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.

Hegemony How-To: a review

3/17

A Review

Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals

A review by Robert Brashear

As one who was profoundly occupied by the Occupy movement, both literally and figuratively for years, I jumped in to Jonathan Matthew Smucker’s Hegemony How-To…with great anticipation.  The book is both a critical analysis of that moment in US social history and also a valuable road map to organizing for broad based social change. For those of us who not only want to imagine a better world but actually help create it, this book is a very valuable tool. More explicitly, for those who understand that we must not only remove a President but an entire infrastructure that runs through the cabinet and congress, this may be the most important book you may read right now. 

First, the word hegemony has for most of us negative connotations.  While I suspect Smucker is being playfully provocative, for him in this book, hegemony is defined as  leadership or predominant influences exercised by one group within national, regions or local political spheres. For those of us who are experienced in classical community organizing, Smucker provides a potential bridge from the local to the national. And therein is the value.  Smucker’s analysis comes not only from a close look at Occupy, but at the 60’s movements Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). 

As a trained organizer, Smucker begins with stating the importance of power. He reminds us, that as Dr. King said, …power is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose…and that the refusal to use power is both political suicide and the abdication of moral responsibility.. He likewise makes us take a closer look at coercion as an appropriate tool, rightly pointing out that from strikes to community organization actions, change is achieved through coercion. What is critical is the content and practice of that coercion. 

Smucker also critiques the idea of the righteous few, that is the tendency towards insularity and self-selection that can lead inevitably to encapsulation, e.g., how SDS ultimately left behind the thousands who were being attracted to it and morphed into the Weather Underground. At less dramatic levels, progressives can be drawn towards that same tendency, viewing ourselves as the righteous few. 

What is missed is Pablo Freire’s  question: What can we do now in order to do tomorrow what we cannot do today? Or the responsibility to improve real people’s lives, mitigate real suffering and oppression in the here and now.. (That debate that we engaged in around Bernie vs. Hilary vs. non-participation. A debate that now feels like a luxury.)  That responsibility is the main motivator of most organizers I know. 

Smucker appropriately points out the difference in tasks of achieving moral legitimacy vs. political legitimacy, the symbolic contest vs. the institutional contest. For example, Occupy succeeded in winning the symbolic contest by introducing the inclusive concept of the 99%. A potentially large we. The political opportunity, the potential to realize actual institutional change was squandered. 

To build real power, it is necessary to move beyond self-selected groups like OWS and learn how to incorporate already existing blocs, as the SCLC did in the Civil  Rights Movement. As Alinskyite like the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) organizations do at the local level by being an organization of organizations. 

It’s also helpful to consider how we recruit people to demonstrations, for example.  Most progressives continue to argue the moral point even with people who already agree with them. The most important question get me to show up is what will  be  accomplished? Most of us have the 3-6 people who if they ask us to show up we’ll be there,no questions asked, because we know they will never waste our time as we will  not waste their’s. An organizer needs credibility on the outcomes side. Moral Mondays works because it’s moral grounding has actual political demands. It also works because MM shares a common moral language with the North Carolina legislature.

The leads to a conversation about shaping the meta narrative, or put another way, shaping what is understood to be, what Smucker calls  common sense. The everybody knows…Smucker looks at this as an achievable task. There is a spectrum of positions related to what is important to us: active opposition, passive opposition, neutrality, passive support, active support. The goal is to, through the use of dialogue and conversation, not debate, seek to find common  moral values, getting someone to shift just one position to the left on the spectrum. That is enough to bring about meaningful change. It’s what Smucker calls narrative insurgency, changing the narrative, the common sense,  from the inside out. 

As many progressives have come from a post-modern philosophical perspective, Smucker raises a caution as to the problems in finding moral common ground in a post-modern society. (That’s what makes New York a more complicated environment than North Carolina for a Moral Mondays type movement to be effective.) 

