That was then

5/30

Ft. Scott Presbyterian Church

The youth group from Ft. Scott and their pastor Jared Witt are here waiting for me when I arrive. Jared was a colleague trying to build a start up church a few years ago. Along with a vision of a contemporary urban monastery and craft micro-brewery, like the medieval monks. I thought our basement would have made the perfect location.

I start by asking them about where they live. A small town an hour south of Kansas City. Pretty rural. Stagnant economy. Meth wars. Church small, building about the same age as ours. But larger. And not many youth.

Then I take them for an interpretive walk around the block. Showing them how to read an urban neighborhood, our neighborhood. About changes you can see and not see. What your eyes can tell you about who lives there. Income levels. Religions. What’s it meant to see exotic avian hospitals, wild bird rescue centers and check cashing places, Greek diners and yuppie restaurants, public housing and doorman buildings all around the same block?

Then we return to the church and I share our social and religious history. They’re happy to learn about how God’s Love We Deliver, began at West-Park since they’re going there to volunteer tomorrow.

I talk to them about a holistic video of ministry where there is no division between evangelism and social justice, where they are seamlessly connected. Of the connections between beauty and justice, ethics and aesthetics.

I get them set up  to do sweeping and cleaning  of the steps and outdoor policing the area before I have to run to make a noontime rally in front of the governor's office  the shameful inadequacy of his minimum wage proposal.

On my way back, I’m reflecting on my interview with the WBAI reporter. (to hear the interview on this story, go to http://www.wbai.org/articles.php?article=1209 ) Long story short: she lives across the  street in the Belnord. One of those throwbacks to the days when the city joked about the Peoples' Republic of the Upper West Side. Or that when the  Berlin wall fell, there were more communists on the Upper West side than in East Berlin. The Belnord continues to house the publisher of a long term leftist journal and the last of a generation  of activists, planners of the 1983 march against nuclear proliferation  mostly  octogenarians now. The former labor leaders who moved uptown to establish a more middle class life are increasingly replaced by young families and new wealth celebrities like Matt Damon. The nearby streets on weekends experience stroller gridlock. Such is gentrification on the Upper West Side. 

When I come back, there’s only  a short time before I need to head to 475 Riverside for  meeting and ultimately down to St. PAul’s Chapel where we’ll elevate the 25th anniversary of the 200 day occupation of City Hall Park but homeless, the so-called Kochville. The founding of the Interfaith Assembly in Housing and Homelessness by my predecessor Bob Davidson, the heroic priest and activist Daniel Berrigan and the prophet of Argentina’s dirty war, Rabbi Marshall Meyer.

Karen comes in to offer us maintenance products like those she supplies to other nearby buildings . And to play the piano and fill the walls with  her music. 

A long night is ahead.

To lean more about Kochville and the homeless occupation, see John Jiler's Sleeping with the Mayor (http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/28/reviews/970928.28purnict.html

The arrest and trial of Jesus, part 1

3/18

Visited by Ann, Michelle and Graham, three representatives of a production?installation performance? called the Ascent. Having had a trial run at a Brooklyn warehouse, they’re ready for a bigger go. It involves brain waves and hoists and I’m not sure what else. They examine every inch of the church.Ann had been here for the Tenant, felt this would be the perfect place. The possible loss of control over much of the church house makes me bite my lip. We’ll see what they propose. 

Stephen takes them on a tour of the premises while he leaves behind a young man he has just met, Alexander. Dressed a bit, well, Victorian. But intrigued by our organ, anxious to volunteer. Fresh from  Mexico City. A composer with lots of ideas. Letting the space speak to him. Wanting others to discover the space as he did on his search for me. As I listen to him play, I realize that he can actually read music. So many who play here do so wonderfully, but but by ear and  feel. 

Almost time for the Center board meeting. The weather is starting to go bad. We get caught up with where we are in our negotiations. Ted lays out financial realities moving forward. We turn to a discussion of programming for the first time in months. There is a glimmer of light flickering. 

Tonight’s Bible study covers the arrest and trial of Jesus. (Mark 14:43-15:21) We notice a number of things:

• Jesus is betrayed by an intimate act: a kiss
• a bystander attacks a slave with a sword. This means there were more there than the disciples and that they had come armed, expecting a uprising
• Jesus does not criticize the bystander, only those who seize him. They come under cover of night and seize him with excessive force when they could have picked him up anytime in the temple
• There is a strange cameo by a young man in white linen who winds up naked. Is this about vulnerability? Exposure? Keep an eye on this character

Trail before the Sanhedrin:

• It’s improper from the get go. It’s Passover. It’s night. These officials should be at home. They cannot do anything legal at night. 
• They’ve lined up false witnesses, but they can’t agree. 
• His saying that he would destroy the Temple in three days and rebuild it with his own hand is a political issue, not a religious issue. It threatens the whole power system of the temple. They are right to perceive it as a threat. So would most of Jerusalem, even all the workers employed in Herod’s building projects, including the temple. Almost everyone has a stake in the existing system.
• Jesus’ silence connects with the image of the suffering servant in Isaiah
• The chief priest’s question about  Jesus saying that he is the Messiah, even Son of God, is not in itself blasphemous. Any king or royal pretender could claim this.
• Jesus answers in terms of being the Human One, the One who comes to judge. Now the line has been crossed. He has condemned himself by his own words. 
• Still the Sanhedrin only has the power allowed it by Rome. They cannot exercise capital punishment without Roman consent. Jesus will not be stoned to death but crucified.
• The soldiers mock Jesus, taunting him (see Palm 22). Telling him to prophesy. Their actions are an enactment of prophesy.
• Everyone has fled. The discipleship project has collapsed.

