Sixth Sunday in Easter: Every day is Judgment Day

5/29

Andre’s there waiting for me when I arrive.

Razor blades. That’s new. AA batteries. Empty food containers. Ketchup packets. A man’s denim shirt. A jacket. A Lord and Taylor’s shopping bag. A red shopping cart with bottles and cans and a woman’s boot. The other boot. A broken Presidente beer bottle, that’d  be a Dominican beer. And around the corner, a Gordon’s gin bottle. No vodka today. 

Luis and Alma arrive. Then  Amy. Amy and Andre begin to practice. 

I start at 11.  Talk to the kids about Memorial Day.  We thank the soldiers for what they did for us, they say. I ask how many had parents, relatives who served in World War II. Most hands go up. Arcadia reads the gospel, Andre chants the psalm and we respond. And I read Acts 17:  22-31. And pull up a stool. I need to go back to last week. The end of the world. Judgment Day.  Did you think about it? For how long?  It’s there at the end of the passage, but who did?

I joke that when I couldn’t reach Amy’s cell last week, I thought that she might  have made it. Amy said that all the kids at school were buzzing. Luis’ father was worried. He told him not to. Andre said that we always have to be ready. Some  paid it no mind. Hope said it was about relationship. And I said that yes, some of my colleagues said that it was about Jesus’ life judging ours....in righteousness. That we measure against that life. Always comes up short. And Andre said, isn’t that what grace is about? And I said for sure. And that’s what sets us apart from Baptists and Free Church people. We don’t make decisions for Christ. That was already done for us. Even our capacity to commit, a function of grace. And we never know. Not really. Never have the full mind of God. Adam’s desire. The first sin. To claim to have God’s knowledge. 

But there is judgment at the end of this passage. We’ll get back there.

So we’ll take a look at Paul’s sermon. What’s Paul  up to here? Who is he preaching to?  The Athenians. He respects them, honors their traditions, what they hold sacred, speaks their language....and then...uses the opening of the unnamed God to get his message across.

To an unknown God...that’s us...groping...in the dark....trying to find....maybe not even far...perhaps so close we can’t see...

It has implications for multiculturalism, inclusion. Like Belhar. Our differences are both an obligation and an opportunity. It also means taking serioiusly what it means to live across the street from Matt Damon and three blocks from public housing projects. And I recall the other warm night’s impromptu do wop concert.  We have to learn to speak to both. We need both...to not only survive but to grow.

So Paul says that God has fixed a day...Well,  it wasn’t  last week, but when? October?  That’s the new date. (I hope it’s after our  gala, says Marsha.) There has been mad weird weather lately....

So we are to be judged in righteousness....Calvin said, God does not leave us to an untimely end...

And I circle back to Memorial Day. Our family tradition of visiting the cemetery. Every Memorial  Day raises questions...why do they die? I remember my uncle. The Navy paid him to go to medical school. Served  in World War II. Married a Quaker. As the Korean War went on, it didn’t seem right. He’d paid his obligation. Asked to be discharged by reason of conscience. And eventually succeeded. When the Vietnam War loomed for me, his example inspired, informed our family conversations. 

And here it is. For the men and women in Afghanistan, Iraq and...every day is Judgment Day, the potential end of the world, for them, for those who love them. And still, it is the poor who go to die for others. Those who make the policy decisions. They need to be honored. Special stars and stripes baseball hats on big league teams tomorrow is not enough. They can’t remain on the periphery of our  awareness. We are responsible to hold our leaders accountable. 

Every day is judgment day.

                                        * * * * 

At the end of the service,we sing Happy Birthday to Andre. And Luis and Alma tell us it is their 40th anniversary. They remember, recall, describe that day in this very place 40 years ago. We gather in a circle around them. Bless them with prayer. And I reflect on 40 years worth of shared love. 

                                          * * * * 

Another street festival. One block over on Broadway. I walk up and down the blocks.  How many chicken on a stick/gyros booths can there be? Like last week only one block over. It's street fair season...... Hang out in the Safe Haven basketball booth, passing out fliers. Spend time at Counclmember Brewer’s booth. Go to the performance stage on 86th to pass out fliers. This is so not my gift, working the crowds, so counterintuitive. . 

My friend Matt is playing. An older/ageless/toothless hippie/homeless woman is twirling in time, ribbon sin her braided flying hair. Deadhead style. A short older guy, bearded, leathered, equally toothless dances with her, pulls out his harmonica, plays along. Disappears. Leave her twirling alone.

I’m passing out fliers. My wife Andrea, her sister Susan just back form the Brooklyn Flea stop by. And Katherine, just back from Portland. I need to ask Matt for help on my concerts. I’m passing  out fliers. It’s sunny and hot....

Fifth Sunday in Easter: The world didn't end and there was a street festival

5/23

OK. We’re still here. It’s not clear to me who’s not, but it looks like judgment day or the rapture or the end of the world didn’t come.  We’ve got work to do.

