A Year of RE’s

design and post by Victoria Loorz

When you decide to set a year of themes, at first you don’t really understand the implications.  Something SEEMS right, and you go with it. One of our first tasks, as the four co-pastors of this new experimental team of leaders at Echoes, was thinking through themes for the year.  After a fun session of brainstorming and asking Charis about the core identity and life of the community she has nurtured the past five years, we all came to this mutual sense of “Yes” about a year of Re’s.  

Reframe, Release, Revive, Resurge,

Rewild, Resist, Repair, Remember,

Reveal, Remind, Relent

Re is a common root word, of course, meaning “back” or “again.”  Interesting theme for 2019. I believe we are on the cusp of a magnificent shift forward in our culture and in our collective spiritual awakening.  I sense that not in spite of the obvious cultural resistance to change (“Let’s make America great again!”), but because of it.  Regressions are often a sign that change is on the horizon.

Joseph Campbell captured this pattern when he observed the progression of all great stories:  the Hero’s Journey begins with a Call to Adventure, into some new perspective or way of being or way of living. And then, just about immediately, the resistance begins.  He calls it “Refusing the Call.” Those who never answer the call get stuck in this regression, pining for how it used to be, stuck in regret, rebellion or a whole lot of other negative RE words that keep you in misery.  Everyone else faces the resistance, eventually, and leans into the adventure of What is Waiting to Become through them. Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight or quit an addiction, or find new life after a major loss knows this process intimately.

Focusing on the looking back and again-ing acknowledges a deep, theological truth.  That in the act of reframing and remembering and renewing, we imply that there is a framing and a membering and a newness that always was.  And our spiritual practice, then, of returning back again to that place of “original blessing” (Matthew Fox’s words), is a return to an original rightness and meaning, which is necessary for us as we feel caught in the claws of pervasive perceived disconnection.  

Religion, in fact, is the call to re-connect.  Re: “again” and Ligios: “connection", the same Latin root as ligament: sinews which hold the bones, the structures together.  The whole venture and adventure of religion is about the journey of re-connecting. With God, yes. With other people: your family and community and all the Others. Your species and not your species. Both like you and unlike you. Restoring original, kindred unity. And, also, a reconnection with the core of your own soul, the dwelling place of the Holy, of Christ.  

Rather than an institution of separation, of who’s IN and who’s OUT…what if, instead, religion were a process of re-connecting with what is already whole?  A connection back again to our own wholeness, our common spiritual vitality, our identity and role and sense of meaning as humans. What if religion was the re-membering of ourselves back into the reality that we are not separate at all, but part of a living system of inter-being?  And what if a religious person is actually a person who says “Yes” to becoming a ligamenting agent of restoration in the world?

We didn’t really think about it at the time, but starting on a new adventure as a community with a plan to begin with a year of REs, of looking back, is actually a pretty good idea.  It’s an invitation to explore together the possibility that the point of a spiritual life might just be participation in a restored, reunited, renewed, rewilded relationship with All That Is.  

What is a Calling?

Photo by Richard Price on Unsplash // Post by Jory Mickelson

When I am uncertain where to begin, I often begin with words. As a writer, poet, and preacher, words are not only how I express myself, but also how I think my way through the world. As the adage goes, “How can I know what I think about a subject, until I see what I have written?”

So let’s begin with the word “calling.”

1)      A strong urge toward a particular way of life; a vocation.

The problem with words sometimes is that they lead to other words. Vocation is a nebulous word in today’s world of unfettered capitalism. Almost all definitions I came across with vocation and calling mention profession, trade, or career. While there is something to be said for being suited to one’s work, I do not believe we are our jobs. Our worth is not determined by our paid work. Who we are at our core has very little to do with our outward productivity, our worldly achievements, and our socio-economic status.

Vocation can also be steeped in religious tradition; a vocation as a call to ordained religious life. And for some people that may indeed be the case, but for most of us, we do not have this call. So what can vocation mean to us outside of our outward profession or career track?

My favorite definition I came across says that a vocation is a summons or strong inclination to a particular state or course of action. Or as the calling definition mentions, “an urge.” This is a great place to start.

What are our urges? Not our surface urges to check Facebook, to get up and stretch, or to purchase the latest item in our personalized Google advertisement stream.

What are our deeper urges? What are our daydreams? What are the longings of our heart?

To be able to hear these in today’s world of continual distraction, we need to make space for stillness. For quiet. For wondering. We need to make space between our errand lists and our Netflix queue to come to know what is lurking under our surface, as the Irish poet William Butler Yeats says, at “the deep heart’s core.”

So stillness can lead us to listening. And listening can help us being to hear our own calling. Today I will leave us with a poem by William Butler Yeats that describes entering into the deep places within—the bee-loud glade of our own hearts.

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, 
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; 
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, 
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, 
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wing.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day 
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; 
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, 
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Gratitude, Liberation, and Thanksgiving

Photo by Ethan Weil on Unsplash

An aboriginal woman from central Queensland, Australia, Lilla Watson, and her aboriginal collective, have been credited with the saying,

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

At a local pub on Monday night members from Echoes and another church engaged in conversation about gratitude. One of the tougher things to recognize about gratitude (especially at Thanksgiving time) is that it can come as a result of the oppression of others. Thanksgiving is understandably a day of mourning for many, many Native American persons living in what is called the USA. I’m thankful for a roof over my head, a job, an education, food on the table, security….all things that have come as an after-effect of the genocide of approx 90% of all Native Americans who lived in the US. The survivors of this genocide continue to live in marked oppression.

What do I do with my gratitude when it comes at the expense of others?

The fellow pastor who was co-facilitating this pub conversation, Emma Donohew, told us about a book titled, “Grateful,” by Diana Butler Bass. The author says that it is short-changing gratitude to always look at it as something that we feel by looking backwards – we are grateful for things that have happened in the past. Instead, our gratitude needs to be in a future tense as well.

Our conversation group struggled with this. How does one move gratitude into the future?

I think part of the answer is embodying the notion that our liberation is truly bound together. I can’t be truly free to experience the good things in my life when they are withheld from others. Humanity, and all life on this planet are interconnected. For you and I to be free, all need to be free.

And it won’t be the colonials who set the oppressed free. It HAS to be us – all of us - working together, sharing power, listening, acting, humanizing….and sharing in a common liberation.

Earth Day & Good Shepherd Sunday: why have we not seen these two together?

(This message was offered by Charis Weathers at Echoes on April 16, 2018, and St John's Lutheran on April 22, 2018)

Today is what is known as Good Shepherd Sunday. The three passages we have work together really well in a shepherd-y way. In Psalm 23 and in the John 10 passage God is called a shepherd.

