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The 'Morning Joeing' of America

2012-01-17T05:00:00.000-08:00

Tuesday morning, Joe Scarborough gleefully cheered former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's debate performance the previous evening. Scarborough seemed to feel that Newt's condescending attitude toward Juan Williams and his suggestion that school janitors should be replaced by 30 students who would then earn pocket money and would stay in school earned him an "A" rating. It is unclear if he thought that rating was earned because the idea was particularly good or that it seemed to be a hit with the racously partisan South Carolina crowd.

And that's just the point. Joe Scarborough and the gang that gathers around the table on weekday mornings don't have to become definitive in their opinions unless it serves their own self interest. They talk over one another, the intermix semi-serious discussion with meaningless bumper sticker phrases, and they do it from the comfort of the studio. When they do venture out to Iowa, or New Hampshire or in a few days to South Carolina they will do so in a sterile environment in which the audience will be comfortably sitting around tables, drinking their coffee and hanging on the words of folks who haven't done a decent day's work in many a year.

Joe, Mika and the gang will have a lot more credibility when they do their program from the kitchens of their 'on the road' establishments. Talk to the dishwasher, the cooks, or the servers. Talk to folks who struggle to earn enough money just to pay the rent. Talk to folks who can't afford to go to Starbucks because that would take food of their children's table. That might be the key to recovering your credibility. Quit talking, and if you do talk, talk one at a time. Most of us learned that in kindergarten. Quit talking, and start listening. Your morning chat show would become much more relevant to the majority of the people of America.

Joe on more than one occasion has mentioned Matthew 25 where Jesus speaks about the 'least of these'. I'm sure that Joe is also a charitable fellow. But, Joe, instead of talking about 'the least of these' or offering them charity from your well compensated salary, try listening to them. And drag the gang that sit at table with you along with you. You all might learn something. You might learn that your often inane conversations are out of touch with the people who suffer most in our society. They don't have the time to listen to your show because they are either at work or trying to figure out how to cope with the unfairness of a nation where the 'least of these' struggle, while the wealthy and well-placed can comfortably chat about it.

Morning Joe, January 3 2012

2012-01-03T04:54:00.001-08:00

Watched 'Morning Joe' this morning as they discussed the problems confronting our nation with various politicians and pundits. It was one hour and forty five minutes before the words 'poor' or 'poverty' were mentioned. The poor, whose numbers are rapidly increasing, are invisible in our media.

Sermon for the third Sunday of Advent, December 11, 2011

2011-12-12T04:13:00.000-08:00

This sermon was delivered on the third Sunday of Advent. The text was John 1:6-9.

I spent some time thinking about the name of our denomination this week. When you think about what was for a time called mainline denominations ours is somewhat unique. You have Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Quakers, -but for the most part we are one of the few denominations that can be identified as Christian simply by virtue of our name. Our closet partner ecumenically also shares that distinction; the Disciples of Christ.

We are the United Church of Christ. Does our name matter? Probably not. Should it matter? I think it should.

People of the Christian faith, often fall into a trap that can lead to confusion at best, and can be rather destructive to how we live out our faith, at worst. The trap is this: we often take our rather limited understandings of the nature of God and try to see Jesus through those understandings, when, in fact, we should be taking our rather limited understandings of Jesus and try to see God through those understandings. In the language of the gospel of John, Jesus is the way to God, rather than God being the way to Jesus.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate the differences in these two approaches is through an event that happened this week. On Wednesday, I began to serve on a jury. I returned from Mineola on Wednesday afternoon realizing that I would be spending much of the next week at the courthouse.

That didn’t relieve me of home or vocational duties. And so, on Wednesday evening, with a steady rain falling, I took the dog for her evening walk. That in itself was a blessing, it would give me time to think about what I needed to do over the next week, and how it would fit into my civic duty of sitting on a jury.

Walking is also a stress reliever. But not on this particular evening. We got to the corner of Pea Pond and Saw Mill Roads. We stopped for a truck that was moving through the intersection. Then we entered the crosswalk, but within seconds were hit by a car that had made one of those Long Island rolling stops and turned into us. Jonesy was hit with enough force to pull the collar over her head and I was grazed and spun around by the front fender and mirror.

The driver immediately stopped as I pounded on the side of his Sport Utility Vehicle. I shouted, “You hit my dog!” Actually there were a few more nouns and adjectives thrown in to my statement. I quickly turned and found Jonesy cowering on the sidewalk, shaking and squealing, not so much in pain as in fright. I kneeled down beside her to see if there were any injuries while the man pulled to the side of the street and got out. He immediately said that he was sorry, but then added, “It was your fault. On a rainy night like this you should have been wearing something reflective.”

As I attended to Jonesy I reminded him that we were in a crosswalk, under a streetlight, and that he had failed to stop before making his turn. “I stopped.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I stopped because of the truck.”

“No you didn’t.”

We weren’t getting anywhere and I was more concerned about seeing if Jonesy was injured or just frightened by the experience. I placed the collar and leash back on her and got her to walk. She did, with her tail tucked between her legs. I checked her for cuts (thank goodness for a streetlight) and checked her snout to see if she was bleeding. It became apparent that there were no visible injuries and so as I kneeled beside her and comforted her.

The man who stood beside us for a time kneeled down and petted her. And then, he began to cry, which startled me. “I’m a dog lover. I have two dogs at home. I would have felt terrible if I would have hurt your dog. I am very sorry.”

He said all of these things through a shaky voice. The man who just a few moments before I had seen as irresponsible and reckless was now a man who was suffering more than I.

I didn’t say, I forgive you. That would have seemed condescending. I simply said, I think we’re OK. He stroked Jonesy a couple of more times and then we stood up and went our separate ways. After another mile or so, Jonesy’s tail was upright and wagging.

I got home and wrote on my Facebook page about the incident. Some of my old high school friends made a quick and sympathetic reply. They were glad that we were OK.They wondered if I got the guys license number and insurance information -I didn’t. But a few of them indicated that ‘someone’ was watching out for me and Jonesy.

Was that someone God? Was that someone a guardian angel? That set me wondering. What if we would have been severely injured or even killed? Would those same friends have said, “Why wasn’t God looking out for Ron and his dog?” I don’t think so. We don’t like to think of God as lacking either omniscience or omnipresence.

That’s why we often try to see Jesus through our understanding of God, whether that understanding is correct or not. Advent and Christmas are reminders that our task is not to catch a glimpse of Jesus through our fallible understanding of God -who will always remain a mystery. Our task it to try to catch a fleeting glimpse of God through the life of Jesus and through his humanity. Our two Christmas stories, which we will hear in the next few weeks, remind us that the glorious proclamation of the angels to the shepherds wasn’t enough. They had to go to the stable and see something of God in a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. The Magi didn’t look up and see a new star in the sky and simply say that a new king had been born. They traveled across the deserts of Northern Africa, to Bethlehem, to see the babe for themselves.

And in both of these metaphorical stories they saw something of God that was revealed in that fully human baby. Two men kneeled over a shaking frightened dog and discovered the mystery of Jesus. “Where two or three are gathered, I am there also.” Those same two men left the corner of Pea Pond and Saw Mill with a new understanding of the God that we find in our human relationships and in our fallible humanity.

The driver left with a new understanding of the importance of driving with extreme care -especially on a dark rainy night. I left, thinking it might be wise to wear a reflective vest when I go for an evening walk. Anger and fear had been replaced by relief and forgiveness. The true light, which enlightens everything, had again broken forth. As it did in Bethlehem so it does in Bellmore. Thanks be to God.

Thoughts before lighting the Peace Candle

2011-11-28T19:33:00.000-08:00

This was my letter for this week's Messenger (The WMCC newsletter).

On the Second Sunday of Advent we will light the peace candle. In a time when our nation is involved ‘officially’ in two wars, and unofficially in a few others, it is important that we think about peace and what it means to us as Christians.

In Sunday’s Newsday, there was a thoughtful article about the impact that war has not only on those who are fighting the war, but on the families they leave behind. This was made all the more poignant for us because the article quoted Fred Seitz, the father of Sgt. Rick Seitz, the nephew of Janet Seitz. In the article, Fred speaks of trying to help his son deal with the harsh reality that Rick, in his role as a Navy sniper, had killed his first enemy soldier. Fred said, “It bothered me a lot. He’s putting rounds into another human being and ending his life.”