Related to OWS, Smucker believes that the allergy to leadership and refusal to be political along with its paralyzing commitment to hyper-democratic concensus decision-making were fatal flaws. I would, for the  most part, agree. 

Smucker connects the emergence of OWS to the preceding anti-World Trade Organization protests, the Battle of Seattle, etc. And that is his background. But there were other streams as well, e.g., disaffected Obama campaign volunteers who felt their hope betrayed and brought passion and highly developed social media skills with them. There was always a constant tension between anarchist and movement politics that became paralyzing, in my observation.  (I continue to be curious as to how the Occupy culture came to be. Who proposed the working groups, spokescouncil structure, facilitation methods, etc? That will be someone else’s book…)

Likewise, I have tended to be defensive about the accepted wisdom that OWS was a failure. I sincerely appreciate Smucker’s assessment that changing the common sense around income inequality was a significant victory. His critiques are equally valid. But I would add what is not so directly visible:

1. The radical success of Occupy Sandy that will have long term political effects in Staten Island and Rockaway 
2. Occupiers who remained and embedded themselves in New York City politics and had a real impact on City Council elections.
3. OWS veterans providing broad based logistical support for the Climate Change march. 
4. OWS veterans providing logistical support for Black Lives Matter 
5. OWS veterans in the heart of the Bernie Sanders campaign                                                                           There is a through line there that can’t be ignored. We are at a moment when a broad based national movement not only to resist but to reshape and reform needs to come into being. In that regard I appreciate his criticism of the word activist. It is a contentless word describing activity, not commitment.  What is clear  is that a class of professional activists…and accompanying 501c3’s… has emerged whose livelihood depends on  the continuation of their own issue situation within a system of dominance and privilege, i.e. the status quo. We need to ask what churches, and/or communities of faithful resistance, are called to be and do. What we need are values driven communities of mutual accountability and commitment that can begin the organizing work. Jonathan Smucker has given us a valuable tool for that project.

Who's in charge? ( We were robbed...)

9/28/14

John, our substitute pianist while Jeremy is on tour in Europe, is in the sanctuary going over the morning’s music. Deacon James is getting  things set up. A well dressed man comes up to me and asks if I remember him. I know what his is a prelude to. It’s a well developed strategy to ask to speak to the pastor 15 minutes before the service. You know he doesn’t have much time  to get into  a detailed discussion. He tells me he’s got a job. Just needs money for his transportation until his first pay check.  There’s no way I can do that, tell him, but I do wind up emptying my pockets and giving him everything I have.

I go back to see John, to review some music, anxious about the time, not checking to see if I’ve locked the door. A young man enters the sanctuary. Clean. Well dressed. With a large bag.Tells me he’s from the coffees hop across the street (the Bean) and has some food they want to get rid of well before the expiration date. Can we help get it to the poor? I’m pressed for time, just say Yes. Turn back to the pianist.

And then go back to my office only to discover our laptop is gone. I can’t believe it. But yes, it’s gone. We check the bag the young man dropped. It’s not from the Bean, It’s from the CVS garbage pile. It’s all CVS food. I’ve been played. Sort of sets me off bad for the Sunday. Which is too bad because Rachel has brought her niece Sandy and Anna has brought a whole family. People anxious to hear the Good News. And I’ve just been robbed. And it’s half my fault for not checking the door.

Theft or not, we got to have church. Our theme today is a Strong community knows who’s in charge. And our scripture is MATTHEW 21:23-32.Where when Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?.

Jesus then says to them,  I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. ²⁵Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, If we say,‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, Why then did you not believe him? ²⁶But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” ²⁷So they answered Jesus, We do not know. And he said to them, Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

And as is his custom, he follows that up with a parable:

²⁸What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, Son, go and work in the vineyard today. ²⁹He answered, I will not; but later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, I go, sir; but he did not go. ³¹Which of the two did the will of his father? They said, The first. Jesus said to them, Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. ³²For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

I talk about how we in seminary get trained in the institutions of the church, but no the culture of the church. In every community there sit hag person or persons who’s approval is necessary before any major decision can be made. It’s classic community organizing training: Find  out who the authorities are. So I ask everyone to pair up with someone they don’t know so well. And I ask the question, Who are the authorities in your life? This is CO 101 one on ones…

The answers are not necessarily what I expect. I expect to hear a spiritual answer. What I hear is this : A lot of people hear the voice of their mother, or father. Or an old teacher. For me it’s my father.  For him it was the Rotary 4 way test:

1.Is it the TRUTH?

