Living in coronavirusworld 187: Give to God what is God....and Columbus Day thoughts

 

10/12

fall....

Columbus Day.

As we begin Bible Study, I share a few thoughts on Columbus Day. It has become increasingly politically correct to refer to the day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. I’m checking out pictures from Pittsburgh where the Schenley Park Columbus statue has been shrink wrapped in plastic to be ready to be removed and replaced in a private Italian community location. I recall being in Parana, Argentina where a rediscovered forgotten Afro-Argentinian neighborhood has become the center of an annual anti-Columbus Day indigenous festival with music and dance from the many cultures that make up South America.I remember being in Central America where this day is known  as el dia de la raza…the day of the race…celebration of el encuentro, or the encounter of Europeans and the indigenous people of this hemisphere.The vast majority of South Americans are mestizos, a mix of Spanish and native. The masses of campesinos see this encuentro as what created them as a people. I can tell Michael was  getting anxious and defensive about Columbus and can feel him relax as I speak of the complicated nature of the conversation. I also recall how we now know that many of those who accompanied  Columbus and the later conquistadores were Marranos, Jews who had converted to Christianity as a way to avoid the 1492 expulsion. And how today New Mexican families are rediscovering their Jewish roots. And also  that the Columbus celebrations  were a way for Italian  immigrants to claim  their place in the American cultural landscape in the midst of prejudice and exclusion. Yeah, it’s complicated. 

The world is a richer place for el encuentro. And for all our intermixing. The world is better off with African-Americans and their gifts.And the mestizo peoples of South America.  I have thought that this was all inevitable. Despite all that came with it. But I have been  rethinking that. We could have had the rich interweaving without the accompanying genocide. Like how we now believe that the so-called lost colonists of Roanoke Colony , Virgina actually joined their Croatan neighbors when their English colleagues were so delayed in returning. Learned new customs and foods and intermarried, just became one people.It could have gone like that and still produce the richness we have inherited. Like the Silk Road in Asia. Stretched out across an ocean. Let’s keep the conversation going. And see what we can learn.

Tonight we’re looking at the continued controversy between Jesus and the Jewish authorities. It’s the famous “paying taxes” question found in Matthew 22: 15-21. (And Mark 12: 13-17 and Luke 20: 21-26.) Pharisees and Herodians have come together to lay a rhetorical trap for Jesus. On first reading, Marsha says it “looks like he dodged a bullet.” Michael sees Jesus as making a point about “….reality, the way things are, God and Caesar with get theirs. After all, the Romans are providing roads and other infrastructural benefits”…. Leila says “You can’t buy your way into heaven.” And Amber Lee sees something about the nature of buying into a system of money. ( We also take a moment to wish her a happy Canadian Thanksgiving, Canada’s creative to the Columbus conundrum.)

The Herodians and Pharisees ask Jesus if paying taxes to Rome is “lawful” (Jewishly speaking.) The census tax is highly rented by the occupied Jewish community. If he says “lawful” they will feel he has betrayed them. If he says not lawful, the Romans can accuse him of sedition. He asks to see a coin and says “Give to Caesar what s Caesars and unto God what is God’s.”  Traditionally, this has been seen as Jesus taking a middle path that provides approval of Christians supporting civil authorities. But actually, that is out of character with Jesus’s teachings and lifestyle related to religious, social and economic issues.

What’s going on here? First of all, this is san unlikely coalition. The only thing Pharisees and Herodians had in common was wanting to get rid of Jesus . Pharisees were those who believed God did not five in the Temple but in the Torah and wherever God;s word was, God was. Herodians were followers and supporters of the Roman installed ethnarch Herod, who served as king at their indulgence. And it  was Herod who had built the Temple whose last remaining Western Wall is so beloved today. (This is the only place in the Gospels the word Herodians appears.) The key to Jesus response is Psalm 24:1 : “ …the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and all who live in it…”. All of it is God’s. But there’s a trickier reality here. Something I haven’t noticed in 40 years of Bible study. He asked to see a coin. The coin  has Caesar’s image on it. The whole reason there were money changers in the Temple for Jesus to drive  out was because the Roman coins were forbidden in the temple. They had  to be exchanged for Temple moneys  as it were. So Jesus’ opponent are exposed in having carried  forbidden coins into the temple. His answer is actually radical. In essence he says, You belong to God or you belong to  Caesar. One or the other. And you have already chosen. 

Those  seek to be his followers today in our own world have to make the same choices ourselves. What does our checkbook say about who we are? What if that were our biography? How do we spend our time? Our gifts? It is all God’s. We are, as we saw last week, all tenants. We are called to be stewards of God’s creation. We cannot own it. We must care for it. And for all who live in it.  The existential realities of that are hard on 2020. But the choice is there to be made. As Election Day grows ever closer…to whom do we belong?