The glory of war is quickly extinguished in such situations. Hard realities set in. It left Rick with the question, “Is God going to have a problem with that?”

That is one of the tragedies of war. It is left primarily to those who fight the wars and its aftermath to deal with such issues. Most of us are far removed from the day to day struggles that continue in Afghanistan and Iraq. We can offer some patriotic platitudes about our servicepersons being ‘heroes’ and can applaud them as they walk by on a Fourth of July parade, but for the most part it is left to them and their families to deal with the issues that surround the fighting of wars.

But, I’ll answer Rick’s pointed question, although it is a matter of personal opinion more than some theological certitude. I won’t pretend to speak for God.

I believe that God has a problem with all killing. In fact, I believe that so strongly that I eventually left the Army Infantry Officer corps. But, I returned as a chaplain and for good reason. I wanted to support folks like you as you face the difficult situations of combat. You are only doing what your nation has sent you to do. You may have pulled the trigger, but each of us, as citizens of the United States, must share in whatever actions are performed on the battlefield in our name. It is up to each of us to decide whether the war is just or unjust, and as Christians it is a question which we must deliberate as seriously as you have. I believe God does have a problem with the killing of another human being. But I also believe that God is forgiving. And in this instance you are not alone in the need to be forgiven. I am just sorry that you are the one that has to wrestle with your valid question. When you and your family wrestle with the questions alone, you have been betrayed by the very nation that sent you to fight our war.

May the peace of Christ be with you and may you return safely.

Ron

'Decreedalizing' Jesus

2011-11-01T18:08:00.000-07:00

I always use the Gospel of Mark as my confirmation gospel. It allows teenagers, for perhaps the first time in their young lives, to ask questions that have probably been on their minds for a long time. Maybe I am giving a perceived curiosity in these fourteen year olds too much credence. It is just as likely that what they have been told about Jesus throughout Sunday School has made him so irrelevant to their lives that the only reason they are willing to endure confirmation is so that can have a neat party after completion. Until the blank stares and obvious boredom reach an as of yet undefined tipping point, I will cling to the hope that something we study and discuss will make these young folks cling to the Christian faith.

But, one thing I am sure of is that if we don't release Jesus from his creedal strait jacket the church is doomed to its continued journey towards total irrelevance. That's why I have chosen Mark as the confirmation gospel. I open our study with questions. "If Paul's letters were written before any of the gospels, and if Mark was the first gospel written, what are we to make of the fact that neither Paul nor the writer of Mark mention the Virgin Birth? In fact, what are we to make of the fact that neither Paul nor the writer of Mark seemed to be even aware of Jesus' Virgin Birth? Or, if they were aware of the Virgin Birth don't you think they would have thought it was important enough to mention?" If those three questions don't arouse interest, my final one usually does: "Do you believe that a woman can have a baby without having sex?" Yes, fourteen year olds have an interest in sex! Most of them, because good teachers or parents have taught them something about the 'birds and bees' will quickly answer that final question.

"No Ron, we don't believe that a woman can have a baby without having sex."

And yet, sometime after they have honestly stated a scientific well-reasoned fact, they will probably be asked to recite these words, if they are to remain in the great cloud of witnesses -"I believe in Jesus Christ,. . . who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,". It tells the confirmand that if he or she is to be classified as a 'believer' they must state something that they patently don't believe.

With this exchange in the basement of our parish hall after our Sunday morning worship service I begin the process of attempting to 'decreedalize' Jesus. Whatever purpose the creeds have served in the past, they have become a millstone around the necks of those who truly desire to be followers in the twenty-first century.

I am saddened that my own denomination's latest hymnal felt the need to include both the Apostles' Creed (from which the above affirmation was taken) and The Nicene Creed. The lame attempt to provide a more inclusive alternate version, in the same hymnal, is a rearranging of the deck chairs on a theological Titanic. I guess I'm less enthused that in the alternate version of the Apostle's Creed 'Lord' is turned into 'Sovereign' than I am troubled that Mary remains a virgin. I am pleased that the Virgin Mary is left out of the UCC Statement of Faith, although I wish they would have included Paul's proclamation that Jesus 'was born of a woman.' Someone as fervent in his discipleship as Paul didn't need a virgin born Jesus to proclaim him Lord, oops sorry, Sovereign.

"We find our understandings of God in the life and teachings of Jesus and in our experiences of Christ in our community." That's one of the points in our church's 'Who We Are. How We Live' statement. (Note: We don't speak of belief, which is a poor substitute for faith.) If I want my confirmands to get an understanding of God through the life and teachings of Jesus it is unnecessary and even detrimental to say that Jesus somehow existed outside of the laws of nature. A fully human Jesus is my gateway to God. I want to free Jesus from his creedal strait jacket and reassert his humanity. By following the fully human Jesus we might just rediscover our own humanity and the divinity that is at the core of all of God's sons and daughters.

I suggest you read the f*%@king Gospel of Mark. Part 2

2011-10-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

Every three years, during the autumn, I make a point of reading the Gospel of Mark in just one sitting. So much of the time pastors and priests read the Bible a few verses at a time as they prepare for a Sunday sermon. Mark's gospel is conducive to being read from start to finish without a pause. It is the shortest of the four gospels and is written in a manner which keeps the reader moving forward at an often rapid pace. This 'every third year' reading is done in the autumn before the Gospel of Mark becomes the Revised Common Lectionary gospel beginning with the first Sunday of Advent.

That is what led me to my less than exemplary farewell to the woman who visited my office on the September morning. I had recently finished my triennial reading of Mark and had discovered again why it is my favorite gospel. It is also the gospel that sticks with me as I continue a life-long process of trying to figure out just who Jesus was, and what that means for us today.

When Mark is read in one sitting you discover something that is often overlooked in a piecemeal non-chronological reading (at least according to Mark's chronology). In the middle of the gospel an amazing transition takes place. Jesus has spent all of his time 'up north' in Galilee and its environs. But beginning with the ninth chapter (the chapters and verses were a later addition to the original author's manuscript) Jesus begins a journey to Jerusalem. Although the journey is intentional with Jesus taking the lead (Mk 10:32), it lacks some of the stronger language of Luke, where Jesus "sets his face toward Jerusalem" (Lk 9:51). There is more an air of uncertainty in Mark's gospel, less a tying together of all the facts. Like life, Jesus journey to Jerusalem in Mark's gospel is less predictive of what will happen and provides a bit of wiggle room in the outcome.

But what marks the transition for me is that the action changes so drastically. In the first eight chapters of Mark, Jesus goes from place to place, healing, teaching, and feeding the hungry. In the final eight, Jesus spends much of his time arguing with religious leaders, correcting the misconceptions of his own disciples, and being entirely misunderstood by those who expected something from Jesus that they did not get. In other words, as soon as Jesus heads toward the 'holy city' as soon as he becomes more engaged with religion, his ability to bring about the 'commonwealth of God' * is greatly diminished. The numerous healing miracles of the first eight chapters are nearly non-existent in the final eight chapters -Jesus is only able to exorcise a demon from a young boy (and that with some effort) and heal Bartimaeus of his blindness.

My Saturday morning visitor was decidedly more religious than I. I will give her that without equivocation and with some sense of relief. In fact, one of the reasons I find salty language useful on occasion is that I need to remind those who associate me with a pastoral role that I find the purity code thinking of religious folks as an anathema to what Jesus proclaimed as the 'kingdom of God.' Religion effectively destroys the 'commonwealth of God'*. Religion binds up and domesticates the Jesus movement with arguments about insiders and outsiders. Religion obliterates faith with demands for a particular set of beliefs. Religion crucified Jesus and is now trying its hardest to crucify the Holy Spirit that Jesus left his followers.

* I'm not certain who first used the terminology to replace 'kingdom of God' with 'commonwealth of God' but I like it and believe it is more reflective of what Jesus proclaimed. God bless the person who added it to our 'religious' language. I will use that term from now on.

Andrew Sullivan on Christianity and his next book

2011-10-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

I suggest you read the f*%@king Gospel of Mark. Part 1

2011-10-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

The question sounded innocent enough. "Are you Reverend Garner?"

When I replied that I was, the woman asked if she could talk to me. "Of course."