Amsterdam Avenue is closed to traffic for the annual street festival. Walking down to church, booths are being set up. Sunglasses, socks and underwear, silk rugs, t-shirts, hats, newspapers, banks, politicians, corn dogs, Thai food, kebabs, lemonade, mozareppas, falafels, pulled pork, pizza, local restaurants with their specialities, a micro brew festival, shooting baskets for stuffed animals, a crazy quilt of the unique and local and the banal that just shifts from street to street as the summer street festival season marches along. And West-Park. 

As I near the church, Luis is getting the tent set up. We’ll have clothing, women’s self development projects, jewelry from Africa made from coke cans, Andrea’s mother’s pottery, brownies, cupcakes and lemonade, like a miniature version of the whole festival. And fliers for our concerts. 

street festival

Schatzie the Butcher is setting up his famous dirty brisket   stand. I stop by Barney’s for my coffee. Happy street festival day, I say to Gary. I hate it, just hate it, he says. An anthropomorphic pizza slice is walking up and down in  front of the church: 3 dollar pizza, pepperoni, cheese... 

I invite those not actually working inside for worship. Start with the fact that we’re still here. The world didn’t end. Asked if anyone had noticed anyone gone?

Explained how it had been a tough week in our life. The AC.Presbytery. The lawyer crisis. A lot going on...the festival, a softball game, the Presbyterian Welcome celebration of the end of official discrimination against lgbtq people in our church. 

How resurrection living is a way...What are we talking about? A lot about stones today. One of my friends wanted to use the title everybody must get stoned....well...

The stoning of Steven.  Was this really what  he was supposed to have accomplished?  What do we actually believe? When a friend’s mother died, her neighbor Rabbi Jeremy, said he saw no honor in suffering. And that death sucks, no way around it, just sucks. I remember Pablo Richard. How he said that his problem with North American Christians is that we  go to the happy ending too quickly. Have to allow ourselves to experience the pain just as it is and let it be. 

Living stones. Back in the ‘80‘s when I went to Israel/Palestine, you could take one of three trips: the we made the desert bloom Israeli trip, the oppressed Palestinian trip or the sacred stones trip. One Jewish friend said of a church itinerary, but you won’t see any living Jews. Another friend  responded, you won’t see any living anybody.  When I first met Palestinian Christians, , they said, you come to see sacred stones and miss the living stones...living stones..People love our stones, but the stones are not the church. We are the living stones. 

John 14: 6 is usuallly funeral passage...I used it at a funeral just a few weeks ago..

How does it preach as a  living passage?

The first pastor I worked with, my mentor and friend, Bill Wiseman, said that when  he was a young evangelical, he saw the Jesus in this passage as a stopper...a traffic cop with a stop sign, you have to say the right password., believe the right thing, claim the right doctrine to get in. But as he got older, he saw a Jesus with open arms..opening the door, welcoming all....

Resurrection living , Christian  life is not about doctrine or right words.. It is about being...it is a path....

I remember Silence, the amazing novel by Shushaku Endo. The young Portuguese missionary who goes to Japan, anxious to suffer for the Lord, believing that then he will finally hear not silence, but the voice of God, the voice  of Jesus. He rejoices when he is captured, ready to embrace torture. Ready to offer himself. And then discovers that his torture  is that Japanese Christians will be tortured until he gives up the faith, tramples on the image if Jesus, publicly renounces. Finally, the disappeared priest he had come to find comes to visit him. You did not come here so that they should suffer for your faith, he says, you came to die for them. So then the young man knows what he must do. With heart breaking, he steps on the image of Christ, renounces the faith. Then at that very moment, Jesus speaks to him, Now you understand, he says, to give up even what is most dear to you...for the sake of others...When I read  that, I finally understood how John14:6 is the TRUTH. Jesus is the way. A path. Like they said when I first went to Nicaragua, nuestro hermano es el camino a Belen...our brother/sister  is the road to Bethlehem . 

Like Jesus says that you can see the father in him, we need to see the face of God in one another, and show the face of Christ to those we encounter..see all the images of God assembled here, we say...the living stones...

We finish the service. Go out to work the street fair.  Danielle and I running back and forth to the copy shop to get fliers for the concert series. Issues with layout. Printing. Delays.   Amanda and I go to talk to Councilmember Gale Brewer about the concerts, fundraising. It’s been a year since the landmarking decision. We pause to get Amelia a kebab, meat on a stick. 

amelia

The cold damp day keeps the crowd down. (When will it be warm?) We sell some things. Talk to some people. Pass out some fliers. 

I try one of Schatzie’s dirty brisket sandwiches. Working on anew neighbor relationship here. The softball players have left and returned. Another loss. But at least no mercy rule this time. Steven says we’re starting  to come around. My friends Beppe and Liljana stop by.  One of the marshals comes by to remind us we have to be off the street by six. It’s been a long day.

Leila and Marsha 

Lily