Living in coronavirusworld 223: Advent 3

 

12/6

Barawine on Malcolm X

125th Street

selling trees

State Office Building Tree

outdoor heat lamps

ATLAH's latest

new shelters

home communion

Cold wet day. Still walk to  the Farmers Market. And a long walk through Harlem. The streets decorated for Christmas. The tree sale stands. New outdoor shelter for restaurants looking hard to distinguish from cabins. Covidwise, are they really any different from being inside only colder? Other restaurants installing outdoor heat lamps.  And a giant tree at the Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. State Office Building.  And the latest declaration from ATLAH Church. Somehow they remind me of a Giuliani election hearing witness. Christmas in. Harlem.

12/6

This morning preaching for the Beverley Congregation of Brooklyn.  Here’s what I had to say:

A lot has happened since last we were together. That long awaited election finally came …and is finally over…well, pretty much…We’ve had  a new spike with the virus. And I have to tell you..it’s been hard. I’ve lost three people I cared about in the last three weeks. And that has left me feeling sad…and angry.  Sad at the loss. And angry that it is all so unnecessary. We have government officials in Washington, DC throwing holiday parties with hundreds of unmasked guests. And somehow public health and common sense have become political issues. It is simply crazy.  That vaccine can’t come soon enough. We’ve been through Thanksgiving and now we’re all trying to figure out Christmas. It’s a holiday season like no other we’ve ever experienced. And last week, Advent began. 

In normal times, there’s hustle and bustle and packed stores and streets events to go to and music everywhere. And church was where we would come to find peace and quiet and time to reflect. A place of refuge. A sanctuary. Now we don’t have a place. Not a place to decorate and to sit in and to be together. But we still have a space…a space in time, This hour on Sunday mornings to hear each others’ voices and to see each other in our minds’ eyes and to gather what we need to make it through another week in coronavirusworld.  We are preparing ourselves fo celebrate the incarnation, the indwelling, God’s decision to come be with us in human form. To be present in our midst.

The comic book superheroes like Batman and Superman and Black Panther all come to us with what they call “origin stories.”  How they came to be who they are. In the Bible, we get our “super hero” origin story. And each one is different. Matthew and Luke give us “magic baby”stories, Luke with shepherds and Matthew with wise kings. We mash them all together but each story is unique. John brings us a cosmic Christ who swoops down from heaven like Kal-El from krypton to stay for awhile before returning. SO what does Mark give us?  Now this is hard, really hard, but I want you to imagine for a moment that the Gospel of Mark was the only story of Jesus you had. NO virgin birth. No shepherds or sheep or wisemen or camels or genealogies or carpenter fathers or that dramatic Radio City Music Hall final scene with live animals processing down the aisles.

All the icons of Christmas we have come to know and love that define Christmas. Just Mark. 

What does Mark give us? Mark is crisp and clean and everything happens “suddenly. I’ve seen the whole gospel performed twice as a monologue...it takes about an hour and a half to recite. And, well, it’s subversive from the start, the very first sentence is loaded…The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.[a]. Now that sounds like Bible talk to us, but in those days, around 70 CE, people would hear it differently. The word 'gospel’ or “good news” was used for proclamations about Roman victories. The word Christ is not a last name. It means “anointed” one, like conquering generals in their laurel wreaths. And that phrase, “son of God,” was applied to the Roman emperor. For Mark it is not a biological or genealogical expression, it is an honorific expression describing one who is obedient to God. 

Written in the time of open revolt against Roman rule, any Roman finding Mark would see this as seditious literature. It is an announcement that for those who love God, the emperor is an illegitimate authority, military victories are “fake news.” We are to be  introduced to a conquering hero whose victory story ends in a cross. 

