The 4th Sunday in Lent: The path of Love

3/15

Amanda 

Our friend Executive Presbyter Bob Foltz-Morrison has joined us for worship this morning. And as the service begins, Amanda has joined us as well .  As we continue our series, Pathways: Into the wilderness and out again today’s special theme is The Path of Love. We begin with our Lenten chant: Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within my soul  with it's eastern European Jewish feel.

Our lessons begin with the strange snakes in the desert story of  Numbers 21: 4-9. And in honor of the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day sing Be Thou My Vision, Amanda coming forward to join Jeremy and I. We do Psalm 107: 1-3, 17-22 with the refrain His steadfast love endures forever. Our Gospel lesson,  John 2: 13-22, brings back those snakes again. Time for reflection.

Did you ever hear the story about two people in a restaurant? The first says The food here is terrible  and the second says, yes, and such small portions…that’s what our first lesson or as I call it the prequel is like today…it’s like  the Bible written by Yogi Berra…

The people say, For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food. They’re in the wilderness and they’re miserable and for the first time they grumble not only against Moses but also against God. 

And all of sudden there are nasty snakes biting them. And of course the author says it’s punishment…a classic post hoc ergo proctor hoc logical fallacy, IE, after this because of this…(one of the best course I ever took was my college logic course that helped me understand all the classic logic fallacies from Latin debate…once you’ve studied them, you know them when you hear them…)

It makes sense. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone in the hospital say,…I don’t know what I must have done to deserve this… We’d rather believe in punishment than randomness…that’s almost too scary.

And what happens? Why doesn’t God  just get rid of the snakes? Or just heal the people? Instead we have this lifting up on a staff…(like sympathetic magic…) and they have to look on the raised snake  to be healed…

(Like the hangover cure…a bite of the snake that bit you…)

I could go off on a whole snake here….the Greek staff of Aeschylus…the role of the snake in native American culture…physicians and EMS symbols…we retain this serpentine iconography in our own culture.

(And can we work St.Patrick in there somehow?)

Two points…eventually, over the years, this snake on a rod became the object of worship so Hezekiah had to get rid of it...that’s what we do…mistake the symbol for the essence, the door to truth for the ultimate truth…this is the source of a lot of religious problems, mistaking the symbol for the reality.

Second.. the story tells us how people were feeling about God…there’s nothing gentle here…remember…they’d witnessed nasty plagues, killing of the first born,a drowning Egyptian army..…sure, all for their freedom, but it couldn't help but make you nervous….

We’re talking about all this because it's a key symbol so much in the Gospel story..

It’s part of an ongoing conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus…Jesus somehow comparing himself to that snake on a cross…it’s a bit of a head scratcher…

What is it we’re supposed to see? Lifted up….in Jesus’ being lifted up, what do we see?

First…and really get this…the cross was a from of state terrorism…Roman citizens, , would be asked to drink  hemlock…that’s like the (supposedly) more humane lethal injection of its day…I remember  when the son of the pastor I was working with in Oklahoma as a state representative introduced lethal injection as a humane alternative to electrocution…a supposed step forward…the pastor was anguished…

No…the cross was for political prisoners…it was public, scandalous, humiliating…bodies left for all to see…like public hangings…or maybe lynchings…

A five year study published by the Equal Justice Initiative in 2015 found that nearly 4,000 black men, women and children were lynched in the Southern states alone between 1877 and 1950. It’s shocking to see photos of people with their picnic baskets and children…Keep that in mind when you see videos of ISIS beheadings…

What are we supposed to see….? When we see Jesus on the cross?

The body on the cross is not to be worshipped…it’s a door … to John 3:16…

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life….

The word  loved here is  agape…self-sacrificial love….Jesus willingness to undergo humiliation on our behalf…

We need to push beyond  beyond signs at football games and bumper stickers…back to the snakes in the wilderness…The cause of the pain is involved in the healing….

The willingness to endure pain for others is the pathway to healing…but see this…it’s not the suffering itself…it’s a doorway ,a pathway..it is  never about look what I did for you, OK?

How’s that work? In AA one person’s experience of healing can help another’s … my loss of a child helps me be with you in your loss…your experience of divorce can help me in mine…see how this works?

