“My Banned Black History Sermons” is now in print

From The South Carolina Uited Methodist Advocate:

A new book from the Advocate Press has been released just in time for Black History Month.

Called “My Banned Black History Sermons,” the book from the Rev. Amiri Hooker features a number of sermons that were rejected from a sermon website because they didn’t align with the site’s view’s about biblical history. Some of the sermons maintain that Jesus was Black and came from Africa.

“As someone with 30 years of preaching experience, 20 of those years ordained in The United Methodist Church, I believe the concept of a Black Jesus is not out of line with Scripture,” Hooker wrote in the book’s preface. “In the midst of the current climate marked by the surge in White Christian nationalism and evangelical divisiveness, I sense that it’s an ideal time to explore the concepts surrounding a cultural perspective of Jesus as Black.

“This is also a prime time for all faith groups to be exposed to Black history sermons that speak to relevant theologies of the post COVID-19 world.”

The book is available from the Advocate at https://advocatesc.org/store/books/my-banned-black-history-sermons and on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTFJRZWJ

A thought-provoking point by Johnny Ova

The following post by Johnny Ova on Facebook says much of what I was trying to say in my post here yesterday.

I do take some issue with the "... spoke with were the people the Church could not stand. They HATED Jesus because He chose to love and serve them rather than the religious" and "The love of Jesus is so deep, it's offensive to the flesh." We need to be clearer about the actual social, political and religious conditions that Jesus lived in. Amy-Jill Levine (see here and here for starters) is tremendously helpful in this area. It seems to me that "the flesh" yearns for the love of Jesus. An old Old Regular Baptist hymn puts this very well. But I think that the main points being made in Johnny Ova in his post are sound.

Johnny Ova wrote: 

How weak does the Church think love is.

It was because of His love that I was forever changed.

You don't need to change, then meet Jesus
.
You meet Jesus and then change.

I was told to repent and change so many times and it did nothing but make be rebel even more. It wasn't until I experienced Jesus on a personal level, right where I was at...that changed my life and transformed my heart.

You don't earn His love with your choices. You already are loved by a perfect love. And it is in that meeting with perfect love, that all fear is cast away and transformation happens.

The Church is so scared of Jesus washing the feet of a "sinner" because they feel like they haven't "earned" their feet to be washed.

Every person that Jesus hung out with, named Apostles, ate with, spoke with were the people the Church could not stand. They HATED Jesus because He chose to love and serve them rather than the religious.

The love of Jesus is so deep, it's offensive to the flesh. He needs to love who we love and hate who we hate or else it's not "Christian".

A HUGE wake up call is taking place. Not to the non believer, but to the believer. A Revelation of who Jesus is, will be, and who He always was.

Responses to "My problem is that I have said things and done bad things and I have a very difficult time forgiving myself."

 A friend of mine posted the following message on Facebook last night:

In my life, my walk of Faith is difficult and fraught with doubt. I have no trouble with believing that Jesus loves me; He proved that to me 2000 years ago on the Cross at Calvary. He loves us all.
My problem is that I have said things and done bad things and I have a very difficult time forgiving myself.
Does anyone out there relate to me in this situation? I'm a Senior citizen with health issues. In my last years, I want to be useful to God, not running away from Him
I was prayed over by five Christian friends today....
Maybe I just need to trust God's Love and help others...

These are common and real concerns that many people have. How do we know love and do forgiveness? How do we help ourselves and help others along as we struggle with questions of faith and meaning? My starting point here is in the Christian Bible with Philippians 4:4-9, but I am not one for giving people a Bible verse and leaving things there. I asked a few trusted people in my life for their reactions and suggestions. I'm going to post their responses as I get them, but please feel good about posting your reactions as well and please check back to see additional responses. 

One friend wrote:

When Jesus died on the cross he said it was finished... I struggled with that too but one day someone asked me if the God of the universe forgives everything I've ever done wrong then who am I to not forgives myself. I would suggest prayer and read the bible ask God to help and he will praying for ya in Jesus name. Also tell him to think about Paul the man who wrote most of the new testament. He was a persecutor of christians.

Another friend wrote:

Well . . . To me, this falls in the “What is mine?” category. Forgiveness of my sins is not mine to decide. My opportunity is to ask for forgiveness. My responsibility is to learn how to not do it again. Too much time worrying about my future - obscures my seeing and serving others. [Easier said than done] One more: The future is unknown. We can plan. We can guess. We can discuss. We can worry. How much have we spent on the unknown.

And another friend wrote:

Sounds like that cloud of doubt is trying to block him from really knowing God’s love.
God loves us like we love our children, unconditional love. When He looks at us, he doesn’t see our faults and sins, He sees his Son, Jesus, who gave his very life for us.
Love beyond measure is hard to accept.
We only see our sinful selves. But God looks at us with the eyes of a Father. It brings Him joy to forgive us. He wants to smother us with His love.
But we see ourselves as unworthy and miss out on the blessings He willingly gives us.
God is love, that’s not a feeling He has, it’s who He is.
Sometimes we just need to be silent and feel that love He has for us.
We need to stop arguing in our hearts and minds and just be quiet and listen.
We get in our own way.
I’ll pray your friend finds that peace he’s looking for. More important I pray he sees who God really is.

