Third Sunday in Easter: Breakfast on the beach. And in the sacntuary

4/14

Kimberley leading worsip

Kimberley is leading worship today. She’s got something different in store. The front of the sanctuary is filled with tables. And she’s brought donuts and coffee. Two interesting visitors: Adona, a young  woman from Poland. And Joe from San Francisco, a member here 30 years ago. Says that West-Park changed his life. As we’re waiting to begin, I do my talk about the socio-architectural history of the church, point to the pictures on the back wall historic display of Bob Davidson, the Pastor back then, and Laura Jervis, his associate, who founded the West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing. 

So we sit at tables, sharing food. As we read the scriptures, we begin with Psalm 30. Kimberley asks us to remember back and talk about what Easter season, spring, meant to us when we were small. I remember the garden tools we received from our parents.The gardens we planted annually behind the chicken coop, in the shade of the apple orchard. The harvest that would come in summer and fall.  Jamie remembers new patent leather shoes. And Pat the year I preached a sermon about planting seeds in Lent, watching them grow during Easter. 

With Acts 9: 1-20, we read of Paul’s Damascus Road experience. And remember our own turn arounds. Unexpected redirections of our lives. For me that was my time in  Tulsa. How much I resisted going there. The last place I ever thought I’d be.And how well that turned out. Maybe the happiest ten years of my work life. Never experienced as much  grace as I  did there. How we need to be open to that.

Finally, as we read the Gospel, John 21: 1-19,  in Spanish and English, the meaning of worshipping like this becomes clear. Jesus on the beach. Waiting or his friends who have gone back to fishing. (And not too successful at that...) How he makes breakfast on the beach for them. I remember St. Peter’s fish in Israel. And I imagine the smell of the broiled fish. And they recognize Jesus in this shared meal. As we encounter one another around these tables. 

There is a sense of warmth and community around our tables.  Adona, who’s returning to Poland tomorrow,tells me how moved she was. How alive, intimate the morning felt. And Joe felt reconnected to an important time in his life.

Our Session meets. Rental proposals to consider. Stephen’s negotiations. And his ideas for future negotiations. Our ongoing big picture negotiations, moving at a glacial, frustrating pace. Remembering that it is Easter, it is spring. 

A woman has come in looking for the 1 PM service. Still up there on the bootleg website we can’t seem to get rid of. I explain. Tell her about what happens at 2 PM. Invite her back for next Sunday.

Sanctuary has begun their afternoon service. Wrapping up some things in my office. Pat and Larry come in. Planning the next phase of office reclamation. Renewal. Recreation. They’ve done a great job so far. Need to get some others to help carry the load.

It is Easter. It is spring. 

Food justice starts at home: the Domino's boycott

4/13

Domino's boycott rally

Arrive at the church late afternoon. The day started well with the Domino's rally, but downhill from there. Missed one letter on my Hop Stop search for an address in Brooklyn looking for a Spanish church in Brooklyn. I knew the address was wrong when the address number was  in the middle of the Gowanus Canal. Needed to be on the other side of Brooklyn. Only way to get there by going back to Union Square in Manhattan. Or a $25 cab ride. Which I did to save time. And wound up at my meeting 2 hours late and just about over. Nothing to do but to head back to Manhattan.

Jerry’s on the steps. I’m worried about him. He’s curled up in  a ball in the corner of the doorway,an empty beer can and a long wet trail down the steps. He hands the cell phone to me. It’s Anthony. Asks abut Jerry. I tell him. Anthony doesn’t sound like he’s dying. Tells me he can’t handle Jerry’s drinking. He can come back when he’s sober.

Jerry’s story is of course different. Anthiny’s diabetes. All the work he does. The ongoing relationship with Blessed Sacrament down the street.  But the point is Jerry, can’t be on  the steps with open containers. 

Then I notice the dozens and dozens of burnt matches. Someone’s been cooking smack. Jerry says it’s not him, and I believe him. He talks about the crowd congregating there at night. I’ll have to talk to Stephen  about this.

Stephen fills me in on what’ been going on while I’ve been gone. The ongoing negotiations between the church and the people from the Red Bull Music Academy bringing a concert with Pantha du Prince to West-Park. Sold out already.  Going to be  a big event. Important to us to bring this off well. I talk to Stephen about the rally. And my fruitless Brooklyn odyssey. And we talk about the steps. Stephen and Martin will handle the concert negotiations. 