But first, there’s my favorite character, John the Baptist, introduced as the forerunner, a messenger like the one described in Isaiah. Words you can’t read without hearing Handel and his messiah or even Godspell. (They’re part of it now, they can’t be unheard.) And here comes John.  In other gospels, he is the son of Zecahriah, a high priest of the temple, a tall steeple preacher’s son the son  of an AME Bishop. Who like a sixties hippie or radical leaves the city and goes out to the country and starts growing his hair. Actually, in John’s appearance and diet he is made to call to mind Eijah, the forerunner, the one who comes before the Messiah or Messianic redemption.  And he  even says so. And he’s also like an Old Testament nazarite who takes a special vow to avoid alcohol and not cut his hair.Like Samson. Like you can almost see him in his camels skins and leather and dusty dreadlocks. 

And what is he doing? He is preaching “repentance for sins.”  His baptism is like the flowing healing waters of the Jewish mikvah.  He is in his own way, saying our hierarchy, religious establishment, is so corrupt, that the only thing left  is to go out to the wilderness, where we as a people were born, and  get reborn, start all  over again.  And since he’s rooted in Isaiah, it's just not individua sin but corporate sin, rebellious turning from the ways of God that weakens a society so the that can  fall apart and be taken into exile. Certainly we’ve seen parts of our own establishment churches (and megachurches) get so caught up with power structures this they are inseparable. If we take Mark’s announcement seriously, no matter who wins the election no matter who is in charge, we are called to hold them accountable because no leader, no political party can ever be the expression of the full will of God. And our ultimate loyalty must always lie elsewhere. Where? The gospel of Jesus Christ, son of God. 

And so here comes Jesus. Like a mystery man from out of nowhere. In Mark’s Gospel, he will be revealed to us as each page is turned. He appears like someone  who has heard reports of John and has to find out for himself.  No back story. In the other gospels, they are cousins. But here, no relationship. And if you read closely, John doesn’t even recognize Jesus. 

SO what does this mean for us this Advent? Mark was writing for a community under the heel of the Roman Empire. And likening it to being in Babylonian exile. Like we sing every Advent, “O come o Come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel. That mourns in lonely exile here. Until the son of man appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel." 

Many times in these last over almost 9 months, we have felt  in exile. Confined to our homes, cut off from friends and families and people we love. My mom in her assisted care facility completely isolated. I haven’t seen my grandchildren in over a year. Captive Israel indeed!  So into this captivity, this exile we are inviting Emmanuel, God with us, to come to us, to be with us. The thing is, he’s been here with is all alogn, He’s never not been  with us. My challenge to you is to meet the Jesus of Mark  like one with no back story, as if it's all new. What would that be like, to meet Jesus again, for the first time? John calls us to prepare, to make straight a pathway. And that pathway leads straight to our hearts. Let us open them, and prepare to welcome him in again, like we never have before.  Prepare ye the way of the Lord and Come Emmanuel!

home communion

We once again share our communion, each in our own homes. 

                                                                                                                   ****

In the back and forth dance between the city and its schools, tomorrow two of my family are going back to live teaching. In our weekly analytic/philosophical discussion of Covid, I share that I still have the antibodies.

                                                                                                   

 

Living in coronavirusworld 172: a question of authority

 

9/21

Lives depend on it

Tonight we’re looking at Matthew 21:23-32, which means we’re dealing with the issue of authority. The story begin with Jesus in another confrontation with the religious establishment, “chief priests and elders.” Contextwise, Jesus has just had a triumphant entry into Jerusalem, healing people, children crying out Hosanna and has just disrupted the Temple by turning over tables and chasing out  the money changers. Enough to disturb the peace. Now he’s teaching as if he has authority to do so. Where did he study theology? Where did he get an ordination? From God? From a rabbi? Or on his own? It's a trick question. To answer risks a blasphemy charge.

So Jesus responds with his own question. About John and his baptism. Of God? So why not listen? Or? They know the people are behind John. He’s got the numbers, so to speak. They don’t want to rile the crowds. So they say “Don’t know.” And Jesus responds with the first of four parables. About two sons, one who says he won't do what the father has asked, then changes his mind and does it. The other says he will, and then does nothing. Who did the father’s will? Tax collectors and prostitutes will get in first.

