Reflections on the the 70th anniversary of bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

8/2

Normally,. I like to focus on just one of the morning's passages, but this Sunday, I can’t resist spending time with David in  2 SAMUEL 11:26-12:13A.  It’s the marvelous story where the prophet Nathan engages his king, David, asking with a parable about a man and  his beloved lamb and a rich man who seizes it. When David responds. As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; ⁶he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity. Nathan thunders You are the man!....David realizes the  wrong he has done, but there will be a heavy price to pay. For generations.

This was written either during the time of monarchy expressing  a distrust of kings or critique or written during the  exile looking back as of this kind of kingly behavior were the cause of the exile. …for certain it is part of the deuteronomic history arc…and is written more to critique the situation current when it was written than an intention to record FACTS.

The parable is rooted in tribal law…it was permissible to slaughter a neighbor’s livestock when rules of hospitality made it absolutely necessary…but not permissible if you had livestock yourself and if the animal were a personal pet….

The word used to describe David’s action, IE,  take is used repeatedly in 1Samuel8: 11-18 used as verb when king is subject…it always refers to a ruler's abuse of power

In  the Septuagint, the lamb is to be restored 7 fold, as per Proverbs 6;31.

 Nathan, speaking further to David, says Your master’s house, your  better master’s daughters were turned over to you. (Entry into a harem was one way of claiming power, to be greater, more potent than the one you are replacing,) His point was that God had given David all the women he could want but he wanted one who belonged to someone else…

For this, a sword would be come : His sons Amnon, Absalom and Adonijhah will all die by the sword.

David is told to put away your sin: put it off…David won’t die, but someone else will, the innocent unborn child. (I wonder about connections here with early Christian theology..?)

And of course I am Remembering Ray Swartzbach, my pastor at Westminster, College of Wooster when I was there   and Bill Coffin, Jr. when I was at Yale. The passage sounds so so much more dramatic with the King James version, Thou art the man…For Swartzbach, this was a parable for Vietnam, for Coffin, Central America. That’s what empire does, it takes what it wants.

Two things I will say about David…he does have a residual sense of right and wrong….also on the personal side, this is a dramatic story of what happens when lust, desire, obsession takes over…and everything else is secondary….when desire replaces awareness of God…also…and I’ve found this true…whenever you hear yourself saying I’d sell my soul for….that’s usually what it will cost you….

Our PSALM 51:1-12 in most Bibles is tied to David after the Bathsheba incident. It's what we sing to begin every Lenten season: Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within my soul…Later we find ⁷Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. I wonder if we can say that in today’s environment of black lives matter?

Our SECOND READING  EPHESIANS 4:1-16.

¹I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ²with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, ⁵one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

⁷But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift. ⁸Therefore it is said, "When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people."PSALM68:18 God receives gifts…) ⁹(When it says, "He ascended", what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) ¹¹The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, ¹²to equip the saints for the work of ministry,(DIAKONIA--serving) for building up the body of Christ, ¹³until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (THE BASIC MISSION OF CHURCH) ¹⁴ must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. ¹⁵But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

There is no specific incident being referred to here as is usual…but is directed to gentiles,,,so that they can be socialized into new reality, a new community 

My question for you is What is your gift, how are you using it? I get some pretty cool answers mainly related to serving….the answers are relational…

The question for us as a church is, Are we equipping the saints?  Are we building up the body? The result of which will be UNITY…

Can we speak the truth in love to one another? Now that takes real discernment…I’ve often heard it used as an excuse to hurt…

ALL of us together are needed to make ONE body….building itself up in love. And that we will celebrate when we share our communion together.

And that we do.

Yumi Tanaka, TK and Pastor Brashear

TK has been upstairs in Mc Alpin setting up for the afternoon film screening. Yumi Tanaka of the New York Peace Film Festival introduces the film from Oliver Stone’s Showtime series, The Untold Story of US history.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Stone%27s_Untold_History_of_the_United_States The film pretty much gives the lie to the idea that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was necessary to get the Japanese to surrender. (The invasion of the Red Army into Manchuria had sealed that outcome..) As a quarter of a million innocent non-combatant victims perished, it seems more than anything a demonstration conducted to put fear into the hearts of the Soviets. Show them what we are capable of.

welcome to the exhibition

My father always believed Harry Truman kept him from going to Japan. This would be very painful for him to accept. (My son Daniel in Dublin wonders what we never talk about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) TK has as always, put together a fine program  rich in its depth. Paule Saviano’s photo exhibit of survivors is presented again. (https://vimeo.com/15844700) and installation artist Natsuko also grace our building. I’m glad that we could continue to be part of this event even in a small way. 70 years since we unleashed this terror.

