Wild Goose 2: What if we only had 5 years?

7/14

Rev. Barber wakes us up

Wild Goose:2

From inside my tent I hear the wake up music from the main stage. It’s the unmistakable bluesy growl and rolling keyboard line of The Rev. Vince Anderson.

Rev. Vince Anderson

(More about Vince later.)

I get up, go to the Desanka tent to grab an oatmeal and coffee  and then to the main stage.

There to wake us up in more ways than one is the Rev. William Barber from North Carolina. Founder of the Moral Mondays movement and now Repairers of the Breach (http://www.breachrepairers.org/) and planning a new Poor People’s Campaign. Barber as always is in his red and black clerics, complete with a red stole (usually signifying the presence of the Holy Spirit) as if to proclaim every public prophetic witness is a liturgical event.

It seems to be Barber’s moment now as commentators compare him to Martin  Luther King, Jr. much to the concern of some of his friends. It’s a heavy—and dangerous — mantle to carry. We don’t need another King, they say. A Barber is enough. 

Today he wants to tell us what time it is. But before he gets there, he’s got a litany of what time it is not….

To name a few:

• It’s not the time of Trump. We were facing the evils of white privilege and racism; police violence, mass incarceration and gentrification long before Trump.
• It’s not the time of Russia. Our elections were hacked by acts of voter suppression and race based gerrymandering to deny black votes long before Russia hacked in.
• It’s not the time  of white working class deplorables. The majority of Trump voters were upper income , those who benefit from his policies. The white working class are victims of economic exploitation as well with whiteness used a means of dividing natural allies and diverting class struggle.

SO what time is it?  The voice echoes and booms…it’s movement time! It’s moment time!  It’s movement time!

……

Barber also reported a visit by African American pastors to try and find common ground with Franklin Graham, who makes his father Billy look like a flaming liberal. Of course he served us fried chicken and watermelon, he said. 

….… 

Jim Wallis of Sojourners is next up. He’s currently been portrayed by the New York Times as the godfather of the progressive Christian movement and it’s “inside man.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/us/politics/politics-religion-liberal-william-barber.html) More than anything Wallis has served as bridge between the evangelical world and the world of mainline liberal protestantism. The Times article didn’t seem to get that many of the “liberals” they were lifting up are actually progressive prophetic evangelicals. Wallis is very clear that the single most important issue for us to be working in right now is white privilege. 

….

What followed was an all star panel of Nadia Bolz-Weber, Michael Waters and Doug Pagitt. 

Round table conversation

Last night Nadia had described a t-shirt that proclaimed   " Radical protestants: nailing shit to church doors since 1517.” She had described repentance as the “freedom from thinking the same over and over and over again.” That our sense of sin keeps us in shame. To which she says, remorse, yes, shame no. Our jagged edges connect us to each other and to God. 

Today Nadia reminds us that its the work of pastors to preach the gospel, administer the sacraments and proclaim the forgiveness of sins. She refers to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and asks us to think about what it would be like if our churches only had 5 years to live.

We could give it all away. 

We could be free people 

Christ came to set us free. 

Free people are forgiven people.

Forgiveness of sins is REAL.

Free to speak truth to stupid.

What if we only had 5years?

……

I go to catch Rev. Vince Anderson’s set in the Cafe. 

Russ Jennings and Rev. Vince

I first encounters him when I was on the Great Open Mic Tour of 2015 and we landed at Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn. (https://www.facebook.com/Rev-Vince-Anderson-and-his-Love-Choir-74494194069/) Are you here for church? they asked. I looked in. Saw this bear of a man in a Hawaiian shirt and white Panama hat. Turns out it was Rev. Vince and his Barstool Tabernacle. Which I learned was the successor to Jay Bakker’s Revolution church.  (Vince’s Barstool has now been folded into the Bushwick Abbey (https://bushwickabbey.wordpress.com/) where he directs music) You hear traces of Tom Waits in his music well as a bit of Randy Newman and Dr. John but his style of dirty gospel is all his own.  He shares with us music from his new psalms project. After his set, Kristen Leigh and I spend some time talking with him. Maybe we could put together a whole tent next year?

Robert Brashear and Rev. Vince

………..

Podcast guru Tripp Fuller leads a conversation at the Seminary Happy Hour asking us to ask ourselves three questions about our seminary education:

1. 1. What was our ‘Oh shit!” (or 'Oh Schnikies”) moments when we realized everything we knew was about too come undone. 
2. 2. What was the “MMMMM yes, but not quite enough” moment..and
3. What was the “I may not know for sure but I'm putting my stake in the ground here” moment?

………..

The Goosecast tent hosts an everchanging eclectic collection of podcasts. Like Matt Inman’s “Ineffciency” (http://www.inefficiencypodcast.com/)  celebrating the value and importance of inefficiency in experiences and relationships and use of time.

"Inefficiencies"

Or Carla Ewart of Holy Writ(https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/holy-writ-podcast/id1205352786?mt=2) interviewing Tina Schermer Sellers author of Sex and the Conservative Church.

Tina Schermer Sellers and Carla Ewart

In their conversation, the two women explored the damage done by the (so-called) Purity Movement and Ms. Sellers’ work bringing a Biblically based sex positive perspective to evangelicals.

The day ended with the Brew Theology crew:Ryan Miller, Janel Apps Ramsey, Shane Oram and Andy Millman. (https://brewtheology.podbean.com/ ) They shared their stories and how Brew theology works, meaningful conversations…and beer. The casual relationship with beer, so much a part of this scene, i snot without deeper implications. Janel, for example, speaks of being seventh generation Nazarene and deciding to leave the denomination rather than live hypocritically. Each person’s journey has its own unique marks. 