Martin and I head to the B. Still trying to find the way to pull this off that is close to the vision. If only the road weren’t so long...

                            * * * * 

What I said at the rally:

A year ago we came together to celebrate, a year of struggle, action and victories. And to push the government to enforce the law against Domino's. My colleague Pastor Heidi were there to celebrate with you. With her classic sense of humor, she suggested that she’d only order Domino's if it came with a topping of justice. 

It wasn’t the first time we spoke about Domino's. Remember when  we stood in the cold freezing rain on 72nd Street? The first time we chanted no justice no pizza?  And how did Domino's respond?

Did they say, OK, we get it, it's time to treat the  workers fairly?

Did they say, we disagree but let's talk?

Did they say, we respect our workers,we want to do this right ? Of course we want to obey the law? 

No...they threatened to sue pastor Heidi  and me. They called out their legal lap dogs. Sent threatening letters....

As if that would work....

Did we back down? Did we keep quiet? Did we say Oh, Domino's is upset,we better be careful?

No ...it only strengthened our resolve to keep fighting side by side with you workers, students, people of faith, politicians and residents, not just for justice for these 74 workers but for ALL workers to live and work with dignity and fairness.

I learned last week in Washington, DC  that the Immokalee tomato growers had won a struggle with Domino's and forced them to honor collective bargaining and sign a fair contract. We can not allow Domino's  to rob one set of workers to reward another group of workers.  Food justice must be carried out at every level: production, distribution, and consumption. If they can do that at the production end, they can do it at the distribution end.....and the way we will do it  is through the consumer end .....we will spread the word, stop buying domino's NOW

Justice for Domino's workers now!

The message is clear: No more profits from exploited workers!

             Our cry is still....no justice, no pizza.

Bob and Hope at Domin's boycott rally 

From other steps: Louisville

4/9-12

Over the years I’ve come to appreciate Louisville on its own terms, though it’s still an unlikely location for the national offices of a church with missions throughout the world. I enjoy my time there.

But this time...the meeting is at a hotel on an island of land in the middle of an industrial park in urban sprawl wasteland. Ten miles from downtown. A thirty dollar cab ride from the airport. I go for a walk and keep running into highways, cul de sacs, strip malls and car dealerships. And under the I64 overpass, I find a homeless encampment of a half dozen or more people in a jumble of sleeping bags, cardboard, aluminum foil and empty 40 bottles. Late morning, people stirring in their bags....

Finally make it back through the maze of highway cloverleafs to the hotel. And hear muzak in all its numbing audible blandness. I am confounded....

                         * * * *

Meeting take aways, after a panel of young adults...

• In the past, the pathway to connecting with a church was believe, belong, behave. Today it’s behave, belong, believe. Doctrine, theology, belief, the least important....doing matters. 
• Young adults will come if something is going on. Something that makes a difference. That has something to do with changing the world, in big or small ways. It’s not music or gimmicks.
• They’re looking for real community. Intergenerational relationships. Mentors. 
• Authenticity is the bottom line.
• People are looking for radical discipleship. What does that mean in any of our settings? They know it when they see it.

One young man says, I’m sick to death of, have no interest in, a sanitized Jesus.....

Give thanks. Always

4/8

Kimberley comes in. We agree the Shakespeare project is too far behind and will have to wait until another year. She’ll be leading worship next Sunday. On Thursday, she’s got a production at Union telling the story of Genesis through Broadway songs. Started as a whimsical idea, now becoming a reality. I want her to do it at West-Park in May. 

A woman comes in, just to look around. Turns out she’s Carmen, who was the administrative assistant to our friend Cornell when he was Stated Clerk of New York City Presbytery. He always stood by us. She’s always wanted to see inside here. She gives her best to Lilly, who also used to work in the Presbytery office.

Cara is teaching a dance lesson to her friend Lynn who is blind. 

Dale is yet another person who always wanted to see inside. He’s quickly joined by others wanting to look around.

Rudolfo is asking for assistance again. He seems tired of the demands of everyday life, trying to keep it together on the upper west side and wants to go back to Cuba. He’s almost too old to find the kind of job he could possibly get. He’s hungry and its too late for the pantry at SPSA. 