- In Psalm 23 we read “God is my shepherd…”, [1]

Photo by joseph d'mello on Unsplash

- In John 10:11-18 Jesus says that he is a good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.[2]

- The 1 John:3:16-24 passage uses the exact same words that Jesus’ uses by saying that followers of Jesus ought to lay their lives down for one another.[3]

So these three texts are very well connected – two passages describe God as shepherd, and the third recommends that God’s followers to imitate the shepherd’s call by laying down one’s life down for others, which reveals a strong love for others.

Today is also Earth Day. It seems to me that there is some great connection with these two observances.

When I got to digging around, though, I found a disappointing lack of available material that ties together shepherding with stewardship of the planet. In looking up environmentalism and “Good Shepherd” most of the few articles I could find were distressing.  They bashed efforts by Christians to advocate for the environment, and referred to this parable in ways that I had not considered.

A few suggested that ownership was the key to saving the planet. Because the Good Shepherd protects his stuff while the hired hand runs away, then the answer to protecting the earth is for more people to own pieces of the earth. Essentially, for these authors, this parable highlights a free market environmentalism, supporting capitalism and consumerism.[4] James Watt, Secretary of the Interior in the Reagan administration, was quoted in another, “The earth was put here by the Lord for His people to subdue and to use for profitable purposes on the way to the hereafter.”[5]

So this Good Shepherd passage has been used in some odd ways that I had not considered before. And these are not articles from kooky fundamentalist websites. They are sites that are primarily reporting on policy, investigating non-profits, and even in the Case Western Reserve Law Review.

Truth be told, there are probably a whole lotta people in the world who will think that the connections that I see so clearly between Good Shepherd Sunday and Earth Day are very strange indeed as well. Feel free to keep that in mind.

It’s very interesting that the early church very, very frequently used depictions of Jesus as a shepherd in art. He is depicted in simple clothing (a white tunic, usually), with a staff, amidst some sheep. It was super common.

Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire in the year 380 CE. Soon after, these shepherd images began to give way to depictions of Jesus as a teacher, or as a King, in a more royal setting. Christianity had become the religion of the Empire, and it was now on top.  No longer did they need a humble, protective Savior who could identify with the meager and offer protection for the vulnerable, a caring shepherd over the religion of the oppressed. Instead, artists showed a Jesus who looked fit to be a king.

Boniface Ramsey writes in the Harvard Theological Review,

Good Shepherd mosaic in the mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna

 “…the early fifth-century mosaic of the Good Shepherd in the mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, which is the last of its kind, does not at all picture a Good Shepherd in the traditional sense. In his gold tunic, sewn with blue bands, and with a purple mantle draped over one shoulder, Christ has become a royal or imperial personage: he is the king of his sheep, rather than their shepherd.”[6]

While we don’t particularly understand how the early church interpreted the image of Jesus as a shepherd, and it’s too simplistic to say it was ONLY due to the rise of the power of Christianity, it is telling that this representation fell out of fashion. Jesus wasn’t needed as a shepherd anymore. People weren’t being martyred or jailed or pushed to the margins for their faith. The Christian religion was on top, and it became beneficial to profess faith in Christ – you’d never gain traction politically if you didn’t swear allegiance to the church.

This power motif bleeds into a lot of our faith.

I don’t want to bash Christianity today, and yet we need to be honest that the sense of Lordship extended into the assumed right of humans to dominate the rest of the planet.

Genesis speaks of our need to care for the rest of life on this planet, and yet it became all too predictable to interpret the beginning Genesis passage as humanity’s God-given right to “have dominion” over the earth. The earlier statement by James Watt clearly illustrates this, “The earth was put here by the Lord for His people to subdue and to use for profitable purposes on the way to the hereafter.”

It’s almost like this shift from shepherd to king parallels the movement of Christians who ignored the original role of Adam and Eve as gardeners carefully tending a plot of land, and instead opted for the “Lord over” motif by running with the dominion theme. The thought that “God placed humans over this creation, so let’s beat it into submission and get as much out of it as possible for our own pleasure and gain,” is a sad legacy of a lot of Christendom.

Add to that the belief that we are only on this planet until Jesus comes back so we can deplete it as much as we want, and it’s a recipe for disaster.

This posture tosses aside Jesus as a shepherd.

But what, exactly, is being tossed out? What does it mean to be a shepherd, and what is lost by moving toward this king-ship, or dominion model?

Photo by Charis Weathers; photo taken by permission

Shepherds watch, guard, guide, protect, feed, shear, nurture, and LOVE the sheep. A shepherd cares for and works on behalf of their flock. Sheep don’t typically do well on their own, so it’s up to shepherds to make sure they thrive.

As the John 10 passage says, the shepherd lays down their very life for the sheep.

In our discussion about this in Echoes someone asked, “But isn’t this the same thing as being concerned for what you own? The shepherd is going to risk their life because it’s their livelihood.”

This is true.

The hired hand does the same bullet points as the shepherd, so maybe it does come down to ownership and this parable is really teaching us that capitalistic consumerism is the way to save our planet.

But no, that can’t be right.

Ownership certainly does NOT necessarily equate compassionate caretaking – look at mountain top removal mining, or deforestation, or aggressive fracking, or drilling for oil in fragile backcountry. Many of these locations are owned and yet the owners could care less about how their caretaking affects the well-being of the landscape or the wildlife.

However, if it was in the owner’s backyard – well, then you’d have something different.

There’s a reason why the Dakota Access Pipeline was slated to go through the Standing Rock Sioux Indian reservation instead of the original plan of Bismarck. There’s a reason Flint, MI, has been subjected to lethal water. These are people who are “over there,” and don’t have as much voice or power.  Owners and caretakers in these cases and many others don’t have a vested interest in the well-being of the life that is on or adjacent to what they own, when what they own can be reaped for profit.

So what’s the difference here between a profit-driven owner and shepherd?

I’m not entirely sure.

But I *think* it has something to do with an understanding of the inter-connectedness of life.

Yes, the shepherd makes a living from the wool, and maybe the milk, and maybe even the meat of the flock. Yes, there is self-interest. But there is also some kind of mutuality – the shepherd relies on the sheep for money for food and a home, and the sheep rely on the shepherd for food and a home. The shepherd knows that they are intricately connected with the sheep – their well-being is bound up together.

And it goes beyond this: the well-being of the land and the well-being of the water sources is vital for the health of the sheep and the shepherd. The well-being of the water table or the mountains is vital for the water.

Alessandro Galantucci, flickr creative commons

And it goes on and on. Ask a permaculture farmer what they do, how and why they do it, and you’ll be aghast at how all of life is so interdependent.

A loving shepherd probably has a sense of this. In order for the whole thing to keep going, the shepherd has to do their part, even if that part means laying down their life for their flock. It’s all-in commitment, all-in community with a bunch of smelly, stubborn, and dim-witted creatures that directly provide life and sustenance to others through wool, and milk.

