus and John were cousins. Imagine their conversations. Jesus was the poor country cousin so to speak. Imagine their childhood experiences. One remains an unmarried working guy in his  father’s workshop. Odd for his day. The other rejects his privilege and goes out into wild as a prophet, What had John been told about Jesus growing up? All that is the unwritten background..John’s hesitation to baptize Jesus, Jesus’ insistence on being baptized…why? if he is sinless?  And then the dove. As Leonard Cohen sang:

The birds they sang

At the break of day

Start again

I heard them say

Don't dwell on what

Has passed away

Or what is yet to be

Yeah the wars they will

Be fought again

The holy dove

She will be caught again

Bought and sold

And bought again

The dove is never free

The why is what wraps up our Christmas…the key reality of Christmas is incarnation, word made flesh, God made flesh ….living in the midst of us…it is for Jesus a symbolic act of solidarity with us…he is fully human

By tradition, baptism is emotionally understood like another vaccination/innoculation .My father was always anxious over the fact that my nieces were never baptized. 

It’s also a rite of initiation, of inclusion

In our tradition we baptize children because for us salvation  is not by our will, or anything we do, or choose, it is a free gift.

We promise community responsibility for a child..We historically rejected godparents, but due to popular demand  have ultimately let them in (Although we officially call them SPONSORS)

Each of our own unique  ministries  comes not through ordination, but through baptism. It is 

no longer a ticket to the club, as our denomination declared at its last General Assembly that we offer an open table, baptism not required.   

it is a call to us to join Jesus in that solidarity.

Last night I saw Silence, Martin Scorsese’s  film of Shushaku Endo’s novel. It’s ultimate truth is that the way of Jesus, our way, is our willingness.to give up all for the sake of others..That is the solidarity we are brought into through our baptism, joining with Jesus as he joins with us. 

Following our reflection, we go to the baptismal basin created for us by Cheryl Jaffee, the mother of  Occupier Dan after our baptismal font lid disappeared during the Occupy days ..

The "Occupy" basin

It cracked when she brought it out of the kiln. She thought of redoing it, but then decided not to because in her eyes, We were repairing the cracks in the world. There is a crack in everything, that’s how  the light gets in (Cohen). 

I mix the water fro the Jordan Alistair brought to us with the other water as i pour it  into the basin and bless the water. The congregation comes forward to receive a blessing. Each individually. And then, I am profoundly moved as Marsha claims her own ministry as a ruling elder and lays hands on land blesses me. More than any sermon, she has made clear its meaning. 

Baptism Sunday

The binding of Isaac, September 2015

8/30

Broken ribs and all, I’m here tonight for another adventure in Genesis, tonight ready to tackle the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22. Russ and Marsha and Steve are here too. We all know the basics, God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac and at the last minute substitutes a ram. But what do we find in this chilling story?

God says lekh-lha, just like in God’s first command to Abraham to go. But in the command to sacrifice?  The rabbis in their midrash made much over the fact that Hebrew verb form implies a please, seemingly giving Abraham an out. Abraham, who late in life, miraculously has been given a son who will be the father of multitudes, the one who negotiated with God over Sodom and Gomorrah, does not even raise a question to this request that would wipe out his promise.

In the midrash there is this intensification.

Which son?

Your only son.

I have two sons.

The one you love.

I love both my sons.

Even Isaac.

So what does this mean? What is the story’s purpose? Steve believes that this is a story that makes it clear that as opposed to other cultures, YHWH’s people will NOT sacrifice children. I recall another commentator who believes that the test was for Isaac to say NO and he failed.

I’ve always struggled with what kind of God would roll like this. And how this relates to the substitutionary atonement theory that says because we are born into some kind of original sin, God demands blood sacrifice and offers up his own son on our behalf. Nothing about that appeals to me in any way whatsoever.

Wes Howard-Brook maintains that the basic point here is that our children should be brought up to trust completely in God and no one/thing/god else. And then he goes on to note that Abraham never speaks to Sarah or Isaac again. Isogetically suggesting that this family could never be the same after this experience. What would/could Abraham say to Sarah? How did this experience scar Isaac?

I point out that in the Koran, it’s up for debate which son is bound. But tradition has come down on the side of Ismail. And in the Koran, there’s no substitute ram, it’s just over. Not done.

Having analyzed the story from every linguistic, theological, literary and ideological perspective, I want to return to the story itself and allow it to move us on its own terms. A story that inspired Kierkegaard to write Fear and trembling…and Leonard Cohen to write  the Story of Isaac..  We look at his words:

The door it opened slowly,
My father he came in,
I was nine years old.
And he stood so tall above me,
His blue eyes they were shining
And his voice was very cold.
He said, "I've had a vision
And you know I'm strong and holy,
I must do what I've been told."
So he started up the mountain,
I was running, he was walking,
And his axe was made of gold.

Well, the trees they got much smaller,
The lake a lady's mirror,
We stopped to drink some wine.
Then he threw the bottle over.
Broke a minute later
And he put his hand on mine.
Thought I saw an eagle
But it might have been a vulture,
I never could decide.
Then my father built an altar,
He looked once behind his shoulder,
He knew I would not hide.

You who build these altars now
To sacrifice these children,
You must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
And you never have been tempted
By a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
Your hatchets blunt and bloody,
You were not there before,
When I lay upon a mountain
And my father's hand was trembling
With the beauty of the word.

And if you call me brother now,
Forgive me if I inquire,
"just according to whose plan?"
When it all comes down to dust
I will kill you if I must,
I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust
I will help you if I must,
I will kill you if I can.
And mercy on our uniform,
Man of peace or man of war,
The peacock spreads his fan.

And the existential power of Cohen’s telling  grabs us. Steve has it on his IPhone, so we silently listen.

In the context of the Vietnam war, the message was clear. Eagle or vulture? (The US, can’t tell.) The comparison of awe-filled, hard to understand sacred reality and wanton sacrifice of children.  The shimmering quality of these words:

You were not there before,
When I lay upon a mountain
And my father's hand was trembling
With the beauty of the word. 

We have and we continue to sacrifice children. In war. And we barely notice anymore without a draft. It’s all other people’s children. Children who enter the military to escape the ghetto.My son's football friend Jaquan made it back. Others not so lucky.  A separate warrior class that we honor with camouflage sports uniforms  and tributes but don’t think about on a daily basis. Not like when my small mill town sent its young men to Vietnam then finally raised its voice in a collective voice when they help coming back broke if at all. Or the children in poverty without homes or food. Or the mass incarceration children. Or children murdered by police. We continue to sacrifice our children.

Leonard Cohen’s song is timeless and haunting. Steve has found it on his  iPhone. We sit in silence and listen. And deeper than theology, we hear truth.