With that I placed the box I was holding back in the car and motioned toward the door of the church. I was unloading items for an upcoming church rummage sale but realized that this woman's need to talk was higher on the pastoral priority list than this mundane task. We entered the church, I directed her to my study, and we sat down for what I assumed was going to be a discussion of some difficult problem or illness that she was facing. Why else would a woman that I had never met seek me out on a Saturday morning?

She sat on the edge of the comfortable couch that adorns my study. It was as though she didn't want to feel comfortable or at home. Could it be that being in a church made her uncomfortable? Or possibly, could her sitting position reflect a life that was on the edge? Without making eye contact with me, she opened her purse and pulled out a small notebook. A deep breath and then she asked, "Who is responsible for messages on your church sign?" We have a church sign that is adjacent to Wantagh Avenue, a busy thoroughfare that runs by our church. With that question, and the tone in which it was asked, I now realized that this woman wasn't the one in trouble. I was.

Trying to remove some of the tension, I smiled and answered, "That would be me." Of course, my smile was fruitless because she still wasn't making eye contact. She rarely did during the entire time we were together. She focussed on her little notebook.

"Do you really believe that Jesus preached social justice?"

I knew where this was going. One of my signs that had received a degree of notoriety had stated, 'Sorry Mr. Beck, Jesus preached social justice.' This sign was a response to radio and television personality Glenn Beck's assertion that churches that use the term 'social justice' are dangerous and that congregants of such churches should flee them. The sign had gone viral thanks to a clergy friend that had photographed it and put it on his Facebook page. I had been interviewed and articles were written about the sign and it made newscasts on both CNN and MSNBC. Lawrence O'Donnell had shown a photograph of the sign and quoted me as he was a guest host on 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann.' The church answering machine was flooded with calls, 80% of the responses being supportive. I had a feeling this woman would be in the other 20%. "Yes, I believe Jesus preached social justice."

"I have looked through all four of the gospels and even used my concordance -Jesus never used the words, 'social justice.' You, sir, are a liar!"

This wasn't going well. And from over twenty years of experience in dealing with such matters as a pastor, I already knew things were probably only going to get worse. Now I took the deep breath and calmly answered, "I'm sorry you feel that I am a liar. Perhaps it is because you have taken my sign too literally. I didn't mean that he actually used the words 'social justice' but that much of his teaching and the way he lived showed that social justice was at the heart of what Jesus called 'the kingdom of God.' That seems obvious."

That last statement was unnecessary and a bit defensive. It was and is obvious to me. But by adding it to the end of my explanation I was trying to corner this woman and to be honest cut this whole confrontation short. That being my intention, I failed miserably. She turned the page in her little notebook and began to run through almost every sign that could even vaguely be considered political that had appeared in my brief two years at Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church. 'What budget cuts would Jesus make?' Two signs celebrating the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. A sign celebrating the fact that we were a Marriage Equality Church after the state of New York approved Same Sex Marriage. I also humorously had placed 'It's OK to be Takei' on the sign (I stole that one.) I put a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. -'War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.' And a William Sloane Coffin -'Jesus had a healthy disrespect for respectability.' She was especially incensed about a sign that referred to a music video by the band, 'Taking Back Sunday'. I compared, I think rightfully so, the story behind the video to Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son. When she mentioned that particular sign I realized that she had accessed my blog, and knew that a whole new round of complaints was about to be brought down on my head. As it was, when she turned the next page of her notebook. At this point, in an attempt to break the tension, I laughed and told her that I was flattered that she was 'keeping book' on me. No smile or laugh in return.

There were a litany of complaints about the writings on my blog. She was angry about my support of universal, single payer health care, my opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, my support of undocumented workers, my railing against US corporations and their exploitation of Mexican workers in Tijuana, and her hackles were especially raised when I expressed disappointment around the celebrations that occurred when Osama Bin Laden was executed. She didn't even like that I praised our church's Nursery School for being non-sectarian.

On matters theological she found fault in my dismissal of the classic understanding of substitutionary atonement (no, I don't think God used Jesus as a scapegoat). She thought my dismissal of Ascension Day and Jesus riding an invisible elevator up to heaven was disgraceful. Add to that my discounting of the rapture, rapture theology and the antiChrist; my agreement with the late Robert Funk that Jesus deserves and would have wanted a demotion (for the next 2000 years we need to stress the humanity of Jesus); and my assertion on more than one occasion that scripture should not be taken literally and you have a synopsis of her complaints that morning.

In the actions category she didn't like the fact that I had baptized the adopted baby of a lesbian couple or that I had walked the picket line in solidarity with Verizon workers. But what seemed to perplex her most about everything that I had written on my blog was that I had used the word 'shitty' in the middle of one of my postings. A seed had been planted that would color our parting.

After completing her litany of my indiscretions she closed her notebook and for the first time made continued eye contact with me. She calmly placed her little notebook, maybe it was my notebook, back in her purse as she looked at me with an air of sincerity and concern. "Mr. Garner, do you know what the Great Commission is?"

Of course, I did. These were the final two verses of the gospel of Matthew. ". . . go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you." I told her that I was aware of the Great Commission.

"Then why aren't you doing those things?"

"I think that I am." I weakly replied.

She (I never found out her name) then brought up the fact that I was planning to spend five days walking from the Montauk Lighthouse (at the far Eastern end of Long Island) to the Emergency Food Pantry that we supported in Freeport. I planned this walk as a way to raise funds and collect food for the pantry that was experiencing high demand since the economy had collapsed.

She calmly moved a bit further to the edge of my couch and was now perilously close to falling off. "I think instead of being so political you might take that Great Commission seriously and spend your time doing what Jesus told you to do." I knew that this wasn't off the cuff, she had spent time not only reading my sign and my blogs but had carefully crafted how she was going to approach me. Her notebook now secure in her purse with sufficient blank pages remaining to add to her list of grievances she delivered her final well prepared line. " You'll find the Great Commission at the end of the Gospel of Matthew. Instead of wasting five days walking I suggest you read the Gospel of Matthew."

What happened in those next final seconds that we spent together are clear to me. I remember the churning of my gut and the warm feeling on my cheeks. I remember the smug triumphal look on her face. I remember my feeling as though I had just been scolded by my elementary school principal who was now waiting for some meek response. I would like to say that I was left speechless, for that might have been more appropriate. But I wasn't. I would also like to say that it was the Holy Spirit who gave me the words that I then uttered, and perhaps She did -well at least everything but the expletive. I returned the gaze of this mystery woman who had come to me on this particular Saturday morning with her notebook and her anger. This was my moment to 'turn the other cheek.' I offered a smile and an affirmative nod to her. Then, without even giving it a second thought I calmly ended our conversation. "Thank you for your advice. Now, I suggest you read the fucking Gospel of Mark."

With those cryptic words she got up and headed out of my study and down the hall. When I heard the door close (our church doors are impossible to slam) I sat back for the next fifteen minutes and wondered what had just happened? Why had I offered that final retort? What lies ahead in subsequent blogs will be my attempt to answer those questions.

My statement at the Long Island Bus News Conference

2011-10-03T17:39:00.000-07:00

These were my prepared remarks which were revised a bit at the news conference.

Good afternoon, I'm Ron Garner the Pastor of Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church. I can honestly say that few if any of the members of my congregation use Long Island's buses on even an irregular basis. That in itself is significant. You see we are a middle class congregation. It would be easy for the Nassau County bus riders to remain invisible to us.

When my wife Maurene and I both need the car at the same time one of us takes a taxi. Taking the bus would be too inconvenient. What we find inconvenient is for the low wage workers of Nassau County a necessity. And so, as we look at a privatization agreement most of us could really give a damn. It doesn't affect us. Privatization always means that the bottom line will win out over human need. Our politicians can pontificate that this is of benefit to the taxpayers of Nassau County and most people will buy into that way of thinking. The low wage workers of Nassau County will pay the price. Invariably service will be cut, fares will be raised, and union drivers will be replaced with less professional less trained and lower waged drivers. The people that are orderlies in our nursing homes and hospitals, the people who clean our hotel rooms, stock the shelves in our stores, and serve us our fast food will have a more difficult time getting to the places where they work for less than a living wage.