We are interconnected to all of life on this planet. Maybe even in this galaxy and universe. My well-being is bound up with the well-being of all the other life.

This is the basis for racial justice, for peace, for sustainable progress.

And yes, for Earth Day.

We ARE called to be shepherds. 1 John uses the exact same language as John 10, “Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”

And it is love that brings us here:

1 John 3:18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 

23 And this is God’s commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as we have been commanded.

Love is not word or speech (or, “thoughts and prayers”), like this sermon. Instead, love is truth and action, and yes, laying down our lives for the sake of other life.

In this week’s clergy discussion group for the texts of the week someone said essentially, “we KNOW what we need to do in regard to being better stewards of this earth, and if I’m not doing it, then who am I to tell others what we already know to do and collectively aren’t doing?”

Well, because following Jesus sometimes isn’t easy. Just because we’re not doing something now doesn’t mean we don’t’ change.

Reducing our carbon emissions WILL require inconveniences and even hardships on our part.

It WILL mean using less fossil fuels.

It might very well mean giving money to alternative energy projects.

It might mean volunteering to collect signatures to get policies like ground-breaking initiative 1631 on the ballot for November.

Jason Karn, flickr, creative commons

It might mean imparting severe restrictions on plastic in your home, or committing to ecological restoration projects, or never buying another [“insert very strong expletive”] plastic bottle of water ever again, or getting a bus pass, or not flying, or learning to ride a bike in the rain, or joining the political sphere to advocate for better policies that will have a substantial effect on the health of our land, our flora and fauna, and our world.

We can’t just focus on our own little slice of life here in whatever home you have, in whatever neighborhood you live in. We NEED to focus on that, believe me, we do, but this mandate to lay our lives down for one another goes as far as making significant enough changes and personal hardships so that the non-westernized, non-industrialized people on low-lying islands aren’t consumed by rising tides, so that the plastic and acidification in our oceans that is killing them, KILLING them, is slowed and eventually reversed,

When we see that we are shepherds, when we see that we are intricately bound up with all life on this planet, when we see that we have agency and power in the current and future well-being of other life on this earth, then maybe we can begin to understand and to move toward laying down our lives for one another.

Laying our lives down for the life with which we are intricately bound. Which means laying our lives down for ALL life.

For all the keystone species across the world, like salmon and eel grass is here, like all the trees that keep us breathing, and the soil and water that keeps them growing, like the species on the verge of extinction, like refugees who are displaced due to severe weather events. Our actions here, from day to day, and year to year, has an affect on life near and far.

How will we use this life to do what we are called to do, to love one another?

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. It’s also Earth Day.

We have power, we have agency, and WE HAVE the Good Shepherd who has endless love, and endless compassion, and who gives of these unceasingly.

May we know this love. May we live it.

‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down their life for the sheep. 

Amen.

[1] 1 John 3:16-24   We know love by this, that Jesus laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a sibling in need and yet refuses help?

18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 19And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him 20whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and God knows everything. 21Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; 22and we receive from God whatever we ask, because we obey the commandments and do what pleases God.

23 And this is God’s commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as we have been commanded.24All who obey the commandments abide in God, and God abides in them. And by this we know that God abides in us, by the Spirit that has been given to us.

[2] John 10:11-18  ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down their life for the sheep. 12The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15just as God in heaven knows me and I know God. And I lay down my life for the sheep.16I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17For this reason God loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from God.’

[3] Psalm 23  A Psalm of David.
1 God is my shepherd, I shall not want.  2 I have the freedom to lie down in green pastures; I am guided to still waters; 3 my soul is restored.
For God’s own sake am I led on right paths. 4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, you are with me; your rod and your staff—they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of God my whole life long.

[4] https://cei.org/content/environmental-protection-there-better-way, https://capitalresearch.org/article/greener-than-thou-the-american-left-takes-up-christian-environmentalism/, https://capitalresearch.org/article/greener-than-thou-the-american-left-takes-up-christian-environmentalism/

[5] https://capitalresearch.org/article/greener-than-thou-the-american-left-takes-up-christian-environmentalism/, from the original source, Watt, James. Ours Is the Earth. Saturday Evening Post (January/February 1982): 74-75.

[6] Ramsey, Boniface. Source: Harvard Theological Review, 76 no 3 Jul 1983, p 376

Is Jesus a Vortex? Thoughts on Epiphany

Andrew-Art / pixabay

This past Sunday many churches recognized Epiphany. This event recognizes one specific story: the journey of the Magi from “the East,” who want to pay homage to a child who has been born the “King of the Jews.” They have deduced this baby-king by reading the stars, and even though they are from a completely different land, the Magi undertake a long journey to revere an infant of another culture and religion. Of course, Epiphany, literally, means some kind of personal revelation of a new concept/realization/experience that has the power to change one’s life or way they look at the world. It’s a massive “aha” moment. Or at least that is how I usually define it, but the word can also mean “the appearance or manifestation, especially of a divine being.” In the case of the Magi, the Epiphany is the first manifestation of Jesus to the Gentiles.

During this winter break I went for a walk at Lake Padden with a new friend. She had wanted to swap stories about how we have experienced God in our lives. I had made a comment a few weeks before about having heard God talk to me, and she wanted the particulars. The bonus was that I got to hear bits of her story as well.

I told her about the two instances that I have deemed as God talking to me, and in the telling of those stories, I realized another, and then another, and then another, when it felt like I was receiving pretty clear direction from God. I’m really, REALLY cautious about stating “God told me,” like REALLY, and yet in these occasions it feels fairly safe to restate to others with at least a little confidence that “It certainly felt like God was speaking to me.” These experiences were quite significant in my life, and it felt good to remember them as a group of incidences.

My walking partner relayed stories to me where she had woo-woo experiences that she, in the same cautious way, said were occasions where she thought God was communicating with her directly. The interpretation might be a little sketchy, but her best explanation was that God was reaching out to her, which induced a sense of wonder, gratitude, and mystery.

Two weeks prior I had a lovely phone call with a person who used to attend Echoes but had moved away. They told me that they had had a recent epiphany experience with God. They wanted me to know that God had reached down and revealed God’s self to them, and they were basking in the glow of the love, acceptance, and harmony of that encounter. My skeptical self is usually to be like, “hmm, okay…” It’s possible that the energy behind this encounter will fade, but there’s no point in MY denying that this epiphany really happened. And in the retelling of their story I learned a few things theologically that were really profound. God met this person, and I got to hear the story because they wanted to say thanks that Echoes had given them a safe space to re-envision the church as a place that could be safe. They said, “Echoes led me to the river of God, but didn’t push me in.” After this experience they feel like they are in the river, and that Echoes had a role in getting there. I loved hearing that.