On the steps, Jerry is not looking good. Problems with his legs, feet. Hard to walk. His partner Anthony has been taken to the hospital, maybe not to return. Even though they’ve been together for years, they never married or even got a domestic partnership so he’s got no legal claim to their apartment. I feel he should go to Blessed Sacrament where Anthony was a deacon, but he can hardly walk. I’m worried. 

Cowboy Hat is in the chapel, playing the piano. Danielle comes to get me. I tell him he can be in the sanctuary but the rest of the church is off limits. I give him one hour to play the piano, then its Cara’s turn. He must practice, he says,  because what he is playing is sending a cosmic message.

After he leaves, Martin and Stephen show me that he has virtually destroyed our sidewalk gate by jumping up and down on it like a, well, madman. I’m very upset. It’s dangerous. RL had gotten it welded safe and shut. We’re going to have to ban Cowboy Hat Man.

I’m very depressed as time for Bible Study comes by. I’m very happy to see Marsha walk through the door. We decide to look at the other resurrection stories in the Bible and tonight do Matthew (28: 1-20), looking for differences. I begin by explaining that the debate over the  order of the gospels is far from over at this point except that all are literary creations. With different agendas. Matthew wants to connect Jesus with the story of Israel. Perhaps even his gospel is in the form of the  Torah with its own five  divisions or books. 

What do we find different?

• There are cosmic events, two earthquakes, when he dies 27:54, and when the two Marys go to the tomb, 28: 2. It’s only a sentence, but at his death, graves were opened and dead people walked into the city. You’d think that would have  attracted more attention, like the Walking Dead. A sign that the Messianic Age has begun.
• The stone is not already rolled away, an angel rolls it away. Appearing like lightning and dressed in radiant white, like the strange young man in Mark. 
• There are guards this time and they are scared to death. Who wouldn’t be? Why are they there? Clearly there’s a fear that followers will try to steal the body.
• the angel has the same message, Go to Galilee, where he is going before you.
• This time the women not only have fear, but also joy. And Jesus himself appears to them. His first appearance.  And this time they go and actually  speak. They were the first commissioned. The first witnesses. the first evangelists. All uncommon for women who were not even accepted as witnesses in legal cases.  
• The guards go and make a report and are offered money to tell the authorities they fell asleep and that the disciples stole the body. They agree.  Not likely. Like they’re going to admit to their commanders they fell asleep? They hatch a story told until this day. Matthew, writing years later, has to account for why so many did not believe. 
• They meet him in Galilee and worshipped him, though some doubted. Faith and doubt are not mutually exclusive.
• Just like Moses on the mountain, Jesus final words come to them from a mountain. The end of Matthew’s Torah. Jesus’ mission no longer to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, now to all the nations (ethne), all the people everywhere. The pre-crucifixion Jesus was just for Israel, the resurrected Jesus universal. 
• First gospel use of the Trinity formulation, father, son and Holy spirit. (Preceded Matthew by years, already a liturgical formulation.)
• His promise to be with you always is a shift to begin to explain why years layer he still hasn’t come back. 

Matthew has clearly upped the dramatic quotient. I miss the  ambiguity, simplicity, tension of Mark. After our months long journey through Mark, much as I enjoy the compare and contrast, it’s just not as satisfying. It was a good study. But I’m feeling worn out. The madness has gotten tiring. To enter into   it, see the world through those eyes and hold on to your own grip on reality, it’s wearing.

I’ll go off with Stephen and Jay to watch the NCAA final between Louisville and Michigan. I’m very proud of Jay. He’s pulling down A’s at Bronx Community College and has been accepted to Colorado U for the fall. Hopefully Kim Jong-un keeps it together and Jay can go, despite a shift in his reserve status from red to green.  Another successful end to an Occupy story facilitated by Stephen. I have to stop and give thanks for that. Give thanks. Always. 

Second Sunday in Easter: The gates of hell, loosed

4/7

There are those days when the universe just seems to slip out of gear. Today is one of those.

Stephen is practicing today’s hymns as I arrive. Cara arrives shortly thereafter. 

No Andre today. Attendance will be small. Not unusual for the Sunday after Easter. No small rolls at Barney Greengrass today so a bialy will have to do for communion. That’s a new one. 

The two large mirrors that appeared out of nowhere are still against the wall.  

There will be visitors. An Asian man and Kathy and Don, two of Amanda’s friends from Seattle. Don is an artist with a show currently open on Long Island. Cara overjoyed to meet friends of Amanda’s.