2.            Is it FAIR to all concerned?

3.            Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

4.            Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

As opposed to other Rotarians I knew, my father took this seriously. Truly applied it to most every decision he made. Stephen knows this. And Marsha, who was a Rotarian girl, knows it too.

And also, Ray Swartzbach, my campus minister. I hear his voice. And my mentors Philip Newell and Rodney Martin. I feel I owe them. And ultimately, Jesus. That cliche question, WWJD, what would Jesus do? That’s the bottom line.

When I look at the scriptures, here’s what I see:

* Jesus, who’s being gamed by the authorities, flips the game back. The answer to your question is in what you see. If you can see what I’m doing, you know by whose authority.

* The parable also makes it clear that what we do matters more than what we say….and finally,

* We might find some surprising allies along the way.

Which for me means that everything we do as a community must have the same clear message. If you see what we’re doing, you know who we are.

And inspired by my friend Kristen Leigh, it's Jesus that makes it radical. That is, the community I want to create is rooted in Jesus. Not defined by any particular theology or beliefs. I really could care. But by what we do. A path we follow. This is our bottom line commitment: to follow Jesus as best we can, helping each other along the way.

We finish by singing Pete’s Where have all the flowers gone? Which in light of the Climate march, has added meaning…

Much of the post worship conversation has to do with the robbery. Thanks to Stephen W our data is backed up. And thanks to Danielle, we’ve got our serial number info. The police report will be that  much easier.

And then the session agrees to put forth Anna as a new member next week…

Straightening  this all out tomorrow  will  be a drag…to say the least…

Religious but not spiritual

9/3

When I go to open the door, the lost patrol is blocking it. When I get it open Marsha is trying to figure out how to get through the patrol into the church. Joe is saying I should have told him. We have a conversation. Telling  me how he had to drive away people being disrespectful in the middle of the night, getting ready to pee and shit and stuff. I tell Joe, easy solution, I’l just post no trespassing and tell the precinct and that will be that. He tells me he’s got an appointment later that day, going to get it together. Marsha is starting to sweep. A sketchy white guy takes the broom, begins to clean.

Marsha goes to Barney Greengrass to get coffee. And bagels. We’re waiting for Michael, the new Manhattan Together organizer from Industrial Areas Foundation. He’s 45 minutes late. That’s not IAF.

He’s young. Got the IAF organizer rap down. Currently working on pubic housing, issues related to seniors (great success with the Duane Reade senior friendly drug store program) and public safety. We talk about West-Park and organizing. How we we were  founders of IAF in the neighborhood. And provided the first home. And how the church itself needs reorganized. He’s willing to help.

When he leaves, Marsha and I reflect. How the Jewish congregtions  continue to explode in the neighbothood. How for us Christians, it’s different. In a time when people see themselves as spiritual but not religious, Marsha warms my heart by describing herself as religious but not spiritual. What is spiritual?

I talk bout the power that sustains black churches, the gay community. The spirituality born from struggle. And what is our struggle? she asks.

As we talk about it, we realize that we all do struggle. For most of us, it’s facing how life hasn’t turned out the way we expected. If we’re honest about it. Can we be honest about it? But we here have persevered against all odds. What have we learned from that? What we can we share? Can we be open with one another?

I try not to notice Sean on 86th Street again. He’s killing me. I get him coffee. And a bow tie sweet roll. (Didn’t have cinnamon buns.) Clean clothes from his bag. Water. 