"Humble"---A new testimony song from Steve Cline

We have had the good fortune to have posted music and some quotes from Steve Cline on this blog previously. Steve is a pretty deep thinker. He lives in West Virginia and has a powerful story to tell us, and I think that we should hear what he's saying and sit with that for awhile and take what works for us with us. If you read this blog regularly you know that some of our constant themes are recovery, religion and spirituality, and the creativity and beauty that is around us and within us. We hit all of these themes in Steve's music and in much of what he has to say. Do I always agree with Steve? No. But his testimony and his music get and hold my attention, and I know that there are many people out there who will benefit greatly from hearing Steve and knowing that there is someone out there who knows their road and can put it into music and share much-needed hope.

The words are as follows:

I was raised to be a prideful sinner

always to stand up for myself

was how to be a winner

but then I found out that road is just full of glimmer

it'll take u to hell a whole lot quicker 

we all need to forgive and be humble

give the shirt off of our back and love our brother

we need to deny our flesh and stay sober

we need to walk as Jesus walked and be humble

there's a way to man that may seem right

but theres only one way that leads to life

we have to trust that Gods way is right

if we put our faith in him he will bring us through the fire

Steve says:

I'm in the process of trying to start a group meeting around McDowell county. As of right now idk of any. A friend of mine is starting one in welch in Feb. I'm trying to get one going in n the Gary area. These bigger cities have at least one everyday. with all the addiction and deaths from addiction we need a place where people who are struggling can come to talk with others who have been there and not feel ashamed. A place where no one looks down on them. I reached out to the mayor of Gary yesterday an plan on talking to a couple pastors to see if I can find a place to have these meetings. I'm trying to see how many people would be in interested in attending these meetings. The only way we will get stronger is in unity. like, comment, and share if you or someone you know would be interested.---January 27

and

there are people who think they know what recovering addicts are going through but just because you've done a couple pills or snorted a line of coke doesn't make you an addict in the same way that working at a hospital doesn't make you a Dr. no matter how much clean time we have there are days we wake up wondering if this is gonna be the day we slip. it's a constant battle of the mind especially when you have the means to do so. you may think that your actions don't have an effect on an individual and you probably don't care but they do. and I know it's another tool of the enemy to try to get me back but I'm sure that others don't know that. in the past anytime we felt anger, joy, resentment, loneliness, our escape was drugs. Now days I use the bible and prayer. but 20+ years of running to the wrong things takes time to break those cycles. I also know that there are certain people who don't want to see us succeed, but all I'm saying is just watch how you treat people,, you might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.---January 26

Those are powerful statements that come straight from the heart. I think Steve is being a realist here, and I say that with my own struggles and the struggles of many friends in mind. The January 27 statement brought a reaction from someone in McDowell County, West Virginia that I believe is entirely justified. They wrote:

I’ve said that before! Here our county was having the highest od rate in the nation at one time, and not only was there no facilities available for recovery, but there’s not even any AA type meetings! It’s proof to me how our state government thinks we don’t matter in McDowell, and why it’s SOOO very harmful for residents and former residents to think it’s ok for them to leave here and talk like we’re nothing but addicts and low life’s with no redeemable qualities.

Why do I think that this statement is totally justified? Because I believe that the person who wrote this knows from first-hand experience what they're talking about and because it is certainly true that West Virginia and most of Appalachia do not receive the levels of social services and care that are needed. Most of the region lives in a semi-colonial state, producing wealth for export and exporting workers to other states and providing large numbers of people to the military but getting almost nothing back that reaches the grassroots. Most of the politicians act as if they're serving colonial masters. I cannot think of a nicer way to say it. People who want to get sober may have to go elsewhere, as the writer says. But why can't home be part of the care and medicine we need?

Tish Harrison Warren writing on Christmas in The New York Times: Having a Hard Christmas? Jesus Did Too

By Tish Harrison Warren

Opinion Writer

Among my most treasured memories is one Christmas Day when I was around 6 or 7 years old. Christmases in my childhood were fairly magical, with good food, lots of family, presents and fun. But that Christmas I was miserable. I lay in bed at my grandmother’s house, where we went for our Christmas feast, with a stomach bug, separated from the rest of the family so as not to spread my Yuletide germs. Alone and unable to eat, I listened sadly to the laughter and glee down the hall. Then my dad popped his head in the door. He brought me a ginger ale with a straw and sat at the end of the bed. He touched my forehead with the back of his hand to check my fever and joked with me gently and kindly.