Looking up mat a Natsuko installation

Natsuko installation

Later, after our volunteer night at the homeless shelter, I see Anna on the steps. Haven’t seen her in a while. Good to catch up. She’s what Jane Jacobs calls eyes on the street, one of those people necessary for communities to survive . As she watches, she looks, she listens. And that is a gift….

May peace and justice be with us....

Talking about homeless. And Palestine. And Antigona.

7/29

The police hosted a meeting at Community Board 7 with all the local faith leaders to discuss homelessness. Of course they had the DA’s office there to tell us what kind of papers to file so that we could close our steps and arrest anyone who trespassed. Sorry. Not going there. Our friends and partners from Project Reach Out who help us find housing and who know everyone who hangs out in the neighborhood were there too. And representatives from the local politicians. We shared common concerns. Like the twin sisters on my steps. And then my friend Father Duffel asked the question When is our progressive mayor going to do something about affordable housing? Bloomberg’s 55000  record homeless are now Di Blasio’s 60,000. Things kind of went silent then.

I had to leave then to go to Advent for our Palestine group. Our last meeting with my friend Elise who said farewell to Advent last Sunday. The situation among local clergy is getting harder. A new pastor at one church is working hard to bring balance where there has been a strong advocacy group. There’s an increasing emphasis on what it means to live in this neighborhood. Meaning of course a neighborhood with a large Jewish population. Our neighbor rabbis can more easily identify with the Palestinian experience than some of our more anxious clergy colleagues. We begin to plan our fall program.  Elise will be missed.

Tonight at Antigona, I’ve got a number of friends. Like my old colleague Katherine. And our old friend Feygele. And again, they are amazed. The great reviews continue to come in.

I join Martin for a beer after. He doesn’t want to stop. Doesn’t want to take a break. Soli most wants it to continue. Each day, she’s finding Antigona more. There’s a whole host of neighborhood people who will be coming back right after Labor Day who will want to see what the event of the summer of 2015 has been. I don’t have to be convinced.

7/30

There’s a service to prepare.

Tonight Katherine and I are going to see the latest play by the Representatives who most recently ran their  Lynchian pilot project Beddy Tear at West-Park.  And tomorrow I’m off to the national Presbyterian Big Tent event in Knoxville. To do a workshop on community organizing.

Talking urban ministry

7/28

My friend John has just driven up from Atlantic City. We’re going up to  Bernheim & Schwartz to meet Phil and talk urban ministry. (B&S now occupies what was the historic West End, once home to Kerouac and Ginsberg and Mario Savio and jazz greats…even during it’s embodiment as Havana Central they kept one wall for historic photos…annoying that B&S while representing that they honor history, ignore that of their very home…decent local brews however…)Phil, with roots in Chinatown and the Bronx, has decades of experience as an urban pastor, our national urban staff person and most recently the Obama administration. And now he’s back home in the Bronx.  (Although he’s a Mets fan from years of watching the Giants with his dad at the Polo Grounds.)

John and I were colleagues in Pittsburgh and now he’s spent a quarter of a century across the causeway from AC in Brigantine where the casino workers live. He’s now President of the Presbyterian Health Education and Welfare Association. (PHEWA) And together we’ve got over a century in urban ministry. We’ve written national policy statements, planned workshops, launched professional organizations…seen a lot. A Presbyterian paper inspired by Detroit’s collapse has inspired yet a new call to exegete our urban reality and seek to chart a course. (http://www.pcusa.org/resource/gospel-detroit-renewing-churchs-urban-vision/)

When we started in the ashes of the sixties rebellions, white flight was the issue of the day. Young white pastors moved into cities, gave themselves to their work. Tended to drink too much, survive on caffeine  and nicotine and wear out their families seeking to be in solidarity with their African-American, then  Asian and Latino colleagues who’d been there all along. We’ve seen the urbanization of the suburbs followed by the suburbanization of the cities as the age of gentrification and the luxury gated city has dawned. And now black lives matter.