After more than 20 years of ministry I must say that forums like these discourage me. You see, I have finally figured out that I am usually, in fact almost always, on the losing side. Why do I put myself through these frustrating exercises? In both the Hebrew and Christian testaments that make up what most of us know as the Bible we see time after time evidence that God is on the side of the poor. The Biblical prophets railed against politicians and religious leaders who sided with the rich and powerful over those most in need. Jesus said that the trajectory of our faith should always be aimed toward those that he called 'the least of our brothers and sisters.' The Biblical witness, which is the standard by which I must evaluate society, tells me that a society is measured by how it treats the poor, the unemployed and underemployed -those who by being on the margins of society are rarely heard and remain largely invisible to those of us who live more comfortably. My inconvenience is their necessity. I am invited to this podium today because of my position in the community as a religious leader. But I hope I speak for those who would fail to draw any members of the media. Those are the voices that our politicians and community leaders can ignore. So I attempt to speak for them, even when hope that they will be heard or acknowledged is slim.

But hope springs eternal. Have you ever seen the classic film, The Day the Earth Stood Still. A robot and an alien land in Washington D.C. and bring a message to the entire world. When politicians fail to respond to the extraterrestrials all machinery including automobiles and all forms of public transportation grind to a halt. I am hopeful that someday such an event will happen here in Nassau County with one glaring exception. The buses in Long Island will continue to function. Within a few hours, the citizens of Nassau County, that usually could care less about bus service would see it no longer as an inconvenient form of transportation but as a necessity -like many of our low wage workers do now. They would get on the telephone to those legislators that meet in the building behind us and ask some legitimate questions. Why aren't their more buses and bus routes in Nassau County and when am I going to get a bus stop on my street? Perhaps then, our elected officials would respond.

Unemployment as a Spiritual Issue

2011-09-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

If you read this article with an open mind, I guarantee you that you will ponder the current economic and employment situation in a new way. I can't say that about many things I have read.

The tragic misuse and misunderstanding of scripture

2011-09-27T06:50:00.000-07:00

In a period of intense political debate, folks often use scripture to promote their own understandings of how the world works and to support their own ideological positions. Quite often, the Book of Revelation is used as a prophetic and literal view of events that are unfolding in the world.

Without a long explanation or a heartfelt tirade against such an interpretation of scripture that has no basis in reason and is historically invalid, I simply provide this video clip as an example of antichrist hysteria and how folks can be provoked to hateful and divisive speech when an apocalyptic book like Revelation is used by charlatans to whip their flocks into a frenzy. THE BOOK OF REVELATION IS NOT PROPHETIC! IT IS METAPHORICAL AND WAS COMMENTING ON THE EARLY CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ROMAN EMPIRE! For Christians to use it in any other way is not only dishonest, but creates a worldview that is an anathema to the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed. Oh, and that means that neither President Obama or President Bush or any current world leader can lay claim to the much ballyhooed title of antichrist. I'm guessing it was Nero.

Solidarity with Verizon Workers

2011-08-17T05:17:00.000-07:00

Since the Verizon strike began 10 days ago I have been inundated with emails asking me to support the Verizon workers. Actually, I walked the picket line on the second day of the strike and have continued to offer my support as the days have continued. Like so many things in our current over politicized climate, I was very aware that my actions could merely be seen as an 'old lefty' that had found another battle to fight.

Although I wouldn't deny my political leanings, I haven't offered support based on those leanings (well it isn't the primary factor). To put it simply, I have walked the picket line, provided money to help buy back-to-school supplies for the children of striking workers, and offered help with food and finances if the strike continues because I am a follower of Jesus. Not an exemplary follower, mind you, but one who firmly believes that although Jesus called his followers to be people of peace and reconciliation, he also immersed himself in the idea of 'social justice' -no matter what Glenn Beck and my right-wing Christian brothers and sisters say to the contrary.

I find it amazing that the management of Verizon would decry the 'Cadillac' health insurance policies of their workers when they earn salaries 300 times greater than those who actually do the real work. Give me a $55,000 salary per day, as Verizon's CEO makes, and I won't worry either. By using the argument that even though billions of dollar of profits roll in each year the 'line' service is losing money is simply saying that instead of long range planning that supports workers, Verizon management would rather make the employees suffer now than begin to address the issues that would return this portion of the business to profit or re-tool for the future. My union member father would have said that is just laziness! In other words, profits over people!

Back to Jesus for just a moment. Let's say that Verizon does have a health care plan that puts them in the upper 1% of workers in the United States when only health care insurance is considered. I have no way of knowing if that is true since I don't necessarily believe everything I read. Then supporting workers so that they don't continue a race to the bottom is all the more important. Offering sufficient health care insurance to workers isn't 'Cadillac' insurance at all. It is Christian. Until we become enlightened enough to offer universal health care to everyone then it is my duty, as a person of faith, to stand with those who struggle to maintain a dignified life. Jesus came to offer life to the full. That is why I'll continue to walk the picket line. Who is that man in the red shirt just in front of me? I think it is Jesus. So I guess I'm in the right place.

From the United Church of Christ News

2011-08-16T08:42:00.001-07:00

Long Island UCC pastor to put feet to pavement as part of 'Mission:1'

Written by Jeff Woodard
August 16, 2011

As pastor of a Long Island church long known for its advocacy work in fighting hunger, the Rev. Ron Garner feels he "has his feet on the ground" in preparing for Mission:1

Don't look for any grass to be growing underneath them.

Come November, Garner – pastor of Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church in Nassau County – will add his personal exclamation point to Mission:1 by walking 111 miles all over Long Island.

"This comes at a great time for us to put a special emphasis on what we've always done and begin to change the focus of hunger issues," said Garner, planning to walk each day from Nov. 7-11. "We need to move hunger issues more into the area of justice, not just charity.

"The Mission:1 campaign plays on the UCC's motto, "That they may all be 1," Nov. 1-11, 2011 (11-1-11—11-11-11). During those 11 days, the UCC goal is to collect more than 1 million food and household items for local food banks, and collect $111,111 in online donations for hunger-related causes. It will also encourage its 5,300 congregations to advocate for hunger-related causes worldwide via 11,111 letters to Congress.

Rev. Ron Garner

Garner hopes Mission:1 will help identify day-to-day issues the church can bring up that "not only support our food and our finances, but make people aware that there are hungry folks on Long Island and, of course, around the world.

Starting on the east end of Long Island, in Montauk, Garner will follow a 111-mile course that includes a couple of detours. "If you walked it in a straight line, it would be 104 miles, so we had to make a couple of adjustments," he explained.

Taking donations along the way, Garner will make himself available at venues such as churches, schools and supermarkets to talk about hunger issues on Long Island, and how best to feed the hungry.

A support vehicle will travel a couple miles ahead of Garner. "First, so I don't have to carry a lot of things," he says with a laugh. "But it will also serve as our collection vehicle.

We plan to stop at a supermarket each day, and we can load up with items for the food pantry and bring them back each night."

Garner expects other walkers to join him for short increments along the way. Likely among that group will be his "very active 2-year-old Labrador Retriever, Jonesy (named after nearby Jones Beach). We usually do 5 miles a day," said Garner. "I've always been a walker, but with five days in a row at 22 miles each, I'm going to do some training."

He'll also prepare psychologically for whichever way the autumn winds – and possibly other elements – blow. "We get all sorts of weather at that time of year," he said. "Being so close to the ocean, I'm sure there will be wind issues. As autumn turns into winter, we sometimes have some driving winds."

The walk will culminate at the Freeport Emergency Food Pantry, one of two pantries under the auspices of the Long Island Council of Churches. "We have been a long-time financial supporter of Freeport Emergency Food Pantry," said Garner.

"In fact, for the last two years we have been one of two Long Island churches recognized by the Long Island Council of Churches for our support. Not bad for a congregation of 150."

Garner has been pastor at Wantagh for two years. He and his wife spent the previous 10 years as members of the United Reform Church in the United Kingdom.

"I was a hunger-justice advocate in London, and I couldn't help but be a hunger-justice advocate here," said Garner. "For many, many years, this congregation has made one of its main missions the food pantry."

Wantagh Memorial's participation in Mission:1 is not limited to Garner's walk. Other activities are to include:

A 12-hour youth fast. "Our youth are quite fortunate with their own family circumstances, and issues of hunger are very far removed," said Garner. "Yet our youth have always been very active in collecting food for the church."