My father was a complicated man who kept to himself at home and was often distant. We knew he loved us but he showed that more through mowing the lawn and filling up the gas tank rather than giving us hugs or telling us so. But that morning my father left the healthy people, the party and the food and came to spend time with me, just me. I don’t remember what gifts I got that year. I don’t remember what the decorations looked like or what food I missed out on, but I remember my father’s face, his voice, his hands, his smile.

This story comes back to me this time of year because the holidays are often a lonely time for many of us. And in some ways for all of us. No matter how many family members or friends we have, no matter how delicious the food on the table, in quiet moments, many of us still feel a lack, a pang in our hearts, the recurrent ache of longing. We long for peace that we cannot conjure on our own. We long for justice and truth to win out. We long for a joy that isn’t quite so elusive. We long for relationships that last. No matter one’s political affiliation, race, income or education level, we share a common human yearning for a wholeness and flourishing that we do not yet know on this convulsed and suffering planet.
It was my father’s presence that transformed that childhood Christmas, giving it meaning beyond just misery, making it burn bright in my memory. This little moment was a tiny, imperfect picture to me as a kid of what Christians celebrate this morning in nearly every language around the globe: God, like my father, entered our room. The radical claim that Christians make is that God has not remained aloof, transcendent, resplendent in majesty and glory, but became one of us, to be with us in the finitude, the bewilderment, the loneliness and longing of being human.

The analogy falls short. Christians believe that, unlike my father, Jesus was not simply a human messenger visiting us in our suffering. He was God-made flesh, “infinity dwindled to infancy,” as the 19th-century poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote. The Christmas story tells us that therefore Emmanuel — which means “God with us” in Hebrew — is in fact with us in the whole of our actual lives, in our celebration and merrymaking, in our mundane days, and in sickness, sorrows, doubts, failures and disappointments.

Christians believe that because God himself entered humanity, humanity is being transformed even as we speak. Because God took on a human body, all human bodies are holy and worthy of respect. Because God worked, sweating under our sun with difficulty and toil, all human labor can be hallowed. Because God had a human family and friends, our relationships too are eternal and sacred. If God became a human who spent most of his life in quotidian ways, then all of our lives, in all of their granularity, are transformed into the site of God’s surprising presence.

Yet what astounds me most about the Christmas story is not merely the notion that God became a baby or that God got calluses and cavities, had fingernails and friends, and enjoyed good naps and good parties. Christians proclaim today that God actually took on or assumed our sickness, loneliness and misery. God knows the depths of human pain, not in theory but because he has felt it himself. From his earliest moments, Jesus would have been considered a nobody, a loser, another overlooked child born into poverty, an ethnic minority in a vast, oppressive and seemingly all-powerful empire. We have tamed the Christmas story with over-familiarity and sentimentality — little lambs and shepherds, tinsel and stockings — so we fail to notice the depth of pain, chaos and danger into which Jesus was born.
God identifies himself most with the hungry and the vulnerable, with those in chronic pain, with victims of violence, with the outcasts and the despised. In “The Message,” a poetic paraphrase of the scriptures, the pastor and theologian Eugene Peterson translates John 1 by saying, “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.” When Jesus, the Word, “moved into the neighborhood,” it was not into a posh home in a cozy Christmas movie but instead into a place of hardship and sorrow.

The hope of Christmas is that God did not — and therefore will not — leave us alone. In the midst of our doubts and suffering comes a baby. This child, Christians claim, is God’s embodied response to all of our human aching. In his book “Unapologetic,” Francis Spufford writes that Christians “don’t have an argument that solves the problem of the cruel world, but we have a story.” This story is one of God moving into the neighborhood.

Christianity hasn’t answered all my questions. It has not made me perfectly happy. It has not satisfied my sense of longing. If anything, my (often feeble) attempts to live as a Christian have heightened it. But the Christian story tells me that my deepest longings are not just farce, that they point to something true and therefore should be listened to. This Christmas I long not just for love, but for eternal love. I long for a deeper purity and righteousness than I can muster by good behavior. I long for a justice more profound than Congress can ever deliver. I long for “peace on earth and good will toward men” that is more complete and all-encompassing than we’ve ever known. I long for meaning that is more lasting than I can create. I believe that this baby born in Bethlehem is the mystery our hearts keep chasing, the end of our all quests and the longing we cannot shake.

So, friends, I hope you know longing this Christmas, and even more so, I hope you know hope.

Merry Christmas!

Brian Zahnd provides a helpful reflection on one of the Christmas lectionary passages, John 1:1-14

The following was lifted from the Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice. Amy Dalton of the Center writes that "CLBSJ was founded a little over a decade ago out of the conviction that Biblical scholarship needs the perspectives of activism in order to accurately understand the Bible, and that activists need the insights of Biblical scholars to disarm the ways that the Bible has been used to undermine movements for justice. We are working in slow-cook mode to build this project as a deeply cooperative effort, and we need you to do this. CLBSJ has been built almost entirely out of the volunteer energy and generous giving of individuals like yourself." They need money, and you can help by checking them out on Facebook or going here.