This past week, in reading the story of the visit of the Magi in preparation for Epiphany I was struck by the vortex that was created by the birth of Jesus. Jesus is born and the shepherds are recruited to drop what they’re doing and worship this newborn baby.

Jesus is born and travelers from the East show up because they’ve been reading the stars and they want to locate the “child who has been born the King of the Jews” because they want to pay homage to the child.

Yeah, probably not (pixabay.com)

We don’t really know who these people are. Christmas carols would say that they are three Kings from the Orient, we have no idea how large the party was, no idea what their occupation of society position was, nor exactly where they were from. So we cannot confirm that there were three, that they were kings, nor that they were from the Orient. There’s good reason to believe that they were magicians or astrologers, but we don’t know. And if they came from a long way off they might have had a really party with them, maybe men and women. There is so much speculation around this story, speculation that adds nothing of value.

The people presumably had NOTHING to do with Israel. They aren’t Jewish, they don’t need to be in good graces with Israel, and they probably had careers that would be very reviled by the religiously-observant in Israel. But they saw a star, determined what it was, and seemingly could not resist coming to Jerusalem to find this infant who would become the King of the Jews. It’s not like we have stories in the Bible where this is a common practice.

Something about this story, and this baby, pulled them in.

From a long way off.

From a very different cultural context.

From a very different religious context.

From a very different political context.

And yet they came.

Maybe or maybe not on camels, but they came a long distance.

The stories that I have experienced, that the friends I mentioned above have experienced, that these travelers in the Matthew 2 text experienced, plus the shepherds, plus the crowds that gather to hear Jesus preach, plus the millions of people throughout history who have been pulled in, mysteriously, inexplicably, to this Jesus person…it all kind of sounds like a vortex.

And I didn’t really know what a vortex really was, but it sounded appropriate, so I looked it up.

I got, “a mass of fluid (such as a liquid) with a whirling or circular motion that tends to form a cavity or vacuum in the center of the circle and to draw toward this cavity or vacuum bodies subject to its action;  especially: whirlpool, eddy” (Merriam-Webster)

So, something swirling creates a pull towards the center of the swirl by the very nature that it’s swirling.

Jesus seems like this swirl, this vortex. He is born and people start gravitating towards him immediately. Shepherds come, travelers from the East come, and even Herod get pulled in toward him when Herod perceives Jesus as a threat.

If Jesus really is a vortex, how are we pulled in?

In the conversations that I had with the people I mentioned earlier it was helpful for my connection to God to consider how and when I had been pulled in by God.

This being Epiphany, and it being the beginning of a new year, I’m wondering of the many ways Jesus might still be a vortex. In the course of discussing this concept at a weekly clergy gathering today, someone said something like this: “Maybe it’s simply a fact of realizing that we’re in a vortex toward Jesus. That in itself might be the Epiphany.” Maybe so.

- Charis Weathers

Advent: Hope for Unfulfilled Loonies

Photo by Gareth Harper on Unsplash

We are well into Advent. Less than a week until Christmas, actually. And yet I continue to reflect upon the BEGINNING of Advent season. At the start of each Advent, in the lectionary (the three year cycle of Bible readings used by a whole whack 'o churches), the gospel reading is about Jesus coming back. It doesn't contain any of the details about the story that culminates in the birth of baby Jesus, and instead propels us into the future - the future when Jesus comes back down out of the sky, after a 2000+ year hiatus. This year the reading is Mark 13:24-37. 

The word “Advent” means the coming or the dawn of something – like the advent of the wheel, or the advent of ultra light backpacking gear, or the advent of bipartisanship.

But there’s more to the meaning of “Advent”. The Latin root of Advent is “adventus”, which is the Latin translation for the GREEK word, “parousia,” and “parousia” is the word in the New Testament that refers to the second coming of Christ. (Oooooh, right?)

So Advent has a few layers – it looks back at the FIRST coming of Jesus, and Advent looks forward to the SECOND coming of Jesus. Thus the passages about the second coming of Jesus to start out the Advent season. In this Mark 13 passage, Jesus himself is talking about his second coming. In other parts of the New Testament others talked about his second coming. He says some odd, contradictory stuff, like “Don’t even try to predict when this is going to happen,” alongside, “Study the fig tree to know when this will happen.” The overall gist, though, is fairly obvious that Jesus states unequivocally that he will be coming back. And, it appears that Jesus says he will come back within the same generation as the Biblical writers.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

But…Jesus hasn’t come back. We celebrate his coming back every year at this time, and he’s still not back.

A few weeks ago, in the midst of writing a sermon on this topic, I was explaining the concept of the second coming to someone who did not grow up in church (like, at all). My words sounded so strange even to me: Jesus, this guy who died and came back from the dead eventually ascended into heaven, and he was going to come back and everything, all things, would be okay again. Seriously, this sounds loony.

For 2000 years our faith has held this. Two thousand. When it was first prophesied there were no cars. There were no flush toilets. No one had any idea the world was round. There had been no popes, no wars between Protestants and Catholics, no vaccines for common diseases, no knowledge of distant continents, no synthetic fibers or eyeglasses, and only 3-10% of the population could read.

I wrote that paragraph for the sermon and thought, “am I crazy to stay in this faith?” TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO this was prophesied, and they had no clue about rationalism or psychology or historical criticism. I began to think the sermon had taken a really bad turn…

And then I started thinking about astrophysics. (Because, of course, duh.)

I’m in book club, and we’ve started to read this super-nerdy book by Neil DeGrasse Tyson called “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.” It’s supposed to be a beginner’s book for astrophysics, but geez, so much of it floats at least one pool length above my head. What I am understanding, though, is that two thousand years is barely a drop in the bucket. (And no, I haven't finished the book, but I hear the last chapter is awesome.)

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

In one millionth of a second after the big bang the universe had already grown the size of our solar system. One millionth of a second. By one, full second it was already a few light years across. One second. A lot can happen in a small space of time.

And when did the big bang happen? Scientists estimate 14 billion years ago. It took nine billion years of universe expansion before our own star, the Sun, was even formed.

Two thousand years? Pffft.

DeGrasse Tyson states that scientists do not know what was before the big bang, how the big bang got its start, nor how “organic molecules transitioned to self-replicating life” in the oceans of planet earth.

He doesn’t seem to have much patience for religious persons saying that it was God who started this whole thing off, but it makes sense to me. deGrasse Tyson completely reasonable to say that we *might* find an explanation for these mysteries some day, but I'm going to fall back on the insane number of mystics in history who have communed with some semblance of the divine and chalk it up - with a large dose of humility - to God.  