The Brew Theology crew

……

An important discovery  is the Desanka Diner tent.  Taking its name from an African word meaning Joy, Contentment and Pleasure, the Desanka community provides an invaluable service by providing simple free food every day for Goose volunteers and everyone else. A simple act of hospitality that makes thew Goose possible for many and opens tables for unexpected conversations. So a hearty thanks to Desanka (http://www.desankaspirit.net/blog)…..

My favorite concert of the festival is Friday night with David Wimbish and the Collection.

David Wimbish and the Collection

They have a special place in my heart since the band spent a night at West Parka couple of years  back following a concert at the Rockwood Music Hall celebrating their Ars Moriendi album. Th next day, they had vehicle issues so they spent the day hanging out and playing music in different configurations throughout our church. I was impressed that so many musoicians would come together to help bring David's music to life. Their music is carries the indie vibe of Mumford, Sufjan Stevens, Fleet Foxes etc. with its own unique orchestral flourishes. The music is also driving and infectious and explores issues of mortality, spirituality and young adult angst. When I first saw them there were at least a dozen musicians with multiple horns and other instruments.  Tonight’s Collection includes in addition to the standard rock lineup a  harmonium and one horn player. With a larger stage and fewer musicians, the players jump around the stage with a punk sensibility. Although as Kristen Leigh says, in North Carolina, genre boundaries are more fluid. Songs from  the new album “Listen to the River”are featured and the music satisfies, intelligent, creative and catchy. (https://thecollection.bandcamp.com/) 

After show conversation

The Collection

David and his new partner join us at our table and we talk about music and intentional communities. “How great thou art” resounds form the Beer and Hymns tent….

Advent 2: Lobsters in the desert

12/8

It’s the second Sunday in Advent. I begin by playing a recording  of Lo How a Rose e’er Blooming. (Es is ein ros)Talk about how the old German song was the framing  device for Bread and Puppet’s Shatterer…This week as we light our candles, we sing  two verses of Barbara Lundblad’s new  version of O Come O come, emmanuel…

O come, o come Immanuel                                                                                                                                        

And bless each place your people dwell

Melt ev’ry weapon crafted for war

Bring peace upon the earth for evermore

Rejoice, rejoice! Take heart and do not fear,

God’s chosen one, Immanuel, draws near.

O come green shoot of Jesse, free

Your people from despair and apathy

Forge justice for the poor and meek

Grant safety for the young ones and the weak.

Rejoice, rejoice! Take heart and do not fear,

God’s chosen one, Immanuel, draws near.

And the theme for this week is hope….

Our first scripture is ISAIAH 11:1-10. We reflect on what’s being said. That the stump is like a cut off tree. A tree taken for dead. And a sprig of new life is bursting forth. (Like breaking through the concrete) I also pass around a copy of one  of Jonathan Hicks’ Peaceable Kingdom paintings. Remembering my cousin’s Pennsylvania Quaker meeting house with several of these. How I love the big, dumb, simple animals living in harmony. And beyond the Isaiahan vision imagery, in a Pennsylvania landscape, William Penn and friends meeting with Native Americans. I always wished I could enter into one of those paintings. A world to live in. Or into.

                                         The Peaceable Kingdom

(Although one of our members was particularly attracted to …with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked….5)

For me, it’s  ..They will not hurt or destroy 
on all my holy mountain 8 and that it is a universal vision not just for  a particular people.      

Romans picks up the theme of hope: ¹³May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we talk about how hope is not optimism. Optimism is believing that every day in every way everything is getting better and better. On the other hand, Hope, as Jim Wallis has said, is believing in spite of  the evidence and having the courage to work to make the evidence change.

And so, as it is his week, we end with MATTHEW 3:1-12 and John the Baptist. That child of privilege, who left the tall steeple if the temple and his establishment family for  the wilderness. And that what it was about, the baptizing, was a radical critique of the state of the religious establishment that had gone in to collaboration with the occupying colonial power. That even the temple’s purifying baths, built by Herod were modeled on Roman baths. So the only appropriate action was the act of conversion, re-conversion, by entering into the ever flowing  waters of the Jordan.

His clothing  and dress like an Elijah. And his diet, locusts and wild honey, the simplest. (Although as Arcadia and John R pointed out, the Spanish reads langostas, IE, lobsters…lobsters and wild honey. And we realize that lobsters and locusts are equally non-kosher.)

And that repentance means turning around, going in  a different direction.

So why does he attack the scribes and pharisees?

You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸Bear fruit worthy of repentance

Is that any way to build a congregation? Is he questioning why they are there? Are they sincere? Or on a reconnaissance mission out to gather evidence? Like  when Homeland Security told me that they had intel embedded in West-Park’s Occupy contingent?

He is clear that being children of Abraham is nothing to be proud of. (like those who say..I’m proud to be a real American…) and that

God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 

And then he gets seriously radical:

Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

¹¹“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹²His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

John’s expectation of the messiah is clear: It’s easy to see ourselves as the wheat and we know exactly who the chaff are and that they are about to get their just deserts. It’s the French Revolution. Frantz Fanon's  Wretched of the Earth. The Chinese Cultural Revolution.

But here is the truth: we all have wheat and chaff within us. The purpose of this season, this preparation is to find the chaff within ourselves and offer it up. Repentance. Turning around. Dealing with our own chaff.

We end with the canto de esperanza:

Dios de la esperanza danos gozo y paz! Al mundo en crisis habla tu verdad. Dios de la justicia mandanos tu luz,luz y esperanza en la oscuridad. Oremos por la paz, cantemos de tu amor, Luchemos por la paz, fieles a ti, Senor.

….fighting for the peace, faithful to you…

From Isaiah to John the Baptist to this Argentine folk song…fitting words for the Sunday following the death of Nelson Mandela. The work is still unfinished. But we sing a song of hope.