On first reaction, Marsha doesn’t see a connection. Just another Biblical nonsequetir.  But Amberleigh senses there’s something there.  The question of authority is answered by who gets it. John Wesley said that even when we see the prostitutes and tax collectors get it, we still don’t go in.

I recall that John, by tradition, was a child of the temple. Son of a priest, a tall steeple preacher. Herod, the ethnarch, the local ruler under authority of the Romans, had built the temple. And he built the mikvahs, the ritual baths for purification, to resemble pagan Roman baths. John is so  offended, sees the temple  so corrupt, that the goes out to the wilderness and says, we’ll do it in the river. It’s an act of subversion, of insubordination, what they call in Latin America propaganda of the deed. Jesus is cleary down with John. (John also reminds me of Jay Baker, son of televangelist Jim Baker who with his tattoos and punk vibe, went to the streets and started his own Revolution church.) 

So who are we? What authority do we have? One thing is clear: empty yeses are broken promises. It is God who shakes up our understanding of God, the demon that keeps us stuck in the status quo.  In looking at these conversations, we recall Voltaire who said a person is judged by their questions, not theie answers. From PostChrisitan comes this question: “If you could completely realize the mission of [your] congregation today, here, and now, but in order to do it, you’d have to close the doors of [your] church and walk away forever, would you do it?”( p. 197) Would we leave our temple and head out to the wilderness? 

Prostitutes and tax collectors get it. And will get in first. The moral and social outcasts. (Remebering that the author of Matthew was by tradition a tax collector himself. For the religious establishment, it would be better to not come in at all than to follow these outcasts. Jesus is saying  that authority is established by what you see. Changed lives.In her new book, Sanctuary, Being Christian in the wake of Trump, my friend Heidi Neumark recalls a memorial service for sex workers who had died during the year. Candle wax dripped on the communion table from the memorial candles. She decided the wax should remain, an expression of what the table really means.

Counter culture

We talk about authority. In churches, the culture is as important as the polity. Real authority may lie outside the elected leadership. Marsha knows that the work of community organizing is uncovering leaders. As my mentor Philip Newell once told me, leaders are people who have followers. Structural authority, cognitive authority over against organic, intrinsic, authority. Control over the act of freeing, of liberation. Marsha has a deep love of Wagner’s Ring Cycle ( as far as Wagner goes, the truth and beauty of the art us stronger than the weakness of the artist.) For her, the moral of the Ring is the Power of Love over the love of power as Wotan sacrifices his authority to free humans from the gods. It has been a very good conversation. Especially as we all stare into the face of growing authoritarian power. The  church must stand with John and Jesus, a counter culture to empire.

9/22

make it clear

My friend Rabbi Steve calls. We meet in the patio garden of Double Dutch Coffee. The weather is a cool and sunny September day. It would be perfect except…hey, we’ll take it. It’s hard to get past the daily anxiety. As if the election were not enough, we’ve now got the Supreme Court crisis as the President  and his congress push to get a nomination through before he election. It will take for republicans to sated against their reversal of the precedent they set when they refused to allow Obama to make his appointment in his last year establishing a new precedent as they called it. “You can use my words against me” said Lindsey Graham. Well….here we are. Fires, hurricanes, floods. People facing off with guns. Nature in revolt. Zombies would not surprise me. Things families can longer talk  about. And no confidence the election can resolve anything. The Covid death toll in the US has now reached 200000. Like the entire population of Akron, Ohio or Des Moines, Iowa or Spokane , Washington pr Richmond, Virginia; just gone. In such a time how do we celebrate Rosh Ha Shana? Yom Kippur? The days of awe?

A good day for a long walk. Afternoon drinks  with good friends. Breathe, just breathe.