Brian Zahnd provides a helpful reflection on one of the Christmas lectionary passages, John 1:1-14:

"The relationship of John the Baptist to Jesus Christ is analogous to the relationship of the Bible to the Christ as the true Word of God. John is to Jesus what the Bible is to Jesus. Think of it like this:
There was a book sent from God whose name was Bible. It came as a witness to testify to the Light, so that all might believe through it. The Bible itself was not the Light, but it came to bear witness to the Light. The True Light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. The Bible testified to him and cried out, “This is he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”

Indeed, what is true of John the Baptist is also true of the Bible. Jesus came after John and the Bible but ranks ahead of John and the Bible because as the Eternal Logos he was before them both. The true witness of the Bible is to point us to the True Light that is Jesus Christ. Our question is not, can we find it in the Bible; the question is, can we find it in the life of Jesus Christ. We can find many things in the Bible that we cannot find in Christ. Wars of conquest, ethnic cleansing, the institution of slavery, capital punishment, and women held as property are all things present in the Bible but absent in Jesus. If we go to the Bible to find the light of truth, the Bible will faithfully point us to the True Light who is Jesus Christ. Some parts of the Bible belong to a dim archaic past, but the Light of Christ never dims. The light of Christ is the true enlightenment.

From "The Anticipated Christ: A Journey Through Advent and Christmas" (Spello Press, 2022), pages 141-43. More info at https://brianzahnd.com/2022/09/the-anticipated-christ/
Thanks to Rev. Paul Nuechterlein from girardianlectionary.net for providing this quotation.

An old Christmas story

The following is one of those sentimental Christmas conversion stories popular in the rural and mountain regions where I come from. It will not appeal to everyone, and it may alienate a few people, but there are practical dimensions to this that I hope will touch someone reading this.


There was once a man who didn't believe in God, and he didn't hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays, like Christmas. His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their children to also have faith in God and the metaphysical meaning of Jesus The Christ, despite her husband's disparaging comments.

One snowy Christmas Eve, the wife was taking their children to a Christmas Eve service in the farm community in which they lived. She asked him to come, but he refused.

"That story is nonsense!" he said. "Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth through a man called Jesus who became the Christ? That's ridiculous!" So she and the children left, and he stayed home.

A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he saw was a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening. Then he heard a loud thump.

Something had hit the window. Then another thump. He looked out, but couldn't see more than a few feet. When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have been beating on his window. In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese.

Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn't go on. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. A couple of them had flown into his window, it seemed.

The man felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them. The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought. It's warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm. So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn't seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them.

The man tried to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them and they moved further away. He went into the house and came with some bread, broke it up, and made a bread crumb trail leading to the barn. They still didn't catch on.

Now he was getting frustrated. He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the barn. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe.

"Why don't they follow me?!" he exclaimed. "Can't they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?" He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn't follow a human.
"If only I were a goose, then I could save them," he said out loud.

Then he had an idea. He went into barn, got one of his own geese, and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese.

He then released it. His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn and one by one the other geese followed it to safety.

He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed in his mind: "If only I were a goose, then I could save them!"

Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier. "Why would God want to become like us? That's ridiculous!"

Suddenly it all made sense. That is what God had done. We were like the geese--blind, lost, perishing. God had His Son become like us so we could find enlightenment and the way to safety.

That was the meaning of Christmas, he realized. As the winds and blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet and he pondered this wonderful thought.

Suddenly he understood what Christmas was all about, why Jesus who became the Christ had come, so that we could become the sons and daughters of the Living Christ. God is our loving Parent who will not let us face our perils alone. 

Years of doubt and disbelief vanished like the passing storm. He fell to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first prayer: "Thank You, God, for coming in human form to get me out of the storm!"

Don't tell God how big your storm is, tell your storm how big your God is!

"...and I got to thinking about what Jesus said, and what if He was to walk into New York City and preach like He used to."

From The Woody Guthrie Center:

“I saw how the poor folks lived, and then I saw how the rich folks lived, and the poor folks down and out and cold and hungry, and the rich ones out drinking good whiskey and celebrating and wasting handfuls of money at gambling and women, and I got to thinking about what Jesus said, and what if He was to walk into New York City and preach like He used to. They’d lock Him back in jail as sure as you’re reading this.”---Woody Guthrie

Sacred Images

In my faith tradition---not where I am now, but in my tradition---we use icons to remind us of what is sacred and in order to make real and better communicate to us what we read in the Bible and what we hear and sing or chant from our traditions. It is not that we pray to the icons or think of them as magic. It's better said that we believe that there are saints, that death does not hold the saints as prisoners, that the saints can intercede for us in the state they inhabit now just as they could when they were living with us, that we don't know all of the saints, and that we pray through icons (rather than to them).

Here are three images that hold what I think of as a common sacred theme that illustrate what I'm trying to say.

