Labor Day Sunday: Partiality and Prejudice, did Jesus have to learn?

9/6/15

SO…it’s Labor Day weekend. I’m remembering the many times West-Park celebrated Labor to the  pulpit Sunday with special union guests sharing in service leadership. The time our unique music director Bill Schimmel brought in long time union musician and organizer Paul Stein to share old songs with us.  And most recently, our friends from National Movement Against Sweatshops.

What I’m interested in this week is prejudice and partiality. And I start with James, talking about experiences that seem to come directly from his church experience. His critique of favoritism coming from a long tradition within Judaism.

He’s talking about what happens on any given Sunday when you have two visitors, one rich and well-dressed, the other poor.

²For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, ³and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, "Have a seat here, please," while to the one who is poor you say, "Stand there," or, "Sit at my feet," ⁴have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 

I love James, the brother of Jesus, because he is so direct.

Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? ⁶But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? ⁷Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

He’s saying that since we have been baptized in the name of Jesus, if we mistreat the poor we’re giving Jesus a bad name, in essence we’re cursing him. We who bear his name become responsible for what is done in that name.

His court reference means something to me too, remembering going with different members of this congregation to housing court, seeing wealthy landlord after wealthy landlord putting people out from their houses, on sometimes flimsy grounds, sometimes just because they couldn’t afford an attorney. I cases where they’d actually paid the rent. Just so the new empty apartment could flip from stabilized or controlled to market rate. And out own experiences in court with all the pressure from judges to settle paying large sums of money we didn't have  just to make it go away.

I think about conversations about should anyone be able to sit in the sanctuary? Or  will their presence make others uncomfortable.? Worry about cleanliness? (Remember: We had over 100 occupiers here for weeks and  never a bed bug….good luck or maybe more….maybe God watches out..)

And once again the royal law, royal because it is the law on which Jesus’ reign is based…"You shall love your neighbor as yourself…and if you don’t do this, you are indeed a transgressor, that this is as important as adultery. Wish we could get that idea across…

SO here it is again The bottom line….¹⁷So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

(Lutherans vs catholics)

So sandwiched between two feeding stories (of the 5000, of the 4000) we find a story about different bread. Or at least crumbs. Keep an eye on Jesus here. They’re up  northwest of Galilee. A place despised by good Jews. A woman who Is most definitely not a Jew asks Jesus for help. And he responds with the language of prejudice. Of racial epithet.And she calls him on it. Was this compassion fatigue on his part? ( In at least 2 other places where a worn out Jesus is pressed to respond, as in Jairus daughter, Luke 8: 40-56, his response is  different. But those cases were about Jews ) What’s going on here? Did Jesus have to grow? To change? People are very troubled by this  possibility…

Brian Blount, President of Union Seminary in Richmond, Virginia…has written a long essay arguing that for Jesus, this is just an elaborate teaching scheme…Well, I just don’t think so…I believe that if indeed as we profess to believe that Jesus was  fully human, then his wisdom and understanding and clarity and judgment just may not be full formed from the first. He needs to experience this,

The empire says us/not us. Not the Jesus’ community where we’re all us.(But how many of  us are ready to go  go beyond Christian inclusivity, IE, Christian/not Christian….

Before we end, I’ve been thinking about the difference between prejudice and Prejudice is all the ways we speak of and refer to those who are not us. Prejudice takes those feelings and has the  power to impose them through policy and institutions.

This year is the 150^th anniversary of the end of civil war…there’s a new examination going on of reconstruction and what it meant. At the very least, we know that it’s not enough to blame it on the south and their race related laws. None of that could have happened unless there was support buy the north. It’s now clear that thee was increasing  anxiety that newly free slaves and lower working class whites would join together in a unified poor workingman’s movement. It had already begun.  Thus Jim Crow laws took on the purpose of separating potential white and black allies.

And even then black elite like Booker T. Washington defined  the problem as one of “race relations” vs reconstruction, justice.  The same issues are with us today, little changed.

Has anyone ever heard of the Labor Temple? In the lost pages of Presbyterian history lies the story of the Labor Temple. …Around the same as this church was coming together in 1910, the Presbytery of New York City responded  to requests of  a number of  committed former mission personnel. Their Labor Temple ran until 1957 long after other similar institutions had ceased to exist.

Charlie Steize, founder, wanted an extension of the church that would  provide hospitality, spiritual guidance and education. He also believed that as minister, it was essential that he and his family live in the temple. ,One of his more popular lecturers there was Will Durant.  His lectures at the Temple would one day become the acclaimed History of Civilization.