Test question

10/7

Welcome Evgeny

Today is a very special day in the life of Beverley Church. For the first time in many years, they are welcoming a new member. Evgeny came first as a handyman but was attracted to the fellowship and has decided to become a member. And this is an occasion for celebration!

But first, my reflection for the day....

It's good to be back, and as always, there's a lot going on. Today is Worldwide Communion Sunday which means when we break bread together later today that we will doing so at the same time with brothers and sisters all around the globe. That's a powerful thought...to be part of a worldwide family of followers of Christ with a loaf that symbolizes one true loaf and  a cup that is our common shared cup. 

We also have another holiday weekend. Columbus Day Weekend to be exact. We've travelled a long way from when I was a kid and we were taught in school" in fourteen hundred and ninety two Columbus sailed the ocean blue....":
* He never actually set foot on this continent.
* Turns out he was not a very nice guy, to say the least
* This was not in fact India and the people who lived here were not Indians but they've been stuck with that ever since 
* Though this week I saw the "Israel Unite in Christ" people out on Lexington and 116th and following up on one of their fliers discovered that on subsequent voyages that  Columbus actually did think  he had discovered the "12 lost tribes of Israel"

Israel Unite in Christ

* And Columbus' discovery would eventually lead to a genocide of native peoples in this hemisphere..
* Last year when I was in Argentina, there was an alternative celebration held in a recently discovered historic black neighborhood featuring indigenous people and their music and dance 

Anti-Columbus Day celebration, Parana, Argentina

Not "discovered"

* But in Central America when I was there, the day was celebrated as "el encuentro...el dia de la raza.." The vast majority of Central American peasants are mestizo...mixed native and European a direct result of Columbus' visit...
SO it is complicated.....and Italians are none too happy about all of this..

And we've lived though a very rough and divisive week...like which week isn't?  Where it seems like the Republicans wanted Kavanagh approved just out of spite and we wind up with a President mocking a woman who had been abused. A shameful action in what has been a shameless administration. It is depressing....

So what's happening with Jesus this week? Looks like he's being examined by hostile conservatives determined to make him look bad. With test questions...

Starting with a question about divorce. And his answer is hard....
 "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 7'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

It is for this reason the Catholic church has never allowed divorce. And for most of our history our own Presbyterian church wouldn't accept a divorced pastor. Nor our country a divorced President. It was really seen as wrong...But what was Jesus really saying? If you look closely, the way the divorce has worked was that a man could get a certificate of divorce for his wife. She would have no recourse or defense. A man...and not a woman. And if a woman wanted out and the man disagreed, he could hold her in bondage forever. 

And in Jesus' society, divorced women were the most vulnerable, as vulnerable as widows.  Jesus' hard line here is not standing up for an institution, marriage, it's standing up for vulnerable women.  You don't have to ask where he would be. He'd be side by side with Christine Blasey Ford...and every woman who's ever been abused. That's what this verse means and what Jesus means.

Therefore it makes perfect sense that the next topic to come up for Jesus in this passage is children..because his disciples are discouraging their presence. In his society, children were only slightly less vulnerable than women. But beyond their vulnerability, there's something else about them....the way they receive the kingdom...and when I try to understand this, I think of my grandson, y'all know what I'm talking about....the way he looks at the world....that sense of awe and wonder like a very special gift is   being opened just for him.  That's how Jesus wants us to receive the kingdom...not like a careful rule book, not as a disciplinary measure...but as a truly awesome beautiful reality. 

How do you think Jesus feels bout this? Last week the NewYork Times reported:
In shelters from Kansas to New York, hundreds of migrant children have been roused in the middle of the night in recent weeks and loaded onto buses with backpacks and snacks for a cross-country journey to their new home: a barren tent city on a sprawling patch of desert in West Texas.

Until now, most undocumented children being held by federal immigration authorities had been housed in private foster homes or shelters, sleeping two or three to a room. They received formal schooling and regular visits with legal representatives assigned to their immigration cases.

Friends ...this is our country...this is our government...Jesus is in those tents with those children....

Take a look at the Jesus we meet today under hostile questions meant to test him. He takes us away from debates about  doctrine or rules to compassion for the vulnerable...and if he is with them, he is surely here with us...

Let us allow him to show us where and how we need to be. And live in the confidence that  he will be with us as we respond...