1,111 food items for the pantry. Youth group members will collect food items outside local supermarkets and discuss hunger issues with shoppers.

"111 Minutes for Hunger" service. Food items will be collected and hunger issues will be discussed as part of a 111-minute-long interfaith worship service and mini-concert.

"And of course, the church will contribute letters and will support me on my walk," said Garner. "It's generating a lot of excitement."

For more information about Mission:1, go to www.ucc.org/mission1

Verizon Strike: Day 5

2011-08-11T08:39:00.000-07:00

I'm the guy with the baseball cap (oh, and the clerical collar)

I was asked by a member of the congregation why I was showing up on the Verizon picket line. Although the question was sincerely asked without a hidden agenda, I recognized that it was one of those questions about 'taking sides.' Congregants are always a bit uneasy when they feel their pastor is becoming too political or enmeshing themselves in political issues.

The simple answer, which can become a little glib unless fully explained, is that Jesus took sides. But more importantly, many Christian denominations support workers rights and the right of employees to organize. (There are also statements of support in other faith traditions.) In 1997 the United Church of Christ placed these words in a resolution approved by the General Synod:

Be It Resolved that the Twenty-first General Synod reaffirms the heritage of the United Church of Christ as an advocate for just, democratic, participatory and inclusive economic policies in both public and private sectors, including:

the responsibility of multinational corporations and international financial institutions to respect and hold themselves accountable to fundamental human rights, particularly with regard to child labor, employment of minorities, and wages that are adequate for local costs of living;

the responsibility of workers to organize for collective bargaining with employers regarding wages, benefits, and working conditions, and the responsibility of employers to respect not only worker rights but also worker’s dignity, and to create and maintain a climate conducive to the worker’s autonomous decision to organize;

the responsibility of collective bargaining units, such as unions, to respect their members and encourage their participation in further efforts to democratize, to respect and hold themselves accountable to fundamental human rights, and to reform and expand the labor movement domestically and abroad;

Those words are only a portion of the resolution which is more wide-ranging. It clearly states that workers have both rights and responsibilities. In a time when unions continue to struggle against corporate money and rights are eroded it is imperative that people of faith support the efforts of workers. In fact, this isn't just about 'taking sides'; it is also about being with people during difficult times and listening to their stories and assuring them that they aren't alone in their struggles. Solidarity!

Verizon Strike

2011-08-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

I pulled out my red clergy shirt today to join the Verizon Employees on the second day of their strike. Contract negotiations have broken down over Medical Benefits and Pension plans. Corporate greed continues to place workers in a 'race to the bottom.' The United Church of Christ has through its pronouncements and actions supported worker and union rights. I was happy to join my brothers and sisters on the picket line! No contract -no work!

Going 'off the grid'

2011-08-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

For the second time in my short flirtation with Facebook I have terminated my account. Actually, two accounts, my personal account and the account I had established for my church are both now in the cyberspace graveyard. It wasn't that I was being stalked or my disappointment in never understanding what my fellow FB'ers saw in Farmville.

I terminated my accounts because I came to the realization of how easy it is to live in Facebook world and how it becomes a temptation to substitute those short missives for actual conversation. Facebook world allows us to 'unfriend' people who piss us off. We can provide links to blogs and youtube videos without having to fully formulate our own opinions or critically analyze the opinions of others. When we've had a shitty day, we can moan to our Facebook friends and either elicit empathy or hear about someone else who has had something worse happen to them in the past 24 hours. If we need a self-esteem boost, we can usually get a few cyber friends who will gladly tell us how great we are despite our protestations.

All of these Facebookian characteristics (I love that we can make up webwords) allow us to live in what can best be described as a community of comfort. Somebody loses their job down the street -go on Facebook and gripe about 9.2% unemployment and blame it on someone or some ideological position. Make sure you get lots of birthday greetings from old friends who would never consider sending you a card or picking up the phone to make a more significant effort. Let people know that you need some more roofing for your cyber barn which kind of makes for a happy-go-lucky version of Habitat for Humanity. And then, send a friend a calf which allows you to participate in the pseudo Heifer project without ever opening your wallet or typing in your card details.

Stanley Hauerwas says, "On Sunday we need to rush together for protection. . .We need to get together on Sunday to be pulled back in to God's kingdom." Christianity is about forming a community not of believers as much as a community of practitioners. It certainly is not a community of comfort or a spiritual battery charging station. We gather, perhaps huddle, together because we see the madness that surrounds us and retreat for a period of time to best see how we can incarnate the love of God in such a loveless world.

Yes, I got Dr. Hauerwas' comments from youtube. So I still find a use for cyber world. But I refuse to spend time FBing when there are more important tasks. And, afterall, you can still catch me in the 140 character world of twitter.

Taking Back Sunday and the Prodigal Son

2011-07-09T08:24:00.000-07:00

Karl Barth once said that a Christian should go about life's tasks with the 'Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other.' In this internet age, I suppose we need to be 'wired in' to cultural interpretations of the human condition.

This past Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, a band with Long Island roots released their latest music video. Though cleverly done, I can't actually say that I was surprised that the video retold an archetypal story -most good art goes about that task. It had obvious, if not intentional links to Jesus' story of the Prodigal Son. The main character, OMGWTFTBS Cat (self explanatory acronyms) leaves the comforts of home and friends to seek out a more exciting life in Hollywood. His actions on arrival show that 'O Cat' was pursuing a self-centered lifestyle. He pushes away a beggar and leers at a beautiful women who passes by on the darkened street.

Just as in Jesus' parable, 'O Cat', after some initial success, begins to experience the other side of fame. He fails in his auditions for 'serious' films and is reduced to becoming a porn actor. 'O Cat' humorously reprises the role of Mark Wahlberg's Dirk Diggler and there is clever homage also paid to Burt Reynolds' director Jack Horner. Throughout the video the perilous slide continues. Finally, 'O Cat' returns home to be quickly surrounded and forgiven by those friends that he rejected. Just like the father who 'waited on the road for his son's return', the members of TBS welcomed their wayward friend back with open arms -an ancient tale retold using new media.

Taking Back Sunday did what artists are called to do -shake us from our illusions and show us a different way of looking at the world. That is the artist's task whether retelling a parable or creating a music video. Peter Rollins writes, "In the parable, truth is not expressed via some detached logical discourse that would be employed to educate us, but rather it emanates from the creation of a lyrical dis-course that inspires and transforms us -a discourse being that form of (mis-communication) that sends us spinning off course and onto a new course." What Peter Rollins said about parables could also be said about music videos when they retell stories of the human condition.

After watching the video a few times I can't help but ask myself would a church be as accepting of a washed up porn actor as the five members of TBS? I can only hope. And sometimes hope is all we have.

You can watch the video here: http://youtu.be/y4AelQt5Fv0

Of Bishops and BS

2011-06-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

Let me be honest, I have never been overly fond of other Christian denominations that feature a hierarchy of Bishops, Archbishops, etc. Some of my best friends and colleagues belong to such denominations, and I know that they are satisfied with that particular form of polity, but it is not for me.

There is a history behind some of my animosity toward the 'whole bishop thing.' My wife and I were exploring becoming Anglicans at one point in our ministry vocations. It was not because we were particularly unhappy with our own United Church of Christ, but did feel that the Episcopal Church was a nice middle ground between the two traditions of our childhoods. I was an evangelical Methodist, Maurene was a Roman Catholic. She liked the use of Missals and Prayer Books and although that wasn't all that exciting to me, I was sometimes disenchanted with the free church tradition which often seemed to be nothing more, than as one wag put it, 'four walls and a sermon.'

So, we began to explore the possibility while living in Peoria, Illinois. I set up a meeting with the Bishop and was a little bit surprised when he requested that only I come in for an initial conversation. When I was finally let in to his office I was concerned about proper protocol. Should I kiss his ring? He immediately made me comfortable by inviting me to sit down. That was the end of any comfort. His first words after his invitation to be seated were: "I must tell you, your wife cannot become a priest in this diocese because I believe that only men can be an icon of Christ." So much for our flirting with the Episcopal Church. Yes, I know that this is one particular bishop in one particular place, and I know that the Episcopal Church has many progressive churches and bishops, but I never want one particular individual to have that much power over my ministry or the ministry of the churches in which I serve.