A later pastor ,Rev. Dr. Edmund Chafee, founded the Ministers Union of America (AFL/CIO) local 1. Where are they now that I need them? The MUA’s officers included clergy from two other long time activist congregations, Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn and ST. Jame s Harlem. And in line with the Temple’s sense of mission and core values, a number of the city’ rabbis drawn  the desire for a collective expression of fighting for a better world. More just. More humane.  I would like to have known these guys.

I’m proud that there was a Presbyterian Church once did this.

And I’m on the lookout for those who are burning to have a conversation on these and other classic texts.

Let us enjoy the rest of this weekend off.

SECOND READING JAMES 2:1-10 (11-13) 14-17

¹My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?²For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, ³and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, "Have a seat here, please," while to the one who is poor you say, "Stand there," or, "Sit at my feet," ⁴have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? ⁵Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? ⁶But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? ⁷Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

⁸You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." ⁹But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ¹⁰For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. ¹¹For the one who said, 'You shall not commit adultery," also said, "You shall not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. ¹²So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. ¹³For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

¹⁴What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? ¹⁵If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, ¹⁶and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? ¹⁷So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

GOSPEL MARK 7:24-37

²⁴From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, ²⁵but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. ²⁶Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. ²⁷He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." ²⁸But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." ²⁹Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go — the demon has left your daughter." ³⁰So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

³¹Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. ³²They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. ³³He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. ³⁴Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." ³⁵And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. ³⁶Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. ³⁷They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."

open space and conversation

8/29

Four days into dealing with the pain of three broken ribs….

Back at the church to prepare for tomorrow’s worship. And meet again with Jason and another friend, this time Babatunde from Nigeria. Knew each other back in the day in Boston. Reconnect through Facebook. Concerned about some of the same issues. Baba coming from a place of passion for design and fashion.

While I work on the service, Jason takes his friend on a tour of the building. They are sitting in the Papp theatre talking when I catch up with them. I make sure that they have a tour of the whole pigeon tower, which in the vision is the light tower both metaphor and concrete reality of the conversation and space Jason wants to create.

Jason’s been down a/this road before with success in his Massachusetts Crush project. Seen a burgeoning movement brought down by unchecked self-interest. There are questions of political satire and free speech versus shared values (why I never ever will say pig in relation to police..if you make your opponent non-human you can’t hold them humanly accountable…) versus a maoist letting a thousand flowers bloom…No immediate clear answers.

But there is clarity that the next wave of lgbtq+++ (ie, queer ) issues are waiting to be raised along with class and race issues. The same issues being explored by Stephanie and Love Songs for the rest of us And the peace poets. . And that this intersects with arts and creativity. And that light tower, waiting to be lighted..

Space and conversation. Open space and conversation.

There must continue to be space here for what could be...

One step at a time. One conversation at a time.,

In the morning while it was still dark

1/20

It’s still dark as I head down Amsterdam to the church. Inside the darkened church, I walk up the four flights to the gym. Isis is there on the landing, greets me with a hug. Says that she was depressed that I wasn’t coming. She leads me by the hand inside. They are still in silence. Matt sees me, greets me with a hug and leads me to the food table laden with fresh organic foods. Root vegetables, garlic. And salmon. I take some with cream cheese and a rice cake. Someone offers me horse radish root. Isis offers me a chair and I sit and eat in the half light. Dawn starting to creep in through the windows.  

They finish their cleaning up. Soon a circle forms. From out of the silence, chants begin. Some like Yiddish niggunim. Some like Gregorian. Though I don’t know what they have been through or experienced, I can feel this:  it was significant. It was spiritual. It was important.  I can tell that this is a annual foundational experience that grounds and connects the people who make up Dzieci. And for the others, an adventure. They’ve been here for 24 hours. I will later learn that they’ve come from as faraway as Greece and Australia. Someone found a flyer  on the subway and waited a year to come. Around 7am, Matt reads from Moby Dick and it s over. 

Oh, grassy glades! Oh, ever vernal
endless landscapes in the soul;
in ye, - though long parched
by the dead drought of earthly life –
in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses
in new morning clover; and for some
few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew
of the life immortal on them.

Melville - Moby Dick - Chapter 114

They had created a memory space, a place for Teddy. Several of his pictures on the wall. They met him when they were rehearsing their last two plays. Felt him as part of their family. And at one point, as I look around the circle, I see  him sitting, leaning forward, in his Occupy t-shirt and sweat pants, hair damp and pushed back, his glasses on his face. And a big smile. As if to say, This  was really cool... He would have entered in with full openness to everything the experience could bring. 

The sun is up. It is light. I head home to rest before church. 

                            * * * * 

I stop at the Bangladeshi coup ship to pick up my bulletins before church. The doors are shut. Stephen comes down to help me. He needs rest. The drumming kept him up all night. 