Jurgen Moltmann is an awesome, influential theologian. He was drafted into the German army in 1944, so he fought for the Nazis. Moltmann surrendered to the first Allied soldier he saw, and then dealt with his complicit guilt in the war while in a prison camp. His seminal work is titled, “The Thelogy of Hope,” in which he says that eschatology, or the study of the end of all things, is THE cornerstone of the Christian faith. He writes, “the eschatological is not one element of Christianity…but it is the “key in which everything in it is set.” The future is “God’s essential nature,” and we strain after the promise of the universal future of Christ. (pg. 16)

In the hope of this universal future of Christ we find not only “consolation in suffering, but also protest of the divine promise against suffering.” Moltmann writes that this is “why faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience, but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself the unquiet heart [in each person]. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with the world, for the [prodding stick] of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present. If we had before our eyes only what we see, then we should cheerfully or reluctantly reconcile ourselves with things as they happen to be. That we do not reconcile ourselves, that there is no pleasant harmony between us and reality, is due to our unquenchable hope.” (pp. 21-22)

In other words, our unrest with the present is in itself evidence of hope. It’s evidence that God is also experiencing unrest with the world continuing on as it is.

With the return of Jesus is the return of all good to the earth: no more pain, no more tears, no more war, no more unjustness, no more harming the planet.

Moltmann says, “Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present.” (pg 16)

As church, we work toward this reality of transforming the present because of the chafing and unrest that Moltmann talks about, and because this universal future of Christ is the end of all things, it’s how all things end; when life as we know it utterly transforms into a global community that lives in harmony and peace with the principles of Jesus.

We do what we do because the God of the future is ultimately moving towards this transformation and we participate in this, too, by pushing back against those places in ourselves and in our systems that create pain and oppression.

It can be hard to see God. But it’s not hard to see the pain of the world, the pain of our friends and family, the pain of this community. And it’s the pain that kindles the hope.

The very thing that looks like it robs us of hope is actually what causes it. The world isn’t supposed to be like this.

One of my most helpful theology books in seminary was on the topic of sin and was called, “Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be,” by Cornelius Plantinga. The premise is that the world isn’t supposed to be led by sin; that’s not how it is designed, and it’s not the direction God is leading it.

On Thanksgiving Eve this year I had the chance to speak at our local Interfaith gathering. It’s an annual gathering and often I’m unable to attend. This year, instead of offering some sort of blessing from the Lutheran tradition, I decided to tell of some good things that have happened in the world in the past few years.

• We are close to eradicating diseases like Polio, Guinea Worm, and leprosy, and advances are being made in treating Alzheimers
• Many scientific papers are now offered online for free
• The giant panda and the manatee were downlisted to vulnerable, taking them off of the endangered species list
• High school graduation rates are increasing, teen pregnancy is down
• The number of deaths across the globe due to war continues to decline
• 800,000 people in India planted almost 50million trees in one day
• US Veteran homeless rates continue to decline
• Scientists have identified caterpillars, fungi and bacteria that can actually eat and digest plastic
• In Texas, Christians, Jews, and Muslims came together to rebuild a mosque that had been burned to the ground
• A high school student in Florida started a club so that no one would ever have to eat lunch alone again.
• There is a giant project underway to start to clean up the ocean
• Vertical farming is gaining momentum
• Thousands came together to watch a total solar eclipse
• The number of people in extreme poverty continues to decline
• Chile converted 11 million acres of land into protected national park
• A human chain of people rescued swimmers who had been pulled out to see at a beach in Florida
• 81 yr old Masako Wakamiya taught herself how to code and launched an iphone app
• The ivory trade was banned in China
• The number of children who die before age 5 has been cut by HALF since 1990
• Two Texas Representatives, a Republican and a Democrat, decided to drive together to DC, live-streaming a bipartisan road trip, showing that these two sides CAN work together
• World hunger has reached its lowest point in 25 years
• The first truce was called in Colombia in 50 years between the government and rebel fighters
• 24 nations worked together to create the world’s largest marine reserve in Antarctica
• The first openly transgender person was just elected to the US State legislature
• Tiger populations are growing for the first time in 100 years
• Dr Who will finally have a woman in the lead character role

These things fuel some hope. The harsh things in the world fuel hope as well, according to Moltmann, even though I don’t even actively realize the harsh things ARE fueling hope in me.

But the world is moving in some kind of direction that will eventually lead to the universal presence of Christ. The idea is only 2000 years old.

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

We can keep looking. We can keep looking for the wonder of the world that is being redeemed on very small scales every day. We can keep actively chafing against the Unlikeness of Jesus in ourselves and in our communities, and in our world, by spreading compassion, by living justly, by promoting justice, by not succumbing to despair.

The sights and sounds of the coming Jesus may be faint, but keep listening and looking.

It may be well into Advent, but it also may just as well be the beginning of Advent every day: "In the silence of a midwinter dusk there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen." (Frederic Buechner)

May we not only hold our breaths to listen, but breathe out the movement of Christ, the returning Christ, into the world.

- Charis Weathers

Memories, Monuments, and Mountain Caribou

Photo by Dominik Lange on Unsplash

On Labor Day Monday I was making the long drive home after an unsuccessful attempt to find grizzly bears along a remote river in British Columbia. (Isn’t that an intriguing opening sentence? If you’d like to know more about that serious situation, and the precipitously endangered mountain caribou, read the bottom of this post…)

Aside from my deep concern for local endangered wildlife and ravaging wildfires, it was a pleasant, uneventful drive. I can’t say that I was even particularly focused on the road itself. Some of my brain was occupied with the podcast that was playing, another part was marveling at the scenery, while simultaneously being dumbstruck at the eerie, orange hue that nearby wildfire was producing. It was like driving into a monochromatic, hazy painting. The road travels from the Canadian Rockies, and then twists and turns for hundreds of miles, just north of the Canadian/US border. I was hoping to make it to Manning Park with enough time for a quick hike.

And then...

On an unremarkable bend in the road a sudden, jarring image slammed into my brain. I could *see* an overturned motorcycle, a few people standing around, and a sheet draped over a body with only motorcycle boots sticking out. “WHAT? What’s going on?!,” my mind shouted in its now-discombobulated, time-confused state.

The boots. The motorcycle. The slow, somber procession of a few lookie-loo cars, mine included, driving by. I could visualize all of it. Oh! Yes, I HAD seen this. It was in the past. I had forgotten that entire scene! At least I thought I had forgotten it until it was suddenly remembered with striking detail. When was I here? What was I doing?

I tried to rebuild the context. It had been many years (5-10, maybe?) since I had been on this stretch of road. Back then I had been with a good friend, on our way to an adventure that I can’t recall. But I wouldn’t have even remembered that much unless I had had this experience at this particular section of this particular highway. Back then it was early morning. On Monday it was dinnertime. I had been driving in the opposite direction that day in the past, but I had recognized it anyway.