Hours later, he’s still there. Danielle speaks to him. He gets, we’ll say, defensive. But when I get back form my appointments, he’s gone. Half of his stuff here.

RL says that trying to keep helping someone who doesn’t want it doesn’t help anyone. Not him, not me, not the church. I agree, recalling that the golden rule of community organizing is never do for someone what they can do for themselves. To keep helping where it isn’t accepted in a meaningful way is ultimately enabling, as they say. 

Well, OK then. Damn angels unaware.

July 4th weekend: reflections on nation and church

7/7

Cara  joined the church today

It’s been hot. Very hot. The kind of heat where you walk around with a constant light layer of uncomfortable sweat, clothes sticking to you. Starting to get to people.

I’m disheartened to see all the doorways filled. Guys, it’s after 10. I need to get these doors open. Sunday morning. Church. You know? They begin to stir. I walk around the corner to go in the side door. And there’s Sean.

Sean....

I know, I know. Just help me, OK?

So  help him gather up his stuff. Help him into the wheelchair. Get his backpack on the back of the chair. Help him pick up his stray items. He’s thirsty. I get him a Red Bull. Soon he’s on his way. The yellow gloves will come later. 

I’m doing all the set up by myself again. Go down the street to get what I need for communion. Rob comes in to get the broom and dust pan. Cara’s now here. Strikes up a conversation. Done my share of sweeping myself, she says just like meditation....as Rob sweeps.

I’ve put on a day’s work by the time church is ready to start. We’ve got to figure this out. 

I start out playing Wade in the water with Marc. 

Wade in the water

Wade in the water 

Children wade, in the water

God's gonna trouble the water

Who's that young girl dressed in red

Wade in the water

Must be the children that Moses led

God's gonna trouble the water

[Chorus:]

Wade in the water, wade in the water children

Wade in the water,

God's gonna trouble the water

Who's that young girl dressed in white

Wade in the water

Must be the children of the Israelite

Oh, God's gonna trouble the water

[Chorus:]

Who's that young girl dressed in blue

Wade in the water

Must be the children that's coming through,

God's gonna trouble the water, yeah

[Chorus:]

You don't believe I've been redeemed,

Wade in the water

Just so the whole lake goes looking for me

God's gonna trouble the water

We sit in a circle. Share our prayers. Read our scriptures. 

As usual, there’s a lot to talk about. This is the weekend of July 4th. Usually a time for me to share a reflection on the nation. Reinhold Niebuhr (120th Street at Broadway is now named for him, he was many years at Union)  used to say we need to preach with the newspaper in one hand and Bible in the other. There’s plenty to attract our attention...countries in turmoil.. A tumultuous Middle East.. especially Egypt. Revelations about the ever increasing secret powers of the NSA. And out west, wildfires spreading like, well, wildfire....

But I’m drawn to two articles...One is from last Sunday’s New York Times Op Ed page, the gospel according to me....(http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/29/the-gospel-according-to-me/) It basically argues that our focus is now on well being, inwardness instead of meaning from some kind of collective project.

The unintended byproduct of the liberation movements of the 60s  -70s  was an increasing obsession with self defined by unbridled acquisitiveness, IE, you are what you possess.

It’s been 13 years since the publication of Bowling Alone  ... Since then we’ve seen a steady decline of social capital....break down of community.Of the sense of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone) That is who we are as followers of the Reformed tradition. 

And today, an article about class war in the skies..

(http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/class-struggle-in-the-sky/)...have you flown

anywhere lately? Noticed the difference between our side and the other side of the curtain? What used to be  luxury experience for everyone is now super luxury for a few, and bottom of the boat steerage class for the rest of us. (For a satiric look at this, see Pedro Almodovar’s I’m So Excited where all of the hordes in steerage have been drugged to manage the stress of economy class syndrome, something any of us who fly are familiar with.  

This is the context within which we look at the church. We seem to be in  a day and time where the church as we knew it is all but dead, as my pastor friend Elise and I were talking about it yesterday. 