Goddess Sculpture by Don Haggerty at the BJ Spoke gallery, Huntingdon, Long Island

Just as we’re beginning, Marc discovers there’s no juice coming to the Zoom recorder so we’re int searching for extension cords, etc. Now we can begin.

Today I’m talking about how Easter is not just a day but a season. Easter continues. Not just one Sunday.  A season. It runs 50 days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost. In this season,we have time to examine evidence concerning the resurrection. And to explore what resurrection living, living resurrection means...

First....the disciples have heard Mary’s testimony,  that she had seen the Lord..but they apparently haven’t believed it because they’re still behind locked doors. ( It says for fear of the Jews....the actual word there  is ioudaiou, literally Judeans...there’s a Galilee/Judean split here...but more accurately, we should say religious authorities, or...well, it’s a problem...but be very clear, it’s not about Jews qua Jews, not our neighbors nor any historic Jewish community...the use of the word Jews in John has been responsible for centuries of anguish and suffering of the innocent...you just can’t read this aloud unless you’re willing to talk about it)

Then...Jesus  suddenly appears...how do they know him? He shows them his hands and side...I want to come back to that...He breathes on them...like the breath of Spirit...the breath that blows across the primordial waters of creation....this is like creation beginning again...this is John’s Pentecost....

Then, the situation with Thomas...the so called doubting Thomas...he won’t believe it til he sees it...until he touches it, feels it ...and so Jesus shows him, invites him to touch...

Jesus shows them...and they believed....the question is, what do we need to believe? For Mary, it was the sound of her name being called in a way no one else could. For these disciples, it was the wounds of Jesus...

This is what I want us to see...it was Jesus’ wounds that made him who he was...identified him....even though he was resurrected, and apparently able to pass through walls...what convinced them was his wounds...

As for  Thomas, he wanted to see ....and touch....the wounds convinced him. His wounds make Jesus who he is. And we who we are. His wounds enable others to believe....and ours? What happens to our wounds?

Henri Nouwen, one of my teachers at Yale,wrote of the wounded healer....that’s us.....our wounds make us who we are, even as we have been healed....

As Henri wrote, 

The man  who articulates the movements of his  inner life, who can give names to his varied experiences, need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering. He is able to create space for Him who heart is greater than his, whose eyes see more than his, and whose hands can heal more than his.

― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

To acknowledge our wounds is not to hold on to them but to allow them to be transformed into the means, the process of our own healing and others...

We do not continue to hold on to them in the identity of victim, but allow ourselves to be transformed...we see Jesus’ wounds in each other...and we see as well  the resurrection...the stories are all around us...

Our wounds make us who we are. But they can be transformed into instruments of healing for ourselves and others. That is one reality of resurrection living.

In closing, this week marked the 45th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr....we need to make sure that his memory is not tamed...that his passion in pursuit of justice continue to transform.....

During my sermon, I hear Christopher come in and walk the length of the balcony and back. I recover from that only to see that the graybearded man in the cowboy hat has entered, raising my anxiety. He does come forward for communion.

We end the service as, always, with our circle.

Cowboy hat disappears. Cara comes up to tell me that he’s smoking something in the men’s room. She wants to be empathetic with him as she with all prime numbers, as she calls them. But....As Stephen and I go to check it out, he’s coming upstairs. I say he’s got to go, he says, I drove the smokers out of here, chief. How can they accuse me of doing what I condemn? Consider the source, chief....He goes outside, circles back around and back in the front.

(What I really want to be doing is talking to Amanda's friends, taking time for them to really understand the church, the Center....but...)

I’m informed he was cooking up smack. The people from sanctuary are starting to arrive. The mirrors are part of a worship set they’re constructing. Cowboy hat is back playing repetitively and intensely on the piano. We’re talking to Sanctuary folk about the mirrors. Someone trying  to enter the church house has been stopped by someone else who is suspicious and protective so that someone is now complaining about the other person who is complaining to me about the other person. Jeffrey from Sanctuary and I are trying to get them outside. 

Sorry. Yes I know. But you can’t talk about that here now.

And the Cowboy hat. And I look up and Rudolfo is standing in the middle aisle with a confused look on his face and Rachelle is on her way in looking for storage space. I have to get out.