In between is Peter’s denial. He must have remembered his promise and followed at a distance. But he gives in to fear. His accent, from Galilee, gives him away. So he denies. Denies. And vehemently denies. The cock crows. he cries. Mark draws us to him. Wants us to feel that. The rock has crumbled.

Trial before Pilate:

• No record of Passover amnesties.But all kind of prisoner exchanges, deals. 
• Pilate questions him about being an ethnic leader, King of the Jews, not king of  Israel. And all Jesus says is You said it. All kinds of charges. No plea bargaining. (Too late for that.) The silence of Jesus amazes Pilate.
• He offers the crowd a choice between Jesus and Barabbas (Son of the father.) Barabbas is a guerrilla assassin, a terrorist.A threat to Rome, not the Temple. The Barabbas movement is restorationist, not transformational.
• The chief priests stir up the crowd. The crowd calls out for Barabbas. And to crucify Jesus. The language is like that of demon possession. Perhaps it’s just what happens in a crowd when mob mentality takes over. Perhaps as Marsha says, they want the devil they know, not this strange one whose disciples have all deserted him. At this point Jesus is completely, absolutely alone. 
• It’s not the crowd, the Jews, who do Jesus in. Pilate is at every turn completely in control. With the collaboration of the Temple establishment who will do everything they can to keep their privilege. In the Roman colonial system, to  sentence Jesus to crucifixion is to brand him an insurrectionist. 
• A second mocking scene. Jesus stripped naked. Exposed. Humiliated. Twice. Carried out by lower level colonial occupying soldiers. Like lower level police who have to be the front line. It’s festival time. More angry people around. Tensions high. They take their frustrations out on Jesus.

And so it is. An age old story. So many things come  to mind. 

• Guantanamo. Abu Ghraib. 
• We think of the dirty war in Argentina. Rabbi Marshall Meyer, who later rebirthed our neighbor B’Nai Jeshurun, demanding information on los desaparecidos, the disappeared ones. And when no answer came, stripping naked in the police office. Weren’t you scared? People later asked. I was scared shitless, he replied. But he did it.

I’m willing to keep an open mind on the new pope, Francis. He is a Jesuit. St. Francis is a good model. I’m willing to believe that he did not actually aide the junta in Argentina. And that maybe he even helped people behind the scenes. But he never raised a voice. Stood naked in front of power. We’ll see. 

Hope asks why Marshall’s story isn’t more widely known. I ask,how many remember Andrew Goodman, who lived next door? Only half the people around the table know. Cara wasn’t even born. Andrew who lived next door. Went to Mississippi in 1964 with the Freedom Riders to work for voting rights. Along with Schwerner and Cheney, arrested then virtually turned over by the police to the Klan. Who lynched them. And today, 49 years later, the Goodman Foundation has to fight all over again to protect the voting rights Andrew died for as Republicans seek to turn back the clock. The trial continues.

Thirty-second day of Lent: Nothing Biblical

4/14

Norm, Hope and I meet to to go further with the archives. Hope’s unopened bag and the bag I picked up at Jim’s office on the way here are like bags of unopened Christmas presents. With no other place to work, we gather around the communion table, put what we’ve got down to look at.

It’s a impressive array of stuff, that’s for sure. Old hand written deeds. personal letters. Tintypes, kodak polaroids, examples from the whole history of photography. Lists, records, marriages, baptisms. Blueprints, planned renovations that never took place. A letter of dismissal. The Peacemonger Press. Christmas cards. Unsorted, random. History in our hands. This is being destroyed just by our touching it, says Norm as we go through papers from the 19th Century. 

Norm has a sense of what we have. he needs some color things. Some things  that attract attention. Tell a story. We’ll have to look for those. 

When Hope and I go outside, Marty is there. On the steps. Writing in an notebook.                                           “Hey Marty, what are you up to?” “Nothing Biblical, I assure you. My shopping lists, et cetera.” 

Hope says, “You moved,” gesturing across the street. 

“Too hot over there,” he says, "Monday it was near 80, today, ah, 65? I’m looking to live on the median...” 

We close up. That’s all for now. Later I meet Mim with a friend  from Bank Street, the teacher’s college. We give her a tour. She talks about an exciting film program involving kids and their own neighborhoods and video. Like Paolo Freire’s work with cameras. Where people become the subject of their own history. Take back control of their own lives. Our guest smiles when I mention Freire. Of course, she says.

On the one hand, it’s an exciting opportunity. On the other, I am tired of opportunities. I want to see something real. We shake hands. Agree to talk further. 

We go back outside. In the sun. Marc Greenburg of the Interfaith Assembly is there on 86th.  Knocking at the door. Pushing the buzzer. We go for coffee and popovers. History. The Assembly was started by three giants, Father Daniel Berrigan, Rabbi Marshall Meyer and the Rev. Bob Davidson, my predecessor. Formed to respond to the 200 day homeless sleep-in vigil in City Hall Park. Marc has been the only Director. And I am now the President. Part of our legacy. And present. Each year there’s  a  convocation, march, sleepover and morning meeting with elected officials around the budget and the homeless. A liturgy of remembrance and presence.  Turning the Park and the street into what Bill Tripp would call Ritual Space. We finish our conversation.

Time to go work on the budget.