Our Presbyterian churches tend to be small. Three-fourths (76 percent) have 200 or fewer members. The average, or mean, size of a Presbyterian church is 180 members. The median size is 89.Eight in ten (81 percent) have 250 or fewer members. More than half (54 percent) have 100 or fewer. (Data from PCUSA.org.)

Our scriptures today suggest some clues. In Luke 10:1-12, we find a strategy.

Jesus sends out 70. Two by two, no one can go alone. As Jesus says the harvest is plentiful, laborers few (don’t we know it)  and that we must ask The Lord for laborers...

What’s at work here is radical discipleship. What is it? The young adults say they’re not sure but they know it when they see it...

Back to Strategy:

The workers are sent out nearly without resources to show that you have to win the confidence of those you go out to so that they will support you. You are to  Remain in the house,.....where you have been received, not run about from place to place, home to home. If you have found a  genuinely compassionate person, that is a good place to begin As we know from organizing, you have to stay long enough to develop core leaders.

We are to eat what is before you, that is to be accepting of the culture and gifts of those we go out to. 

And when you are rejected, Shake  off the dust from your feet... meaning know when to leave, know when to stop beating your head against the wall.

(The lectionary creators carefully excluded verse 12 where Jesus says that for those who show no welcome, no hospitality, it will be worse for them than Sodom showing clearly Biblically, and especially for Jesus, the sin of Sodom was refusal to grant hospitality and abuse of strangers, absolutely NOT same sex love...Thus our old friend and prophet Howard Warren could rightly proclaim those who reject the lgbtq community to be the true Sodomites)

When the apostles come back with their stories of success, Jesus said he saw Satan falling from heaven like lightning, .....that means the  power  of Satan , the accuser...that internal voice of criticism that drags us down and prevents us from being who we are created to be is defeated once and for all. 

In Galatians 6: 1-16, we also find helpful counsel. When someone has broken faith with the community or fallen short, we are to act with gentle compassionate correction. And avoid being tempted. Meaning I suppose the temptation to condemn or think ourselves better than.

Or perhaps it is to avoid being taken under ourselves. I remember my summer intern years ago in Tulsa who felt he was called to minister to dancers in a strip club. When the owner of the club called me to say he was concerned about my intern, who seemed to have  fallen  in love, I told him he had to be clear which part of himself was responding to what call. 

We are to  bear one another's burdens BUT all must carry their own loads. If we each carry our own loads, helping one another will be no difficult task. I love community organizing at least in part because of its golden rule as per Sol Alinsky: never do for anyone what they can do for themselves. Not charity (doing for), ideology (thinking for) or advocacy (speaking for) but building a strong community, an organization capable of shifting and changing and adapting because it is built on sustainable relationships...

As Paul says, you reap what you sow. It took me awhile to figure out what Paul’s flesh talk was all about. It’s not our natural response of the senses but self absorption. Preoccupation with self.

We are called to work for the good of all, especially the family of faith.

On the one hand we need to be aware of and respond to needs we that perceive to be in the culture, like the need to feel  authentic and connected. BUT....I see us called to be a counterculture. One where we celebrate the  good of the whole, the beauty and value of relationship, community.

Of a God that actually demands something of us, of a faith practice that expects something and a membership that means something...more than vague self oriented spirituality. Someone says, but if you make it too hard, people won’t join. And I say, we don’t ask enough. People want to know that it is important to us, that it matters. that is where we will begin to begin again.  

Today our new Deacon John and new Elder Don assist in serving our communion.

Then Elder Leila presents Cara as one who has requested to become a member of the church. And we heartily welcome her. 

We sing the old hymn of welcome Blessed be the Tie that binds then finish with I’ve got peace like a river. Another good Sunday.

Then back into the heat. 

We will end the holiday weekend serving at the shelter at SPSA. Kate has a wonderful meal planned. My recipe for pulled pork.