It was one innocuous bend in road, amongst literally hundreds upon hundreds of bends in the road that I drove last weekend. But it wasn’t innocuous to me. Or to whoever’s loved one was under that sheet. I’m sure they remember that day with crystal-clear precision.

Memory is such a weird thing. Many years ago during an otherwise insignificant jog, I came across an unusual scent in my neighborhood that sent me spinning into a traumatic re-experience of a previous life event. That experience landed me in counseling for four and a half years, and thankfully produced a dramatically freer life. Prior to that event, though, I had had no idea that memories, or our perception of memories, can be sitting latently, waiting for a trigger. Even in an unrecognized idle, memories, individual or collective, can have a dramatic effect on a person or a group.

Last year I learned the term “historical trauma.” A registered nurse, who is Lummi and works in school health care, spoke to a class I was taking about the effects of trauma, past and present, upon members of her tribe. Some trauma of their past included coercion to sign treaties that oppressed tribes even more; forced relocation to one small piece of land thus ending their way of life of moving between seasonal homes and providing for their own food and shelter needs; corporal punishment for speaking their language of maintaining their ritual traditions; being considered less than human; forced poverty resulting in reliance upon government “assistance;” and the list goes on and on and on. Coast Salish Peoples were in this region for thousands and thousands of years before the white person ever came here. The loss of their way of life that they had had since time immemorial is incalculable and inconceivable.

This history of racial abuse remains in the collective conscious and continues to assert trauma on individuals, and it becomes particularly fierce when triggered by present-time racism and well-established systems of oppression. The fact that Lummi Nation maintains such a strong, irrepressible resilience is a testament to their greatness. They, along with scores of other tribes, are now saving our own environmental asses by demanding that governments honor the very treaties that were written to subject them. And yet the history of the wrongs perpetrated against them continues to affect their health and well-being every. single. day. The average life span for a Lummi person in comparison with a white person in this region is downright horrendous (only 11% of the tribe is over 55). They may be damn strong, innovative, proud, and beautiful, and yet historical trauma digs deep. The same is true for African-Americans with the history of enslavement here in the U.S., and the ongoing oppression of people of color –historical trauma is real and valid, and it’s easily triggered by overt and subtle acts of racism.

I can’t help but think about the connection points between my sudden, freak memory, the historical trauma of our local Lummi, and the question of whether or not to remove historical monuments that honor those who fought for the Confederacy.

My memory of the motorcycle fatality is striking evidence of the presence of latent memories. These memories just need some kind of trigger to enter into conscious awareness.

Confederacy monuments are a physical, tangible reminder that many in this nation wanted to keep African-Americans in slavery. Current national (and local) racist overtones worsen the effects of historical trauma. So why do we keep them up? The persons reflected in the monuments are in history books; they are documented for all time. Taking statues down is not erasing history, it’s a feeble, well-reasoned move to try and mitigate some of the effects of racist trauma on people who continue to suffer from ongoing oppression.

Memory is so damn strong. We don’t need monuments to keep those particular memories alive. We need to establish new memories of tearing them down.

“We need to establish new memories...”

**And for the story to which I alluded in the opening sentence…

The grizzlies were supposed to be at the particular river to which we traveled because the salmon were spawning. Because the salmon were not there, the grizzlies were not there. A ranger person told us that the salmon run had collapsed due to an imbalance in the ecosystem, largely caused by much greater numbers of bull trout, which ate the smaller Kokanee salmon, and also ate their food. My adventure companions, who were local to the area, were utterly dismayed. We did manage to go to a different creek where the Kokanee were spawning – they were glorious! (And cranky; the battle over who gets to spermicize the eggs is real, folks.)

And the mountain caribou…Two of the people I met last weekend have newly produced films on the mountain caribou. These are not the arctic caribou, which are so well known for their mighty migration. No, these are another, related species that sticks to the mountains. They live in forests and survive on a diet of lichen that grows on trees. The trees that support this lichen are old growth; at least 120 years old. Then these trees get cut down, which sustain the ancient lichen, there is literally not enough food for the mountain caribou. But not only is their food source being cut down at staggering rates, the clearcuts have created vast meadows which draw in the meadow-loving ungulates, namely the elk, deer, and moose. These animals, in turn, draw in predators, primarily wolf.  The mountain caribou are easier prey than the deer, elk, and moose, because they didn’t need to develop acute evasion skills, because wolves didn’t live in the dense forests. The forests are both the food source and the protection for the mountain caribou, and their removal has quite possibly pushed the mountain caribou beyond the ability to survive.

One moviemaker, Bryce Comer, lives in the region that contains the southernmost herd of mountain caribou. He started making his film nine years ago, when the herd had 49 members. This year it has 10 members. It is getting wiped out, and logging is the explicit cause. He has spent countless hours in a disguised shelter, trying to capture these beautiful animals on film. His motion-activated cameras have yielded extremely important footage of these elusive animals. I thoroughly enjoyed watching his movie with a few of his friends on a moonlit beach the night before we went searching for grizzlies.

The other filmmaker was the instructor of the wildlife tracking course I was taking, which was the reason I was in BC over Labor Day. Dave Moskowitz produced a fabulous film on the mountain caribou, which was partly funded through Kickstarter. We had the chance to see the movie during the course and it was well done.

Both of these films have the potential to raise awareness of the relatively-unknown plight of the mountain caribou. I hope they do. And I hope these animals can somehow survive; it doesn’t look good. Unless logging is dramatically restricted, it looks like we’re only going to have memories of them.

A Sermon for Christ the King Sunday in 2016

Christ the King Sunday, Nov. 21, 2016

Texts: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43

By Charis Weathers

In the Christian calendar this is called Christ the King Sunday. It acknowledges the lordship, sovereignty, and rule of Jesus Christ over this whole world and is the very last Sunday of the whole liturgical year. It’s like New Year’s Eve.

The next worship gathering that any liturgical church will have, is the start of Advent, when we again turn our hope to the coming of Jesus.

I find tension in Christ the King Sunday. The calendar is trying to tell us that Jesus DOES rule, and that Jesus DOES have actual authority, and that God IS in control. But next Sunday tells a different story: Jesus hasn’t come yet.

The Church calendar can be a little maddening this way. It’s this seemingly never-ending cycle: it ends on Christ the King Sunday, but until Christ comes back “for real” we begin Advent the very next Sunday.

“He’s the King!,” “Oh wait, he’s coming!” Every. Single. Year.

Curiously, Christ the King Sunday isn’t found in ancient calendars. It came about in 1925. I found out about this when I heard Bishop Martin Wells preach on this Sunday last year.