The first image is a Coptic icon of the Nativity of Christ. Note that Jesus, Mary, and the wise men have dark skins and that Jesus is giving a blessing. The second image is from Appalachia in the years of the Great Depression. I think that the photograph was taken by Dorothea Lange, but I may be mistaken. The same synergy (dynamic interaction and cooperation) is there as it is in the Coptic icon. The third image comes from Kristin Kennedy of Virginia Lee Studios in Southwestern Virginia. There again is synergy, and the man is looking at us much as one of the wise men in the Coptic icon is.

These are sacred images for me, each in their own way. There is tenderness---and it comes from something great that is both within us and beyond us. There is synergy. There is hope and faith---and faith is always the "confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible." And there is the reality that the Jews were oppressed at the time of Christ's birth in a manger or a cave and that today in Appalachia people live in colonial or semi-colonial conditions and that it is not always easy to find doctors to provide prenatal care and deliver healthy babies.

I imagine that the woman in the coal camp either had a midwife or a company doctor and that her baby was delivered at home, a house rented from the company and paid for by a miner's labor. And I know that conditions changed because people borrowed some courage from the saints and left their Egypts, not fearing the coal operator's anger, and persevered on picketlines because they had a vision of a country of their own. (Hebrews 11)

These are also sacred images for me because carrying and bearing and caring for a child and supporting a family are all hard work, and honest work is scared. We all have within us a precious icon of God, the imprint of God's work and love and solidarity. Our responsibilities to one another are thus sacred or are sacramental. And if we look carefully and give ourselves time, we can see something of God in everyone.

I might have chosen a photograph from Kristin Kennedy's outstanding work showing a mother holding her newborn, but I wanted to make an additional point. It's okay to think of God as feminine or as both feminine and masculine or beyond gender. It's okay to think of God as a Sacred Parent or as Father or as Mother. Mary held Jesus in her arms. Joseph likely held his son as well. 

Preachers, Priests, Ministers, And Pastors---Part Two

Please read Part One here.

Now, what is giving rise to this rant of mine?

There are always several things happening at once. Some of those old-time preachers who I listen to are laying it on pretty thick when it comes to liberals, abortion rights, and some people who they’re not naming who are supposedly rewriting or ignoring the Bible. This got heavier to carry around election time. I continue to be quite moved as I watch the services at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina and listen to Bishop William J. Barber, Jr., and Rev. Shyrl Hinnant Uzzell who are there. My heart sometimes aches because I can’t find a church near where I live that is anything like that.

Also, I recently read the book Raising Lazarus by Beth Macy and I remain caught up with some of the examples that she gave of people, many of them struggling with their own substance abuse recovery issues and getting almost no help from the institutional church, giving deep help to people with substance abuse issues, and sometimes having to do so in violation of the law. I’m questioning my own and other’s Christianity in light of our lack of faith in the resurrection of others from dope sickness and death right now, today. Are we really called to let hundreds of thousands of people die from substance abuse and deaths of despair?

But another one of the drivers on this rant is something that happened in church recently. There is a passing-through, filling-in minister there who seems to push pretty hard on fundraising. That doesn’t bother me so much, but I wonder how other folks hear this. Part of that congregation is doing okay, and the church bank accounts are full to overflowing, but some of the folks in the pews must be struggling like I am, or harder. The church is in a nice part of town. It does a little to assist people in the community but you don’t see many people in the church stepping up on anything controversial. Large numbers of Christians in the United States will do great charitable work, but we’re collectively resistant to taking on the people and conditions that make charity the necessary band-aid that it is.

They say that Sunday mornings are the most segregated times in the United States because people of color go to their churches and whites go to their churches. I have attended a few integrated churches over the years, but very few. These were Roman Catholic and Pentecostal Holiness churches. And since that saying about Sunday mornings became popular, masses of people have left or remained outside of the churches, adding another dimension to our discussion. I take the point that we’re dealing with forms of segregation, but this has many dimensions to it. People of color walk into white space and know if they’re welcome or not pretty quickly. No one has to say anything; it’s just there, and it’s real. Something like that can happen with working-class or poor people entering middle-class or wealthy church space; you feel that you’re walking into something that will not be yours, and that's real. I’ve seen Roman Catholic churches that didn't have this class differentiation built in, but those are exceptions. Sermons often tell us what that space holds. They describe in words what we sense in our hearts or heads.

It's tragic and a sin against God and ourselves that we have this segregation. I say “against ourselves” because we are missing some marks here by not trusting and loving one another in the images given to us by God. There are theologies specific to the experiences of working-class people and people of color that will overwhelm you, fill your heart and be a blessing to you, give you the reassurance that you need if you will open yourself to them. But you can’t very well open yourself to them if you can’t find the right church or if the experiences of working-class people and people of color or LGBTQIA+ people are marginalized.