As the service begins, I share again my wonder at the people who have preceded us. The people who built this place. How they chose the Zechariah quote to engrave above the door: Not by might, not by power, but my my spirit says the Lord god of Hosts.  Although they chose no human representation at first, they commissioned pre - Christian  Celtic iconography for their Tiffany windows. And now what I’ve learned about the baptismal font. What I had written off as overly florid late victoriana was in fact much deeper.Rising from the troubled waters of creation,  lotus flowers. For Egyptians a sign of rebirth, for Buddhists and Hindus spiritual awakening, purity and dedication. Themes clearly in line with baptism, but specifically non-Christian in origin. Consciously or not, our predecessors set in motion forces the ends of which they probably never imagined. 

As we read our sciptures, I interpret. 

Isaiah 62: 1-5  is all about vindication

1 Corinthians 12: 1-11 is all about  different gifts...we are all unique....not alike...yet also all valued....

And John 2: 1-11,  about  abundance. If there was no other Gospel, in this story we’ve got no  anunciation, no angels, no virgin birth ...just a  mother and her hard to understand special son...at the end she will appear again at the  tomb.

So this is the second Sunday in Epiphany. The second Sunday in ordinary time. But it is anything but ordinary. Today is also Inauguration day....here’s trivia  for you ...another way in which Obama is unique...After tomorrow, he will have been sworn in 4 times. Only Roosevelt had been sworn in that many times. The first time, the Supreme court justice messed up requiring Obama to come back the next day and do it again. This time, he will do it today and again tomorrow.

This is also Martin Luther King,Jr.  weekend...There is something fitting about that....We have in our nation an unfinished dialogue trying to take place...One about race and class and privilege. We forget that before he was murdered, King’s new project was the Poor People's Campaign, The class issue was every bit as controversial  as his protesting Vietnam. 

Let’s look at the Oscar nominated films...

*Lincoln (did you know that both Lincoln and King suffered from depression... and Mother Theresa too? )
*And Django with its theme of racial revenge
*And then war....with Argo and Zero dark Thirty..
*And inequality and injustice...the back story for .Les Miserables,.....

Race issues are still there...in prisons, education...but also class...our middle classes disappearing...for example;

• in 2010, top 1 % took home 93% of income growth in the USA(we are the 99%)
• we in the middle class have less real income than we did in 1996
• growth we had, the bottom 80% spent 110% of their income
• greatest disparity since 1920
• 1/5 of our children live in poverty ...lower than Latvia, Bulgaria and Greece
• in 2010, tuition debt reached1trillion dollars and youth unemployment twice national average

Countries like Brazil lowered inequality while increasing growth and opportunity...and committed to providing youth access to education, food, health care in order to pursue aspirations. All this while our land of golden opportunity, is a dream  no longer true. 

Without addressing inequality, there is no way forward...so we are not only lifting up King’s dream but setting an agenda for a president’s second term...

So far I’ve got the makings of a good social justice sermon here....

we do that....just Thursday, NMASS....in court victories over Saigon Grill an Domino’s 

BUT one of the reasons we are still here is that following the land marking decision, in conjunction with a planned  merger, I was offered a 5 year social justice ministry...but can’t be conceived of apart from community, a worshipping community, a sustaining spiritual community..

And I could not see Social Justice separated fro a worshipping community apart  from a community...
In his darkest hour, Dr. King’s depression sent him back to the faith he grew up with. His African -American church.   And there’s something more...hear these words from his famous Dream speech:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is not about policy but prophetic imagination....you must be able to see it, to believe it, make it real....,  to be it...

Dr. King saw it...and was able to articulate it so that we all could understand...a radical call for acceptance and inclusion.As for we need to be able to imagine it, articulate it so that we can begin living it out (we are...) and counseling us to:We live in a highly

• to understand our own gifts and share them 
• create a sense of abundance...

 Gentrified neighborhood ...and yet there are AIDS residences,  Supportive  housing sro’s, and public housing projects,  The city wishes the to be invisible people .... and keep them invisible.I believe that our call is to create a meeting grounds for different peoples...and attract people who see the value in the vision and are willing to sustain it..

Then and only then will we be free.....

As the plates are passed,we listened to Mahalia Jackson sing Precious Lord, take my hand....Dr. King's favorite hymn (). And we make our circle. Song we shall overcome.And the our Amens. And then Happy Birthday to Cara.  

Marsha has brought a fresh-baked apple pie to celebrate Cara’a birthday. Its melt in your mouth warm This is one of her gifts. Lilly and Samantha lead us  into organizing our Sandy relief supplies...It’s a good way to end this day at West-Park....