I step outside. Stephen follows me. The gates of hell have been loosed, I say. He laughs. And nods. The whole group, cowboy hat and all, are still in the sanctuary buzzing around. Stephen asks, What are we going to do? And I say, the way I see it, it's time for the 2 o’clock service. I’m done.

So we meet to talk about his plans for concert negotiation and other contracts. I look inside the sanctuary, Sanctuary is about to begin. I am going to walk slowly, very slowly, home....

Anything will do

4/6

Have borrowed Rick’s car to take a load of things from my placemto the St. Francis Thrift Shop at Holy Name and church related items to West-Park. Jay and Stephen have come to help.

On the way back to West-Park, I encounter Sean who has moved into Capital Hall. 

Stephen gives me a full run down of the visit yesterday of a 30 member crew who are doing a concert at West-Park in May. A connection back to last year’s Unsound Festival from Krakow. There’s a corporate sponsor, Red Bull, and the sacntuary is sold out already. It will take a major load in. Both Martin and Stephen feel it’s got to be negotiated very cafefully as a srious opportunity. 

Outside, a random young man is sitting in the sun in front f the church with a sign that says Anything will help. I look out later, there’s an older African-American man sitting on the steps. Stephen had found him in the women’s room. The  random young man is sharing a cigarette with him. A year ago, the random young man would have been  an occupier. 

RL and Mandola Joe come in recruiting me for a visit to RL’s wife Joan at the Kateri residence. RL will read Thurber, a story about wantign to hide in a box. Joe will play the mandolin and we’ll all sing the Happy Wanderer, val de ri val de ra...

Back at West-Park, Danielle is meeting with the random young man trying to arrange times for him to be seen homeless on the street by Project Reach Out in order to be eligible for services. 

I go with John H to an event at MoRUS. I’m impressed by the combination of old school squatters, occupiers, anarchists and community activists who have come together to build the museum in an old storefront in tje midst of Alphabet City’s famed CSquat preserving a history, organizing a collective of still active squats, reviving the community gardens. I’m impressed that gentrification has not yet completely won. The strategy is to create sustainable alternative communities to hold ground as long as they can. The haunting memory of the final take down of Berlin’s Tacheles art squat haunts me...How can anrachist dadesque creativity survive in Bloomberg’s luxury city? You have to root for MoRUS to hold on as long as possible. 

Walking home from the subway, I want to stop somewhere  along Amsterdam to watch some NCAA Final Four, but every bar is filled to oveflowing. Before I go to check out the ghetto burrito palce teddy and I used to hang out at, I pass by the steps. Two out of three doors are taken by sleepers. Probably the randomyiung man is there. Th other day, i fudn a young woman sleeping between Barney Greengrass and the church, on the sidewalk. Anything will help....

From other steps: Some thoughts in food justice

4/5

cherry blossoms

In DC, the steps of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church are filled with homeless people, just like West-Park.

My friend John and I are representing PHEWA and doing a workshop for advocates from around the country gathered to work on Food Justice. I will share the stories of the Sweatshop Free Upper West Side as a community based model and also the Street Vendor Project I’ve just learned about. We also do our organizing 101 gig as well. Still frustrating it’s been so hard to pull off at West-Park.

John makes a point

Food Justice is a great issue because it can be approached at different points:

• Production: working with those who grow and harvest the crops, eg, the United Farm Workers, Immokalee Tomato Growers, etc...Also community gardens, grower cooperatives, etc.
• Distribution: food service workers, eg, the Saigon Grill Workers, Dominoes workers, fast  food workers, etc., farmers’ markets
• Consumption: the choices we make as to where and how we purchase our food and what we consume. The old grape, lettuce and Nestle’s boycotts. The Dominoes  boycott. Also Fair Trade coffee and chocolate, food coops, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA’s).... 

  

  Bob (in blue light), Abe and John

It can get complicated sometimes...for example, from a conversation with Immokalee workers, we learned that Dominoes deserves credit for signing an agreement with the Immokalee workers on the production end then exploiting their workers on the distribution end which raises issues for us on the consumption end. It’s always a matter of finding where the issue touches our own lives and where it’s easiest to connect. But also analyzing our own power and where we can be most effective. Which leads to a preference to community based organization models as the most likely to be sustained over time. 

Abraham Lincoln worshipped regularly at this church. Often in a side room off the sanctuary. Outside, the cherry blossoms are just starting to bloom .