The readings for the one recent Sunday that brought this to me were 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 and Luke 21:5-19. There is a lot there to take up a long sermon: “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat,” Jesus’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, deep social and political chaos and how believers process those, and repression and society falling apart and how believers deal with those in faith all come up as major themes and all of them have implications that affect how we live and structure our faith. But what we got was another fundraising pitch.

Segregation, churches accommodating to the system, the lack of prophetic action in the church, and the lack of social analysis in the churches are real scandals. But the common conservative complaints are about other things instead.

I remember several years ago on Easter Sunday hearing a minister at this church say that Jesus was dancing on the cross. And on one Christmas Eve a minister there gave a reassuring sermon that told us that all was well. Went I got in my car to head home I heard the news that there had been a massacre of Christians in Africa. The first sermon sets the conservative’s hair on fire. It has no basis in Scripture and could do some damage. It's a terrible image, I think. Perhaps the real harm being done with this kind of talk is that it takes away from the political nature of Christ’s crucifixion. He was not the first or last to die on the cross, and his death (and, in a deep sense, his resurrection) unites him (and should unite all believers) with everyone who has ever been persecuted and every person who has been on a death row and who has been executed. The second sermon was neither prophetic or analytical, and we need both badly. Let’s tell the truth: very little in the world is well, but people of faith are also people of resurrection and can make positive change.

Polemics around this are steps backward. I don't want any part of competitive tensions and criticism. The ways forward are through prayer, calling on the presence of the Holy Spirit, organizing, and (I think) eventually restructuring our relationships and our institutions. The minister doing the fundraising pitches is working within a system, and that system is driven by money and money exists now in order to ration things and maintain exploitation. We need to see that bigger picture.

I’m not aware of any Christian rewriting the Bible, as the conservatives claim. I did recently read a book by a fellow who pastors a large faith community and who wants us to put our Bibles away and find new revelations. It took me awhile to come to this, but I decided that his arguments are conservative but are dressed up to sound radical and counter-cultural. Throwing out the Bible would spark a huge conflict with no predictable end. The Bible guides us through the sorrows, struggles, and victories in this life and gives us a plans for collective salvation (liberation). Marx had it right. Religion “is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” And because that is true the Bible and religion are needed, and the visions of liberation that have been contained within the Bible, and often hidden from the people, must be brought into the light.

The accusation of rewriting the Bible may be aimed at churches and church leaders who are gay-friendly or who are trying to build diverse and inclusive churches. I imagine that this is usually the case, and it is unfair and inaccurate. There is a certain amount of privilege and hypocrisy involved if I’m right. Don’t go calling my hogs home if yours are still in the woods. People often take the Bible and its teachings to heart and put it in terms they can understand and teach with and that can be a beautiful and saving. I was once in a Bible study about Genesis 32:22-32 that turned into good discussions about pro wrestling, hip replacement surgery, and barbecuing and I’m an certain that most everyone present came away with a better sense of the text. Here is another great example:

 God's Highway--The Stanley Brothers

I’m highlighting a few problems here that I see: the conservatism of so many of the preachers, pastors, ministers, and priests; our collective failure to fully appreciate and lift up the theologians and Spirit-filled people we have among the poor and in the working-class; the tendencies that Christians have to compete with one another rather than to serve the people by joining serving the people to serving God in prophetic ways that demand justice; the racial and class divisions that hold us prisoner; the fundraising that replaces prophetic witness; the weaknesses of liberal reassurances; and the false claims by conservatives and liberals. I don’t mind politicization in the pulpits and pews as a matter of principle, but if that’s going to happen then we need the correct politics and neither reactionary conservatism that supports the empire or weak liberalism make the grade. But, really, why can’t we put the drive into a politics of the Kingdom of God and that is in the first place about Biblical and ethical social justice?

That isn’t impossible, though it is extremely difficult. My faith journey is enlivened by what I see taking place at Greenleaf Christian Church, previously mentioned, and how the worship, preaching, and service there find the right balance between feeding the soul and heart and speaking to the head and mind. I have not heard anyone argue against what Bishop Barber and Rev. Shyrl Hinnant Uzzell are doing at Greenleaf. Perhaps those who oppose them think that ignoring them is prudent or the way of containing what is occurring at Greenleaf and through the Poor Peoples Campaign. My belief is that large numbers of the working-class faithful and large numbers of those who are outside of the church will both catch the holy fire if the hearing the preaching and see the resurrection taking place there. I'm impressed by what I read of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Catholic Worker movement, the Jubilee Baptist Church in Chapel Hill and some others are attempting. The question is not what’s going wrong or right with these efforts, but why your community doesn’t have churches like these.

People will fuss over our shepherds who are supposed to help us to be fruitful and multiply the numbers of the faithful. Jeremiah 23:1-6 comes to mind, and that stern first warning gives the conservatives an argument. But keep reading. Pretty soon the connection is made between the shepherds and social justice and liberation.