So, when the historic vote approved same-sex marriage in the state of New York on Friday I celebrated the fact that I didn't have to wait for some ecclesial authority to give me or my congregation approval to perform weddings for our gay and lesbian brothers and sister. I was also pleased that the Episcopal diocese that covers Long Island has given its priests and churches permission to perform marriages, as well. But, I still celebrate my congregational polity because such actions by bishops is not always the case..

WMCC made the commitment several years ago to become and 'open and affirming' church. They didn't need the permission of the Regional or Conference Ministers, nor did they have to answer to some higher church body. They made the decision on their own, as led by the Spirit. As I told them this morning in my sermon, 'I am thankful that you made the decision and that the state of New York has finally caught up.'

Now to the BS. Archbishop Timothy F. Dolan made the following statement after the vote. "Our society must regain what it appears to have lost -a true understanding of the meaning and the place of marriage, as revealed by God, ground in nature, and respected by America's foundational principles." I could provide a commentary on the many levels on which Archbishop Dolan's statement is wrong. But why bother. He's the Archbishop -what he says, goes.

This Week's Messenger letter

2011-05-31T07:49:00.000-07:00

Mine is the sunlight! Mine is the morning

born of the one light Eden saw play!

Praise with elation, Praise every morning,

God’s recreation of the new day!

Eleanor Farjeon

Summer is a time of recreation and relaxation. I have always loved the third verse of Eleanor Farjeon’s poem and am pleased that it has become a beloved hymn of our church. I also like how Farjeon gives us a second understanding of the word ‘recreation’. Perhaps we should say ‘re-creation’. Hopefully this summer while we recreate we can also pay attention to those things we need to re-create.

Too often, the church has dismissed ideas of the ‘big bang’ and evolution. One of the things that has always drawn me to the United Church of Christ is our ability to not see science as something to fear but as a way of more fully understanding God’s universe and our place in it.

There is a second hymn that was in the first United Church of Christ hymnal (that old temporary red one) which has a remarkable second verse which weds the concept of faith and science. I was pleased that it has reappeared, slightly altered, in The New Century Hymnal.

Praise to the living God, from whom all things derive,

Whose Spirit formed upon this sphere the first faint seeds of life;

Who caused them to evolve, unwitting, towards God’s goal,

Till humankind stood on the earth, as living thinking souls.

Curtis Beach

So when you are recreating this summer, spend a bit of time whether at the beach, while on vacation, or just enjoying your garden to look around you! You will see the signs of God’s continual creating -the never ending re-creation that inspires awe and gratitude in those of us who have evolved from those ‘first faint seeds of life.’

Have a blessed summer!

Ron

When I was hungry you gave me food. . .

2011-05-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

I just got this email from Tom Goodhue, the Executive Director of Long Island Council of Churches. It is upsetting to think that much of the money that governments are trying to save directly has its most dramatic consequences on those who are least able to fend for themselves. Two weeks ago WMCC was honored for our support of the Freeport Emergency Food Pantry. Our Golf Outing on September 20, 2011 will be a fund-raiser for that food pantry. It isn't enough, but as a church we'll continue to think of creative ways to meet the needs of those whom Jesus called, 'the least of these my brothers and sisters.'

Dear Friends,

As America slowly digs it way out of the worst recession in decades, the Long Island Council of Churches is feeding more and more hungry people with fewer and fewer resources. Diminished federal funding means reduced funding for the pipeline that sustains the safety net on State, County and local levels.

For more than 30 years Nassau County’s Department of Social Services has asked the Long Island Council of Churches to assist people in need . Thirty years ago we were feeding about 200 a month. By 2010 we were feeding 1,200/month--but our contract with the County has not gone up a cent since we opened the emergency food center in the 1970’s. This year, in fact, the County cut our contract with the Department of Social Services by $27,000 for 2011. Last year’s contract covered about 40% of our costs to operate the program. This year they want us to feed over 1,200 people a month with 21% less!

In Suffolk where our Riverhead facility regularly feeds 700 people a month – and sometimes more than 1,000 – the Department of Social Services pays us a mere $5,000 a year to assist the people they send to us for help. As I noted my Newsday April 11^th article “How can LI say no to the hungry?” I’m not pleading for the State to subsidize the Church. Currently, we, the Church, are subsidizing the State. That’s morally and financially intolerable, and it’s unworkable.

I can’t forget the young mother with a seven-month baby who walked five miles from her residence in Hempstead to our Freeport Emergency Food Center for infant formula. She couldn’t afford to buy the infant formula and she couldn’t afford the bus fare.

We are stretched to the breaking point. We cannot reduce expenses further and still serve Long Islanders in need. We’re trying to raise the funds we need to fill the gap between the needs and the diminished resources we have to meet those needs. Please help us fill the empty shelves by giving as much as you can so we won’t have to turn our hungry neighbors away.

Thank you and May God bless you.

Tom

The Rev. Thomas W. Goodhue
Executive Director

Preparing for May 21, 2011

2011-05-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

This is the second sermon in a series Ron is preaching on the Emmaus Story found in the 24th Chapter of Luke. It especially addresses Rapture Theology.

If the prophecy is true, then this will surely be the last Sunday we are all together. In case you haven’t heard, Harold Camping, President of Family Radio is predicting that the rapture will occur on May 21st.

The rapture is a particular understanding by some fundamentalist and evangelical Christians that Christ will return to earth and take the true believers back to heaven to live with God forever. If the prophecy is true, I hope that I will be the only one present next Sunday.

You might ask, “Ron, why would you be here?”

To paraphrase, When the Saints go marching in -why wouldn’t I be in that number? Because I guess I am not a true believer. The rapture is an invention of the 19th century and approaches scripture on a pick and choose basis with no regard for the context or historical background of the Hebrew and Christian testaments. Although belief in the rapture shaped much of my childhood years, I have since moved beyond that understanding of what the end of the world is all about and what it means to be a true believer.

And yet, followers of Harold Camping are busily placing billboards and distributing flyers throughout the country with the strident prophecy that the end is near. In fact, only six days away. Don’t think I am belittling or mocking Harold Camping and his followers. I am convinced that their interpretation of scripture is grounded in a particular understanding of the human condition. That understanding goes something like this, “When faced with uncertainty, the natural human reaction is to seek to find something that gives us comfort and a sense of security- often with ultimate cosmic significance.”

There isn’t much that surpasses Jesus returning to gather up the saints and leave the sinners behind. Some seek secure and comfortable futures by saving lots of money and insuring that they have a nice nest egg for their retirements. All of this is human nature, it is how we have been wired in the United States. And the moment uncertainty arises we seek to find answers.

Uncertainty, unresolved issues can torment us. So it was with Cleopas and his companion as they walked toward Emmaus. They were saddened, but repeated what they had surely been discussing, with Jesus who they did not recognize. Jesus had been condemned to death, had been crucified and buried, but now this tale was going around that the tomb was empty and that Jesus was alive. I believe they were sad, not so much because of the events of the past few days, I believe they were sad because instead of getting a sense of closure, they we faced with uncertainty. They left Jerusalem and headed for Emmaus not knowing if Jesus was truly alive, or if it was a terrible tale that was concocted by frightened women. The story hadn’t ended. Things were unresolved. Uncertainty was in abundance. If Jesus was still in the tomb, at least they could close the chapter on the prophet mighty in word and deed that they had hoped would offer redemption. As it was, they were left only with uncertainty.

It is easy for us, to simply see the events on the road to Emmaus as something that happened on that first Easter evening. That is assuredly not the case. John Dominic Crossan makes us aware of context of the story in Luke’s gospel when he says, “Emmaus never happened, Emmaus always happens.”

This story was told at a time of uncertainty. Jesus earthly life had ended decades ago. Rome had sacked Jerusalem because of an uprising and destroyed the temple. And just like those followers of Harold Camping, people were looking for the same answers. “When will Jesus return to redeem us? When will Jesus return to punish the wicked and save the righteous?”

As the memories of Jesus began to fade, those who followed needed to deal with the uncertainty. This story deals with the uncertainty in a very different way than giving us answers. On the road to Emmaus, those two travelers did what we as people of faith are called to do -live with the uncertainty, live with the questions, and put our ultimate trust in God.

We are living in uncertain and perilous times. It would be easy to jump on the Harold Camping bandwagon and sit back and make sure we are set for the rapture. Cleopas and companion didn’t do this. Instead they looked at what was happening and wondered what that meant for the future.