In his willingness to suffer for others, Jesus is lifted up…the people who endured bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettis, Jr. bridge 50 years did so on behalf of those who couldn’t step on the bridge..

Last week I visited with my new friend David Goodman. …brother of Andrew Goodman..we lifted up Andrew and James Cheney and Mickey Schwerner…their families were right here last June… He went back to Selma last week. Today….the Foundation dedicated to his brother’s memory has student ambassadors at 25 colleges. In the fall they do organizing around voting, encouraging college students to vote. The after elections, they select a local issue to organize around for the rest of the year. …voting…and organizing…see how this works? Taking the tragedy of the past to create an hope for the future….

It’s God so loved the world…not an exclusionary proposition but a inclusive act of love…

God so loved the world…

Once again, as a lead in to our prayers we sing I Want Jesus to Walk With Me. And for our offertory, Jeremy sings the classic He Looked Beyond My Fault to the tune of Oh Danny Boy. St. Patrick’s Day again with Amanda and i on harmony.

We conclude with He came down…

He came down that we may have love, Hallelujah!

…..light          

….peace

…..joy

And our service is over. Amanda sings us two of her songs, one her ghost song from Arkansas and the other and old Quaker song, Peace from a silent spring .She stays for our Session meeting to get caught up on what we’re up to. And then we head to the Gate for brunch. There’a a lot to catch up on. She’s always good to call us …and me…back to the original vision that began with sweeping the steps…

                                                          Amanda singing Silent Spring

The mic is open again (again)

3/13

Pat O is in for another weekly update of our progress.

Geoffrey fast asleep in the sanctuary again.

Mario and Jeremy G and Jenna come in and we go to the Gate for one last review of their time in New York this time.. We start with talking about the line between absorbing the lessons and gifts of another culture and cultural appropriation. Colonial acquisition as it were. It’s not always easy. But on the other hand, culture is an ever flowing stream, always being touched and changed by what flows into it. It never stands still. Mario’s analogy of not having to be in love with the dancer who performs Romeo if you’re Juliet does and doesn’t apply. Performance is in some respects a putting on of a persona. The experience of the open choir is an entering into. They are different. We also talk about the meaning of community, especially spiritual and intentional community.

Early in the day, I met with representatives of a Georgian choir and a Ukrainian choir that had connections back to Bread & Puppet. The Georgians had wanted to be part of our No Place Like Home Concert last December. Now they’d like to do a benefit concert for Ukrainian victims of the ongoing war there. Inevitably  questions of partisanship arise again and conflicts arise. The idea of a pan-slavic concert won’t fly. No Russians. OK, so we’ve got issues. I send them away to work through these before any more conversation.

Sam G continues to work with me on our post-Shakespeare birthday after party sonnetathon. We’ve got some great ideas surfacing already. He's working on a social media proposal as well. 

After several weeks off due to weather, the Open Mic is ready to open again. I want to go upstairs and see a performance but just as I’m helping RL set up, my heart stops as Amanda walks in. All the way from Portland.  With my old occupier friend Jason. A complete  surprise. So she will sing.  And I’ll talk with Jason about the months since I’ve seen him. How it was on Staten Island following the shooting of  Eric Garner and the whole Black Lives Matter uprising. Jason finally had to go back to back to Massachusetts to think things through.

It's quite a night.

RL makes up a song on the spot about Amanda. A lot of spoken word up front. The self-styled king of the open mic Peter Pan back again.

Peter Pan

 And our man Dion with a tight solid set.

Dion

And of course Joel Gold with another of his magical mystery tours.

Joel

There’s a fresh young singer from Texas named Micah with original songs and her beaming father.

Micah

Then Amanda takes the stage. With a voice I once described as smooth as spun silver that kinda shines like autumn gold. She sings her I don’t know where this love will go and her ghost song from Eureka Springs. And for RL, her Tin Man song. (http://www.amandachristine.net/amandachristine/Amanda_Christine.html)

Amanda

Then I do my set. And invite her up to join me on the well  song. And explain that in many ways, we wouldn’t even be here tonight if it wasn’t for her. (See the very first blog entry) Singing in a church with no heat and no bathrooms. It’s a joy to sing together again.