Let’s take this to the grassroots and go a step back to the people who have a testimony and who believe in their hearts that they are saved and another step back to believers who have a different approach.

The struggle and victory salvation stories that I most often hear sound something like this:

I was raised going to church and was saved as a child at a revival. The man that preached that night was a fiery Pentecostal preacher who preached hell, repentance, and salvation. I felt the conviction of the Spirit and went to the altar that night. That preacher said, “If you leave this world without Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior you will split hell wide open!" Those words from God's went straight to my heart. I thank God to this day that I had enough knowledge to know that I needed this man Jesus in my life.

Many tragic events pushed me very far from Jesus for many years, however. Through the years I have failed God. I have left Him more times than I wish to confess. I spent most my teenage life drinking, doing drugs and sleeping around. I let go of my first love for a life of being a slave to sin. A life of trouble, fear, uncertainty, dread, heartbreak. I was the lowest of sinners...you name it... I was quite the PARTIER and very promiscuous. I ran and ran from God, and at times the guilt was unbearable.

After moving around and countless failed relationships I returned back to my roots with my two children. I worked with a wonderful Christian woman who loved me unconditionally with no condemnation. She was a constant witness for Jesus. And one evening she took me to a Christian church for a women’s Bible study and as I drove out from the parking lot I was so overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit that I pulled off the road and I immediately began sobbing. These were cleansing tears. I asked God to forgive my sins, confessed I wanted Him to be Lord of my life, and joyfully proclaimed that I believed Jesus Christ was God's son who died on the cross for my sin, was buried and raised back to life then ascended and has gone on to Heaven to prepare an eternal home for me.

I lifted up my eyes from the filth I had found myself in and I knew that He was there with His arms open wide ready to hold me, protect me, heal me, love me. I can never repay Him for all He’s done for me. Even attempting to do that would be futile. I just want to spend the rest of my life doing whatever He has me to do. I’m on fire to spread my love of Jesus to others. He has used me, and He is still using me, for most of all just trying to spread His Love and Good News on a daily basis to a hurting world around me. So many people need to hear that hell is still burning, heaven is still waiting, salvation is still available and Jesus is still the same.

You can’t doubt the sincerity here or the strength of conviction. These are reasonable responses social conditions that individuals have limited control over. Jesus is being humanized to extent that He becomes a companion and presence in the lives of people who testify and confess their salvation in this way.

I can argue about hell and hellfire because I’m a universalist, but I won’t argue that the people who testify in this way are wrong when they say that they have experienced something of hell in their lives. Hell and heaven so often become stand-ins for what we experience in our lives. I remember attending a Black church on Maryland’s Eastern Shore many years ago and hearing a woman who had left her community there and had gone to Philadelphia and returned testifying for a very long time and talking about her precarious mental state. The transition and disorientation of her move had been too much of her and she was finding her cure in her community and church. Consider how masses of Black people who had migrated from the Black Belt South to Chicago were so receptive to the early mystical teachings of what became the Nation of Islam. From the standpoint of having made it to Chicago their lives in the segregated and violent South often seemed like hell on earth. Every substance abuser whose life is saved is another Lazarus, and most know that. It's not at all far out, I think, that people will feel God's presence by a river or in the woods or with their children or ageing older ones and know something of heaven from those encounters.

Now, not every Christian has the experience of being saved in a dramatic moment or period in their lives, but they are no less Christian for that. My experience as been that many rural and working-class people, and especially people in the coal fields and what gets called the “Rust Belt,” don’t feel that the well-reasoned and intellectual discourse in a middle-class church is for us or open to us while n economically a politically better-off segment will only hear a logical exposition. There is nothing wrong with well-reasoned and intellectual discourse, working out one’s doubts over time, and being one over by argument over a long stretch of time.

Our ideas of heaven and hell can be more sentimental, and more exclusive and vindictive, than they are Scriptural. I have friends who call this out whenever they hear it, and I have friends who respond with Bible verses laying out the exact opposites of sentimentality, exclusivity, and vindictiveness. The good side of this is that its helpful that whenever someone says something about the nature of qualities of God based on Scripture that they then provide chapter and verse showing the opposite as well. We need to use this kind of reasoning. But most of us are sentimental about heaven for the reasons that our lives have been hard and we want to be with those who loved and protected us and who have now passed on. My advice is that you not stick a pin in people's sentimental balloons unless you are committed to going through life with them and working with them every day to show them something better.

My sentimental idea of heaven now is something like a chain of undisturbed green mountains and valleys as far as I can see, a clean Tug Fork River full of fish, animals around living in peace, a Bluetick coonhound with me, the spirits of Del McCoury and Ralph Stanley and Yara Allen with me, and all of my family members and ancestors and friends and those I sinned against and who sinned against me together and happy and praising God. My less sentimental heaven is a democratic socialism that works, service to one another, constant daily efforts to build justice between people and between people and the environment and animals.