We are told that one in five men between the ages of 25 and 54 are unemployed. And economists also tell us that at the end of this economic downturn one in six men between 25 and 54 will still be unemployed. Compare that with similar figures from the 1960’s when only one in twenty men were unemployed. That is a pervasive uncertainty that appears to be what sociologists are calling the new normal.

Seekers of certainty might decide to head for the hills and wait for Jesus to come, others might seek more earthly certainty. We might believe that if we elect the right politicians, or make the proper investments our uncertain futures will be transformed into secure ones.

John Cawood in the nineteenth century, when rapture theology was first flourishing warned against such attempts, “Let not the world’s deceitful cares the rising plant destroy, but let it yield a hundredfold the fruits of peace and joy.”

True peace and joy can only be found when we open ourselves to the uncertainties of life. False beliefs and illusions and seeking certainty in the face of uncertainty will only keep us from seeing the world as it is. For it is in the world, in our day to day struggles, that Christ comes to us.

If it is God’s will, we will meet again here next Sunday. Another prophecy will have been shattered by the reality of life. But we will come here, facing uncertain futures but knowing that we are not alone. For just as Christ met two travelers on a dusty road to Emmaus, Christ will meet us here, as we grapple with the stories of our faith, and continue to trust in the goodness and graciousness of God.

Humor is sometimes the best antidote to ignorance. . .

2011-05-20T06:41:00.000-07:00

It is one of those days that it's tough to follow Jesus. . .

2011-05-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

"Hold fast to that which is good; render to no one evil for evil." Those words were part of the Commission and Blessing that I offered at the close of yesterday's worship service at WMCC.

Last evening, when the news broke about the death of Osama Bin Laden, it was difficult for me to not rejoice along with those at the White House, Times Square and Ground Zero. The evil acts of Osama Bin Laden make him a figure that is easy to hate. No one, should ever lessen the magnitude the evil acts that he has brought on humanity. The first response, triggered by raw emotions, is to celebrate and chant U-S-A, U-S-A!

Within minutes websites and Facebook pages sprang to life in which posters spoke of their desire to spit on, defecate on, burn or chop up Bin Laden's body and the joyous hope that he was now burning in hell. It is understandable but I keep going back to that commissioning that originated with St. Paul. Whom was he speaking to when he spoke of 'hold[ing] fast to that which is good?' Whom was he speaking to when he commanded that we are to 'render to no one evil for evil?'

I don't want to politicize this issue. In a divided United States that only adds fuel to fire. I've already read a few posts that claim that it wasn't the President who killed Osama Bin Laden -it was the Navy Seals. It is an effort to continue the divisive dialogue that plagues this country. It is primarily born out of a hatred for the President which is equal to if not greater than the hatred felt for OBL. It also fails to recognize that as Commander -in- Chief, President Obama directed the attack. It was not long in coming. Other posters have rejoiced that what President Bush failed to do has now been accomplished by his successor. Neither response is appropriate or helpful. The joy expressed in the initial hours is quickly returning to the divisive rhetoric that plagues us today.

Hatred didn't kill OBL. It was the frightening efficiency of Navy Seals who methodically did the job they were trained to do. Hatred didn't kill OBL but hatred has a way of robbing us of life. Whatever rage we have felt since September 11, 2001; however much hate has festered with us, it has done little to improve our safety or make the world safer. When frustrations about our failure to capture or kill OBL grew with each passing day, when he seemed unreachable, our hatred has turned us against one another in a blind and bitter partisanship.

The world is a better place because of the death of Osama Bin Laden. But I'm afraid that his influence on us has not ended with his burial at sea. We are a more hateful, hair-triggered people. The hatred that we directed at him is now directed at anyone who fails to agree with us on almost any issue. We have tragically inherited the hate that burned within Osama Bin Laden and caused him to express great pleasure as the Twin Towers fell to the ground. So, I won't be chanting U-S-A, U-S-A. I won't grieve the death of this hate-filled man, but I will certainly grieve what hatred is doing to us.

"Ricky Bobby Syndrome"

2011-04-25T05:29:00.000-07:00

Ron's Easter Sermon was based on Matthew 28:1-10

In the comedy film, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, the lead character, played by Will Farrell says an interesting grace as the family gathers around the dinner table. Ricky prays exclusively to the ‘baby Jesus’. His wife Carley, becomes impatient and reminds Ricky, mid-prayer that Jesus did ‘grow up.’ Ricky doesn’t budge but before continuing his prayer he responds to his wife, “Well, look, I like the Christmas Jesus best when I'm saying grace. When you say grace, you can say it to Grown-up Jesus, or Teenage Jesus, or Bearded Jesus, or whoever you want.”

Today, we heard the story of Easter morning as told by Matthew. What I find fascinating about Matthew’s story, is the reaction of the two fearful yet joyous Mary’s as they confront the risen Christ outside the empty tomb. They fall down and worship him, but they do something else. They hold on to his feet. It is as if they don’t want Jesus to go anywhere. They simply want to remain in this moment forever and the best way they can go about that is to hold on to Jesus with all of their might.

Whereas Ricky Bobby couldn’t let go of the baby Jesus, the two Marys couldn’t let go of the risen Christ. They were suffering from what I’ll call ‘Ricky Bobby syndrome.’ We want to hold on to those joyous moments in life; we never want them to end. And so, after the joyous moment has passed we find ourselves repeatedly going back to it and making comparisons with our current situation in life. And usually, those past joys make our current situation less than satisfactory.

We are attached to a past event, and so we fail to fully live in the present moment. But, what is most telling about our human condition, is that we tend to hold on the painful occurrences in life with even more veracity than the joyous ones. We can’t seem to ever get past those ‘night[s] of betrayal and desertion’ or those ‘Good Fridays’ that often haunt us.

We’ve all been wronged, we’ve all been misunderstood, we’ve all been betrayed or sold out by someone we trusted. And instead of moving on with life, we find ourselves clinging to that bitter past, even re-crucifying ourselves in a futile effort to understand what went wrong. We seem to think that by reliving the pain, refusing to forgive the wrongdoer, we can somehow finally understand that which in reality we’ll never be able to understand.

Our replayed questions, “What do I do wrong?” “How could someone mistreat me in such a way?” “What was he or she thinking?” will only drive us deeper into despair because we forget that everyone brings to any relationship attachments to past joys but more importantly attachments to past pain.

We try the same thing over and over again, although our efforts end in failure. Two hunters chartered a pilot to take them deep into the rugged northwest corner of Maine to do some moose hunting. Since Big Moose Lake was almost impossible to get to by car they flew in by seaplane. The pilot landed the airplane and as the hunters were getting out he reminded them, “This plane is only big enough for two hunters and one moose. When I come back in three days please only have one moose to load.”

With that he took off and the hunters disappeared into the thick forest. Three days later the pilot again landed on the lake and taxied to the designated meeting place. As he approached he saw the two hunters, rifles slung over their shoulders, huge grins on their faces, and between them the carcasses of two moose. When he opened the cockpit door he reminded them of his instructions three days earlier. “I told you my plane will only carry two hunters and one moose.”

The hunters looked at one another and one of them said, “The pilot we used last year didn’t complain.” Now bush pilots are very competitive with one another. They don’t like to believe that someone else can fly better than they can. So, without another word the pilot help the hunters load the two moose in the passenger compartment. It was so crowded that the hunters had to lay on top of the two moose. Takeoff was frightening. The plane barely cleared the trees at the opposite end of the lake because of the weight of two hunters and two moose. But, taller pine trees lay ahead and suddenly the plane hit the pines. A wing was sheered off, moose-antlers and all went one way, the plane -in several pieces headed off in all directions, and the pilot and two hunters plunged to the forest floor. Minutes later, a dazed hunter looked up and asked his friend, “Where are we?”

His buddy looked around and answered, “I think we’re about a hundred yards farther than we got last year.”

Attaching yourself to a painful past and expecting different results rarely if ever works. One of the ways we serve those around us is by opening our parish hall doors to those who suffer from addictions. Addiction is repeating a painful past over and over again and expecting different results. Breaking the cycle is difficult. That is why there are twelve steps to such programs and the steps are repeated throughout one’s life. People who are addicted to narcotics, alcohol, nicotine, gambling, or anything else often spend their whole lives recovering.