Amanda and Bob

Mandola Joe has returned from hibernation.

Mandola Joe

 Tonight with a guitar and an Irish song for St. Patrick's Day. And the two Davids (S and L) add their own unique stylings.

David S

David L

A young Michael blows us away with his guitar.

Michael

As does NEB from France with his songs.

NEB

Country Joe calls Michael up to accompany him and takes us to cowboy saloons.

Michael and Country Joe

And every one left joins RL on Stay Awhile.

The Mic was open again. Amanda was here.

Amanda and Bob

Sometimes the greatest expression of love is anger.

3/8/15

Jeremy and Mario and the choir and Bob

This is the third Sunday of Lent. The weekend of the 50^th anniversary of the crossing of The Edmund Petttis bridge. Mario and the Work Center’s Open Choir are with us this morning.  Sean is asleep on the steps. I saw a body there last night as I passed by. This morning, I saw the blankets. Had no idea it was him. Politely asked the person to move. Didn’t realize it was him. The printer’s not working have to run to the Bangladeshi copy shop to print the bulletins.

We begin by singing Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within my soul. And after the greetings and announcements, we begin with Psalm 19: 1-14 and use Bob Marley’s O let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, which comes at verse 14, as our refrain.

Then our gospel lesson, John 2: 13-22:

¹³The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. ¹⁵Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” ¹⁷His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” ¹⁸The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” ¹⁹Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” ²⁰The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” ²¹But he was speaking of the temple of his body. ²²After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

I lift up the anniversary of the bridge crossing. And last week’s anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. Our theme today is righteous anger. We’ve been through a season of anger. With the murders of  Michael Brown and Eric Garner and the failure to indict any of the police involved. And the Black Lives Movement that spontaneously erupted in response. The headline last week in the Times referencing a pattern of bias in the Ferguson police force. To which one would say, Ya think?

When the Ferguson community first erupted, the Presbyterian national leadership sent out a letter calling for calm and prayer. My son in Berlin e-mailed me, seriously? Sometimes anger is the only right response.  Even as Jesus flew into rage in the Temple. Why?

The money changers were there because the law forbade human images and the Roman coins all bore impressions of Caesar. To purchase the doves and other small animals needed for sacrifices, the Roman money had to be exchanged for temple money. Some of that’s not so foreign…when this sanctuary was first constructed in 1889, our ancestors did not believe in human images. If you look at our north and south Tiffanies, what you see is Celtic iconography. It wasn’t until 1929 that someone with enough money could persuade the congregation to commission this Jesus and children you see behind me.

It wasn’t that the money changers were short changing people has tradition has it. Even if they were giving full value, that was not the point. It was the whole temple establishment and system that offended Jesus. It wasn’t the selling of doves but the selling of souls that offended Jesus.  It was the temple establishment’s collaboration with the empire that drew Jesus’ ire.  It was oppressed and sold out humanity that was symbolized in his body and that would inevitably wind up in political  execution. It is a liberated humanity that will be rising again after his paradigmatic death.

The songs we will hear later come from a particular place, the African diaspora of the Southern United States where the experience of worship carved out liberated territory in the midst of chattel slavery. As James Cone has said, in the African-American worship experience, the canon is more than the Bible, it is prayers and sermons and songs as well. These are those songs that created liberated territory until existential liberation could be achieved, the full realization of which still awaits.

Dr. King in Selma, at the bridge, was angry. Non-violent direct action is not passive, it is active. And strong. Sometimes the greatest expression of love is anger.

As I finish, Mario and the open choir come forward. Begin their songs, moving to the music, call and response, swaying, moving.  Songs rising and falling in a movement like the ups and downs of the long road to freedom. 

Singing freedom

…all along my pilgrim journey, I want Jesus to walk with me…we sing as we prepare for prayer.

Congregation and choir join in our circle of blessing.

The Session meets. The existential challenges are big and stressful. You fix one thing, a dozen more arise. Sisyphus wears out, eventually. There can be anger. Not always righteous. Somewhere in this is love.

Outside, Sean still asleep on the steps.

 

Mario and Bob