When people ask me if I’m saved or not, or if I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and God and Savior, I usually have two responses. One I took from a Wooden Pulpit Podcast done by the Primitive Baptist Universalists (look up "Holston--A Primitive Baptist Universalist Church" on Facebook). Someone on the podcast made the point that the common idea is that we pray for salvation, but it is closer to the truth to say that we pray because we have been saved. Think on that, and if you can see the truth in that then think about if you ever heard that in church. My other response builds on what I heard for years in Orthodox churches. I have been saved through baptism, I am being saved by faith and works, and with God’s grace I will be saved. This is not the absolute certainty of the people whose testimony is given above, and it isn’t prolonged middle-class doubts being resolved through intellectual engagement. Neither of these is fully sufficient because my answers focus on me and salvation is a collective experience. There is a spectrum of valid responses to questions about our salvation, and we shouldn’t let others pressure us into being in a particular camp.

 

"Let us show hospitality to Christ present in the stranger...

Taken from the Episcopal Devotions Facebook page:

Friends, here is a reading from a sermon of Gregory the Great [1604]

Two disciples were walking together. They did not believe, yet they were talking about Jesus. Suddenly, he appeared, but under characteristics which they could not recognize. To their bodily eyes the Lord thus manifested externally what was taking place in their innermost depths, in the thoughts of their heart. The disciples were inwardly divided between love and doubt. The Lord was really present at their side, but he did not let himself be recognized. He offered his presence to these disciples who spoke of him, but because they doubted him he hid his true visage from them. He spoke to them and reproached them for their little sense. He interpreted for them every passage of Scripture which referred to him, but since he was still a stranger to the faith of their heart he acted as if he were going farther.

In acting in such a manner, the Truth who is sincere was not being deceitful: he was showing himself to the eyes of his disciples as he appeared in their minds. And the Lord wished to see whether these disciples, who did not yet love him as God, would at least be friendly to him under the guise of a stranger. But those with whom Truth walked could not have been far from charity; they invited him to share their lodging, as one does with a traveler. Can we say simply that they invited him? The Scripture says that "they pressed him." It shows us by this example that when we invite strangers under our roof, our invitation must be a pressing one.

They thus set the table, serve the food, and in the breaking of bread discover the God whom they had failed to come to know in the explanation of the Scriptures. It was not in hearing the precepts of God that they were enlightened, but in carrying them out: "It is not those who hear the law who are just in the sight of God; it is those who keep it who will be declared just." If anyone wishes to understand what you have heard, hasten to put into practice whatever you have grasped. The Lord was not recognized while he was speaking; he was pleased to make himself known while he was offered something to eat. Let us then, beloved, love to practice charity. It is of this that Paul speaks to us: "Love your fellow Christians always. Do not neglect to show hospitality, for by that means some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Peter also says: "Be mutually hospitable without complaining." And Truth himself speaks to us of it: "I was a stranger and you welcomed me." "As often as you did it for one of my least brothers [or sisters]," the Lord will declare on the day of judgment, "you did it for me."

Despite this, we are so slothful in the face of the grace of hospitality! Let us appreciate the greatness of this virtue. Let us receive Christ at our table so as to be welcomed at his eternal supper. Let us show hospitality to Christ present in the stranger now so that at the judgment he will not ignore us as strangers but will welcome us as brothers and sisters into his Kingdom.

Mistakes Christians make about the Jewish Jesus • Amy-Jill Levine

I heard a reverend talk about Amy-Jill Levine this morning. She's new to me. This is about a four minute introduction to her thinking and to what Christians get wrong about Jesus. I'm impressed and I'm going to read some of her work.

"Bleeding-hearts"

I would not describe myself as a liberal, but I do think that everyone who believes in human rights and dignity, the integrity of the environment, and putting people before profits---and who oppose the reactionary trends that are trying to push us backwards---have much in common and should find the means to cooperate where we do agree.

    

Supporting Pride and LGBTQIA+ Liberation

 

Our daily Pride solidarity statement and a TED Talk by Noah Mitchell

 

Black, Gay, & Christian---Noah Mitchell

TEDxKingLincolnBronzeville

Pastor Alphonso Bowen---I'll Trust in the Lord

 

A Nonviolent Atonement? - Sharon L. Baker Putt

 

On Prayer

These are the names of the people killed in Buffalo last week. I'm hoping that we will say their names as memory and as prayer for them and their families and their communities and as repentance for having allowed and supported violence and racism and classism.

 

Patriotism and Christianity in the United States

Tertullian, referred to above, is generally regarded as "the father of Latin Christianity" and "the founder of Western theology" according to the Wikipedia entry about him. There is much in his work that does not stand up to conditions today, and some of his work caused both the Eastern and Western churches to not regard him as a saint. But it is impossible to ignore his lasting influences and what he got right if you're exploring Christian history. I think that the quote provided above is something that he got right.
 

Learning More About God Through Prayer - Brian Zahnd