Pope Pious XI

He quoted Ben Stewart, a liturgy professor, who said,

"It was in 1925, against the backdrop of the rise of Mussolini and the growing popularity of the Nazi Party, that Pope Pius announced this new feast day, designed to remind the church that Christ didn’t rule over only inner, subjective, spiritual things, but Christ’s rule extended over everything else:  the way we vote, the way we govern and the way we care for the vulnerable and outcasts in our society. The feast was meant to remind us that Christ’s reign was universal and extended over the worldly rulers like Mussolini and Hitler.” 

Christ the King Sunday was implemented intentionally when Nazis were gaining power. The Pope responded to the political threat of his day with Christ the King Sunday.

Because government can go wonky at any point (if it isn’t already), this Sunday has a message for government, and it also has a message for citizens. This Jesus guy matters.

He reigns over the whole earth. He brings peace, and justice with his rule.

But that peace and justice is NOT ruling worldwide in any literal sense today. And in 1925 things were only going to get a lot worse in regards to human political power in Europe. A lot worse.

But Jesus DOES rule….right?

There’s all kinds of paradox in the Christian faith. Seemingly two opposite things exist side-by-side. What we deal with on days like Christ the King Sunday is that we live in an extraordinary amount of tension between the “now and not yet.”

The “not yet” is secure. From Scripture we place our hope in that there WILL be a time when the gracious rule of Christ will extend physically over all the earth, but until then there is a spiritual reality that Christ reigns. Similarly, death was conquered once and for all through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, but for now, we still experience physical death.

Death will come, even though death is defeated. Christ will reign, even though others reign right now.

But Christ CAN reign right now, too.

That is what Ben Stewart was getting at when he said that Christ the King Sunday was “designed to remind the church that Christ didn’t rule over only inner, subjective, spiritual things, but Christ’s rule extended over everything else:  the way we vote, the way we govern and the way we care for the vulnerable and outcasts in our society.” 

In the knowledge that the gracious rule of Christ is coming, we have the opportunity to embody Christ-like values in regard to power and leadership.  The rule of Jesus isn’t just some pie-in-the-sky future thing that will save us all – the rule of Jesus is an invitation for his followers to live out, to “en-flesh” what his rule looks like.

And with that long preamble to Christ the King Sunday, we’re now we’re finally getting to the texts! Our passages for today give us an idea of what God values in leadership, in ruling.

From the Jeremiah passage[1] we are told that God will raise up shepherds who will round up sheep that have been destroyed and scattered. They will be gathered, brought back into the fold, and given safety.

Very explicitly Jeremiah says that God wants God’s appointed king, David, to execute justice and righteousness in the whole land. I can’t say that David did that very well, but that doesn’t discount what God was wanting from David.

In the Psalm[2] we are told that in the midst of terror, in the midst of uproar, and tottering kingdoms, God is steadfast, a refuge, and strength. God, the ruler, stops war. God says, "Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth."

The bottom line is that human rulers will never be over God.  God embodies peace and safety.

The Colossians passage[3] holds some of the most powerful, recognizable text about the ruling Christ:

1:15-18 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers--all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

And what does this rule accomplish, according to vs. 20? Through Jesus, God was pleased to reconcile to God’s self ALL THINGS, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the work done on the cross.

Reconciling and peace-making is the work of the ruling Christ.

And, finally, the Luke passage.[4] This last Sunday of the church calendar has Jesus on the cross, and a literal inscription, “the King of the Jews,” is placed over him. He is mocked by authorities, by soldiers, and by a fellow prisoner – “if you are the King of the Jews then save yourself!”

It’s a scene that we don’t usually think about much because it is so "yeah, yeah, Jesus dies on the cross," but a compassionate guy, someone who challenged the status quo, was being publicly executed. He was naked, he was hanging by sharp pieces of metal that had been nailed through each hand and foot, into large, upright beams of wood. His head was bleeding from a mocking, thorny crown that had been forced into his scalp.

This is the KING of the Jews.

This passage is astonishing in many ways, but two things stand out for me on Christ the King Sunday.

The first is that Jesus asks God to forgive those who were inflicting this pain that would end in his death, because “they do not know what they do.”

The guards and onlookers DID know what they were doing: they were executing him.

But they didn’t know the larger picture: they were executing way more than a whimsical caricature of the King of the Jews, they were humiliating and killing the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; the one in whom all things in heaven and on earth were created… the one in whom all things hold together.

Instead of wrath or judgment there is mercy. A mercy that is hard to imagine.

The second astonishing thing in light of Christ the King Sunday is that Jesus doesn’t save himself.

Presumably, he could. He performed miracles that were way more impressive than getting himself off of the cross. Yet he doesn’t. This king, this ruler over all things, forgives his killers, and he doesn’t save himself.

This isn’t politics as we know it.

As much as I can squirm under the very term “king,” because it smacks of patriarchal authoritarianism, this kingship of Jesus is very different than what we think governing is supposed to be.

In Goodwill this week I happened to pick up a collection of essays by E.B. White, the author of Charlotte’s Web. Thumbing through it I found one passage in which he writes that God must’ve felt very awkward when a minister declared in a Democratic Convention that Adlai Stevenson was God’s man to be president.[5] I found the image of God feeling awkward to be amusing.

I wonder how many times those words have been spoken or written throughout the ages: “so and so is God’s choice to lead us, to lead them.” We’ve got these notions of what kingliness, of leadership, is supposed to be. But God has a very funny way of turning our notions of power on its head. We simply can’t forget that it was the religious authority, those who were trying to live “righteously”, who condemned Jesus. We’re not so good at predicting who God’s person is, if there is one.

In our texts for today the ruling one or (ones) gather and provide safety for those who have been destroyed and scattered. They make peace, they reconcile, they forgive, they don’t seek their own welfare as the highest ideal.

THIS is how Christ rules as King today: By the people of Christ embodying these principles.

Christ the King Sunday tells us Jesus will literally reign over all the earth one day. And until then the reign of Christ is carried on in…..people.

It’s outrageous. And it’s possible.

A few weeks ago I went to hear a favorite author of mine, Mary Doria Russell, at the Jewish synagogue here in Bellingham. She’s an academic in anthropology who happens to write extraordinary novels. Whenever she sets to write a novel she researches the heck out of her subject and context, and for this talk she was discussing what she learned when she was looking into the plight of Jews in Italy in WWII.[6]

Russell is Italian. Like, very Italian. And she’s a convert from Catholicism to Judaism, so this has deep meaning for her. What she found was incredible heroism on the part of Italians, and the Italian military, to save Jewish people. Before the deportations to concentration camps there were about 50,000 Jews in Italy. After the war there were about 43,000 Jews in Italy. Across Europe as a whole 90% of all Jews had either been killed or relocated. But in Italy, between 80-90% of Italian Jews survived.[7] The Italians saved them. Russell’s novel is filled with hard-to-believe stories that are based on real people that she has actually met and interviewed.