We’ve moved from the  day of dedicated national staff and budgets  for studies and hearings and policy development to where we’re going to have to raise serious money ourselves to pull this off at the grassroots level. And we’re looking for the young leaders under 35, we’ll settle for under 40, who are doing the work now, if they’re Presbyterian at all.  And as we’ve learned in Occupy and Black Lives Matter, we’re going to have to do a lot of listening.

As my mentor,colleague and friend Warren said 13 years ago, we’ve gone from being young Turks to gray beards in the blink of an eye…

Last Saturday night, in Damrosch Park, Randy Newman spoke of all the septuagenarians he runs into out on the road, keeping the young ones off the stage. And so, in his typical ironic voice, he sings, I’m dead but I don’t know it… 

Is that where we are with the church? We’ll see…..

Meanwhile, I’ll head with Pat and Steve and Sam and play Tara Hill in my old neighborhood tonight…..

Of promises.And covenants. And yes, circumcision.

7/27

Tonight, Marsha, Russ, Deacon James and I meet for Bible Study. We’re back in the chapel, while Dion is working on the FARMIGO food distribution. Tonight we’re into Genesis 17. Where God promises Abram that at 99 that he will be the father of multitudes, which he finds laughable. Though not as laughable as Sarai when she gets the news.  This is the covenant cutting with Abram, (b’rit) which requires as a sign the actual cutting of the foreskin of the penis. So we have to stop a minute and ask why. Marsha suggests that it was initially a public health issue that maybe got retrofitted in this way. It has remained to this day, though it has gone from standard medical practice to semi-controversial, you know, like with debates in Tikkun magazine and all.

I remember the b’rit of my 3 sons. The old rabbi who performed his free hand style with a cool and quick hand.  (This was after we had to get the hospital to take it off of our standard bill.) The hip baby books said if you wanted to get a circumcision, go natural, get a moel. The first was at a friend’s, the second in our apartment community room and the last at our house’s back yard. The first had 6 ministers and 3 rabbis. There was of course a degree of shock for the protestants on hand. My father, who’d always wanted a baptism, was more than content. Somehow this ceremony made the child and his name official. Today there are alternate naming ceremonies. But I still remember my brother-in-law John holding the babies at each bris.

It wasn’t just Abram. And not even just the Hebrews. It was everyone, slaves and all. (damn, not only am I a slave, but this too?) And these are adults. Abraham is 99 years old! Even Ishmael at 13. For this reason, Muslims have a special circumcision ceremony at that age. (Or earlier, varying by culture) I remember the street in Duisberg, Germany where in addition to being the Muslim bridal gown capital of Europe, there are shops selling little prince like outfits for boys for this special occasion. Anyways, it remains shrouded in mystery.

Abraham is promised ,the land of Canaan. Well what about the people who are already there? Even though this is a story told to justify what has already been done, what about the Canaanites? Abraham pleads for Ishmael, and he too, will father a great nation, but no covenant.

We enjoy the fact that Sarah’s question is whether she will have pleasure at her late age, the word implying dampness, wetness, the precondition for fertility, but the point is pleasure…Far from the Catholic tradition of sex for only procreation, the Jewish tradition has always recognized pleasure.

There’s also this whole run around with Abraham and Sarah as to whether she laughed or not. She says, NO, but Abraham knows she did. All that laughing (yitzhaking), which can also mean mocking or sexual activity, will name the child. Abram and Sarai are now Abraham and Sarah and a child is coming who will be named for laughing.

So what,we wonder? Marsha suggests well ,at least it’s never too late. Even when you think everything is barren and it’s all over, there’s still hope. I want to believe that. Sugarman, Rodriguez gets found, rediscovered. Old man Bebo, one of the creators of Cuban son, is found in a Sweden piano bar and starts a career again. Angelo Romano has his first real gallery show at age 80+. So, there’s till hope.

And always, we see an empire telling its own mythic story for its own reasons.

Once again, we walk out as the Antigona cast is ready to go on. Russ and I will head to the Gate for a recap.