Following the sermon, we officially welcome Evgeny as a member of the church.  It turns out that even though he had grown up in the Soviet Union, his grandmother had secretly had him baptized. We go through the reaffirmation of baptism liturgy and welcome him as a member, including the laying on of hands. Following communion, Evgeny goes downstairs to finish preparations for the celebratory feast he has prepared. And for a final benediction, I she these words from Lutheran Pastor Anna Blaedel:

blessed are you who are raging. 
blessed are you who are mourning. 
blessed are you who feel numb. 
blessed are you who feel sick. and tired. and sick and tired.
blessed are you who refuse to turn away.
blessed are you who need to turn away. 
blessed are you who keep breathing deep. 
blessed are you who are tending to your own needs. blessed are you who are tending to the needs of another.
blessed are you who have been calling. 
blessed are you who have been organizing.
blessed are you who have been testifying. 
blessed are you who have been hearing. 
blessed are you who have been resisting.
blessed are you who feel broken open beyond repair. blessed are you who are raw beyond words.
blessed are you who are working hotlines and crisis care centers and bearing witness to the forces of violence and trauma unleashed and unloosed. 
blessed are you who are marching. 
blessed are you who are weeping.
blessed are you who preach and know that divinity resides in despised, abused, violated flesh. 
blessed are you who know deep in your bones that you are good. and beautiful. and beloved. and sacred. and worthy. and believed. and held. and capable of healing.
beyond your wildest imagination. 
blessed are you who remind others they are good. and beautiful. and beloved. and sacred. and worthy. and believed. and held. and capable of healing beyond their wildest imagination.
blessed are we when we dare to dream of a world without sexual violence, without white supremacy, without misogyny, without police brutality, without anti-trans and anti-queer violence.
blessed are we when we stay tender. 
blessed are we when we stay fierce. 
blessed are we when we dare to imagine repair, and transformation. 
blessed are we when we labor together to make it so.

Then we go downstairs to celebrate with a classic Russian feast including just a touch of коньяк. It has been a very beautiful day.

Celebrating

Welcome Evgeny

2Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" 3He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" 4They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her." 5But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 7'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

10Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

13People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." 16And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

El encuentro

10/14

Sean. Back again. Not prepared to deal with this yet.

It’s the Columbus Day Holiday. Not for me. in the progressive world, there’s this high minded effort to change this to indigenous people's day. I get that. Columbus was the beginning of the imperial conquest of this hemisphere. In places like Puerto Rico, entire native populations like the Tainos were wiped out, just gone. 

However, it’s more complicated than that. During the years I worked in Central America, the peasants, the campesinos, referred to this day as el dia de la raza, the day of the race. And also as el encuentro, the encounter. When Europe encountered America. And a whole new race, a whole new people was born. The vast majority of Latin American peasants, campesinos, are mestizo. Oppressed by the Ladinos, the so called limpieza de sangre, pure blood, who in truth are not, but so the line is drawn. In many cases, the tainos and so many other indigenous peoples live on in  today’s campesinos mestizos. So you can’t ignore them in this discussion. El encuentro makes a lot of sense, no matter how it came about, a new reality was brought into being. You can’t roll that back.

Carman Moore comes in with posters for his weekend festival. Marc is getting ready to record him.

Sean is still there. I ask him his plan. He seems asleep. I’ve got other things  to deal with.

Like the bald man, who excuse the analogy, looks like the old guy on the back in the day Uncle Ben’s Rice box. Only mean. He’s on the steps with a load of cardboard. Stephen asks him to leave. He does so. And the cardboard is left behind. 

After a late appearance at 78 Below, I’m back to the church. A couple is constructing some kind of shelter in the 86th Street door. I say excuse me, you can’t block the door. There’s a white guy, sloppy heavy and long haired. An attractive blond woman. Ain’t this a church? he says. I get so tired of this. Yes...I say, so...

You know, sanctuary, whoever, whenever?

Yeah, but you can’t block the door. 

So we know what kind of church you are.

Just sayin’, can’t block the door..you try out front, I think there’s a space there...

Nothin’ but niggers there, man, you think I want my girl raped? Ah, so that’s where this is going.

I point to the side. Not sleeping there, says the blond.

I go back inside. Stephen’s there. We open the door together. What are you lookin’ at? says the blond, don’t look at us...makes me uncomfortable.

Ah, he gets off on it,says the guy.

I should just let it pass, but I respond. No...I...don’t...I’m responsible. All I said was don’t block the door...

Jesus. You talk about Jesus. I guess Jesus did me a solid tonight. Yeah, Jesus..

Just sayin’, don’t block the door.

Oh yeah? We’re leavin’. Jesus. Jesus..... And as they start down the street, he turns around and says over his shoulder, Jesus can suck my girlfriend’s dick. And I just stare. Can’t even begin to exegete that one.

Just then Jeremy wheels up on his bike. Everything OK? And I tell him the story of the bad couple. He looks at me. Shrugs his shoulders. Long night of rehearsal. Was going to come down to 78 Below. Didn’t. 

Peace, Jeremy.

And he’s off again on his bike. 

It’s enough. Enough.