Recently there was story running through social media about an elite Italian cyclist who helped save a lot of lives during the war, but he is just one example. Whole villages harbored Jews, and on at least one occasion when a village was found out, all the villagers were marched into the local church and it was burned to the ground. Many paid dearly for their courage.

I’d like to remind us that it was this time, on the eve of WWII, that Pope Pious XI declared Christ the King Sunday, to remind the church that Christ didn’t rule over only inner, subjective, spiritual things, but Christ’s rule extended over everything else:  the way we vote, the way we govern and the way we care for the vulnerable and outcasts in our society. 

Pope Pious XI was Italian, living in Italy. He made speeches against Anti-Semitism, stating that Christians can have no part in it. Humankind is all one race.

Italians lived the reign of Christ in WWII. They are also living the reign of Christ right now in taking in Syrian refugees.

As much as I want to chafe against the idea of Christ the King, it’s important. It’s relevant to how we live our lives. Do we make peace, reconcile, forgive, gather in the scattered? Because this IS the reign of Christ.

I think it’s important to again remind us that Advent begins a week from today. I’m not sure there is a time when we DON’T need the birth of Christ in us, when we don’t need a reminder that Jesus is coming.

We are the receivers, the receptacles of this King, of this infant, of this man who turned all notions of power on its head.

He is here.

And he is coming.

We need this. Every. Single. Year.

Amen.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Jeremiah 23:1-6 Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD. Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the LORD. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the LORD. The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: "The LORD is our righteousness."

[2] Psalm 46 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

Come, behold the works of the LORD; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. "Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth." The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

[3] Colossians 1:11-20 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to God, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of God's beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers--all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to God's self all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

[4] Luke 23:33-43 When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!" The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews." One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

[5] “Essays of E.B. White,” in the “Bedfellows” essay.

[6] Her novel based on this time period is called, A Thread of Grace. Her first two novels, The Sparrow, and Children of God, are my favorite.

[7] Some additional info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Italy#Jews_during_the_Fascist_era

The Church and the Election

In the beginning of the "United States of America," the separation of church and state was implemented for the integrity and safety of the church. The state wasn't allowed to mess with the church. Today, though, the church (at least a big chunk of the "church"), feels an obligation to vote for "God's person." 

But who is that, exactly?

In his day, Jesus stood up for the marginalized and oppressed against governmental and religious powers; this is one of his most defining characteristics. I really don't think a politician who carried this as her or his most defining characteristic would be a very good politician. Seriously. This is why the church needs to be given the freedom to do what it needs to do outside the control of government.

The role of the church is to be a light to neighbors, to bless and not curse, to offer hope and not hate. The elected governmental power is seemingly aligned to do much harm to many, but the church's role does not change: we love, we champion for those without power, we work for justice. 

At the beginning and at the end of each day, this is what the church is called to do. This is what we are called to do.

And we listen. We listen to those who are bowed down with fear in light of the threats to their humanity. We listen to understand the cries of those who voted for the president-elect. We listen to hear where we might step up....then we act, in obedience to the man who tried with all he had to challenge the earthly powers toward a better way, offering the same love, the same access to God, to all persons.

Orlando: not the "worst" shooting...and an opportunity to be better

As with most Americans I awoke today to the news that our nation suffered "the worst mass shooting in US history." In Orlando, FL, an armed man entered an LGBTQ nightclub, Pulse, on their Latin dance night, and killed at least 50 people with assault weapons. He was finally stopped when law enforcement rammed through the door in a tank and killed him.

It's horrific. It's a nightmare. It seems unimaginable. And yet we can imagine it because we keep reading the same headlines. One year ago this week nine African Americans were gunned down during Bible study in Charleston. It seems that it doesn't really matter who you are or what you do (sexual orientation, gender identity, to religious practice), someone hates you enough to gun you down. You could be doing sexy dancing, praying, or just trying to pee and someone else wants you dead.

And ya know, it's in our DNA as a country. In no uncertain terms is this the "worst mass shooting in US history." One only need to look back a little more than a century to remember the Wounded Knee Massacre when US troops opened fire and killed over 150 Lakota men, women, and children. Many of those troops received the medal of honor as a result. That's one of the more well-known ones. Just look at this non-exhaustive list of massacres of Native Americans. White settlers in this nation were hell-bent to take and possess land and resources that were not theirs to take, believing that their "superior" ethnicity and religion gave them that right. Over a few centuries, our forebears used weapons, disease, displacement, and poverty to wipe out well over 90% of all Native Americans who lived here since time immemorial.

The Pulse nightclub shooting is not the worst mass shooting in US history. But in the end, that doesn't really matter. What DOES matter is that we can look at this heinous crime as something "other", something we would never do. "I don't hate gay people or trans people or Latin music lovers," so some might state. And yet most of us live happily on land that was stolen from others by way of death, violence, and threat. 

This history of violence that we have inherited continues. Hate has never been wiped out. The vitriolic language that was used in defense of killing Indians is the same kind of language that has been used against trans people wanting to use a bathroom that fits with their personhood, it's been used by a presidential nominee against all people of a certain religion or ethnicity. It's used by religious people against so-called progressives in desperate attempts to hang on to a 1950s sense of morality.

The hatred of our forebears continues. At times like this it seems inflamed.

As my genius brother likes to remind me, though, the world is actually getting better. Videos like this one describe how war casualties have been on the decline for a long time (not that there is a guarantee of this continuing). Google "why the world is better today" and you'll find many interesting viewpoints to explore. 

In the midst of the news today, however, things seem bleak. People are rightfully angry at platitudes to "pray for Orlando," and other such well-meaning but hollow responses.

What we need is to own the ability and the trajectory to be better, to become a better society. To make violent hatred unacceptable, to work to provide justice and safety for all citizens of this nation, and call for it around the globe (fwiw, that doesn't necessarily mean wandering into other country's wars). It means to seek out those who are different than us and not only make a friendship, but recognize that our similarities (oh, you love your family, too? oh, you need to make a living, too? oh, you have fear, too? oh, your love has been complicated, too?) far, far outnumber and outweigh our differences (ie. religion, gender, wealth, ethnicity, etc.).

Right now we grieve. We grieve hard. And we commit to doing better. We commit to upholding and protecting those are persecuted and the target of violence. And really, we are upholding ourselves in this solidarity because as is often stated, "our freedom is bound up in the freedom of others." It's really true.

“our freedom is bound up in the freedom of others”

I'm not going to suggest what "doing better" means, but I know for sure it doesn't mean carrying on violence or hatred (of anyone). We have enough of that already.

Charis Weathers

Echoes Bellingham

#orlandoshooting #orlando #lgbtq #native #nativeamerican #pulse #ushistory #hope #change #rights #massacre