I am drawn to the first two steps of the twelve step program. Step 1: We admit we are powerless over our addiction - that our lives have become unmanageable; Step 2: We come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

That’s what the Easter story is all about. It’s the primary reason that I stubbornly hold on to a belief in God. The only way I can let go of my past is if a Power greater than myself leads me to a less attached more resurrected life.

Jesus recognized that Power in himself and in others. We are infused with a spirit that can move us beyond the past and allow us to live more fully and more sanely in the future. For Jesus, on that Easter morning, the resurrection was already a thing of the past. The earthquake was over, the stone had been rolled away by an angel, the guards were frozen it terror, and the two Marys were given their marching orders. “Go to Galilee, there you will see him.”

And then Jesus comes along. Jesus didn’t want those two women to worship him, he wanted them to follow him. He didn’t want them to celebrate his resurrection, because if they did the true meaning of Easter would be lost. He wanted them to let go of the past, its joys and sorrows. Jesus wanted them to be resurrected themselves.

Jesus wanted them to recognize what the Quakers call ‘that of God which is in each of us.’

That is the miracle of Easter, the spirit that raised Jesus can raise us, as well. God, our higher power, offers us the possibility of moving beyond twelve steps, beyond the hundred yards further that we made it this time in the forest of our lives. Christ wants us to journey all the way to our own Galilee; for there we will see him, in our own resurrected lives. Thanks be to God.

Social Safety Nets and the Kingdom of God

2011-04-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

My mother is dying. That is inevitable. In fact, we are all dying. But it appears that my mother's death is closer than I'd have thought just a few weeks ago. And yet, after ninety years, such realities break in on the illusions that we sometimes cling to concerning the mortality of others as well as our own mortality. Death sometimes creeps up on us and other times it comes with the suddenness of a flash of lighting across the night sky. It is that uncertainty that troubles us and makes us anxious about what we are to do.

In my mother's case, I wonder if I should fly back to Indiana this week before Easter -not really an option for a pastor. Should I head back next week, when a short visit from a cousin to Long Island is on the calendar. Or can I wait until the first week in May which gives me a bit of breathing room and allows me to get a fuller understanding of what is going on in my mother's life -and impending death. Of my three options the latter seems the best, but as in most cases, this could change in an instant. As my mother's medical proxy, I place great faith in the doctors, nurses and caregivers who keep me updated on the developments concerning Mom.

But my faith doesn't simply rest with those who care for Mom. As a person of faith, I also look at my mother's situation on a grander and less personal stage. Over the final years of Mom's life, she has been sustained by what is called the social safety net. Social Security, the monthly allowance that Mom received from the Veteran's Administration (my father was a veteran of World War II), Medicare and Medicaid have allowed my mother to transition from living independently, to assisted living, and now to a nursing home while maintaining a sense of dignity. The pension that my father's union fought for and the supplemental health insurance that the union provides has insured that she has been allowed to maintain that dignity.

As a follower of Jesus, I always shake my head in disbelief when I hear fellow Christians vilify such programs and how they actively support dismantling or turning such programs over to the private sector. I certainly don't want health insurance companies determining what treatment my mom should receive, nor do I want Wall Street handling the funds that would provide vouchers for Mom. If the last three years have taught us anything it is that such trust is unearned.

The starting point for a Christian or a person of any major religion is that everyone should be provided with whatever health care is necessary for one to live their life with dignity. And just as importantly to die with dignity. For a Christian, health care is not a right, it is a duty. If we are to show the compassion that Jesus showed for those around us, we don't start by assessing whether they 'deserve' health care, or how much it will cost, we simply start where all Christians start their relationship with family or neighbor. We start with compassion. Anything less is unChristian.

There were these three governors who went into a bar. . .

2011-02-23T07:51:00.000-08:00

actually, they went into a church. A hypothetical church, mind you. The first was former governor of New Jersey, James McGreevey, who is studying at General Theological Seminary to become an Episcopal Priest. The second was Governor Scott Walker who attends a non-denominational Christian church and is a 'traditional' family man. The third governor in our little tale is Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, a life-long practicing Roman Catholic.

They go to our hypothetical church and the time comes for Communion to be served. Who is welcome at the table?

Let's move beyond the hypothetical. Let's say it's the church I serve -Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church. I have the privilege and responsibility of presiding over our monthly Communion Service. Which of these governors would be welcome at our table? This certainly isn't a hypothetical question. Edward N. Peters, a professor and member of the Vatican court has stated that Governor Cuomo's participation in communion is ' objectively sacrilegious'. The primary reason is his 'public concubinage.' For those of us who are baffled by such archaic terms that means that he is living with his partner outside of marriage.

Former governor Jim McGreevey resigned his position as New Jersey's governor when he acknowledged that he was a gay man. Many Christian churches across a variety of denominations would wish to deny him a place at the table unless he somehow could magically become straight (and magic it would be) or else denied his God-given sexuality and became celibate.

That leaves us with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. This son of a Baptist minister would raise the fewest issues for most of the folks in our pews. But in all honesty, he would give me the greatest pause. I am offended by his attacks on the public workers unions within his state of Wisconsin. I could sit down with Governor Walker and inform him how his intended actions go against the Resolutions of my denomination- the United Church of Christ as well as the teachings of a variety of other Christian denominations and the traditions and teachings of other faiths.

But, in reality, all three of these governors would be welcome at the table of WMCC. Why? This is Christ's table. My judgement, often flawed, biased, and misinformed is a poor substitute for God's grace, made known to us in Jesus. So come to the table, Governor Cuomo, Governor McGreevey, and yes, even Governor Walker. You are welcome here!

Why there is a labor/religious partnership?

2011-02-21T17:36:00.000-08:00

I've been asked a couple of times over the last week why I have placed myself in the position of supporting the Wisconsin public union workers. I am somewhat astounded that many of the people who sit in our pews on Sunday have no idea that the United Church of Christ along with the majority of Christian denominations have always been advocates for workers rights. In 1997, long before the events that have transpired since the economic downturn the General Synod of the United Church of Christ called for a"just, democratic, participatory and inclusive economic policies in both public and private sectors, including... the responsibility of workers to organize for collective bargaining with employers regarding wages, benefits and working conditions, and the responsibility of employers to respect not only worker rights but also workers' dignity, and to create and maintain a climate conducive to the workers' autonomous decision to organize... (and) the responsibility of governments at all levels to foster a more democratic system by seeking balance among the rights and interests of citizens, workers, and corporations."

Thirteen years later the words of that resolution have taken on even more significance. I am struck by the word responsibility which is applied to workers, employers, and the government. Works have the responsibility to organize for collective bargaining. Employers have the responsibility to honor the right of workers to organize for collective bargaining. And governments (including Wisconsin) have the responsibility to balance the rights and interests of citizens, workers and corporations. At the same time that Governor Walker attempts to have public workers pay in to their pension and a portion of their healthcare costs (to which the unions have agreed) he has awarded Wisconsin businesses and corporations $137 million in tax breaks. There are also over one billion dollars in back taxes owed by Wisconsin corporations to the state that Governor Walker shows no interest in attempting to collect. But Governor Walker wants to also remove the unions right and responsibility to organize for collective bargaining. Where is the governments responsibility to balance the rights and interests of citizens, workers and corporations? This is not simply a political issue, this is a faith issue. Workers dignity cannot be maintained when they do not even have a voice at the table. Let's pray for the governor, the Wisconsin legislature, and the union workers and their supporters so that everyone will continue to have a voice at the table.

What's disgusting? Union busting!

2011-02-17T04:24:00.000-08:00

The recent protests against the governor of Wisconsin and the state legislature and their attempts to put an end to a fair collective bargaining process with public employees makes me stop and think. If I speak out in support of the public employees will my opinion be seen as simply a 'political' statement which reflects my own ideological position -or, as I hope it will be seen, will my support of public employees and their unions be seen as a living out of my faith?

Pragmatically, the current budget problems in many of our states are not the result of excessive pay and benefits to public employees. Yes, there have been some abuses especially around double dipping and inflated pensions by unscrupulous employees. But this is rare. The average pension for a union member upon retirement is only $19,000 per year. The current budget deficits and debts are primarily the result of the Great Recession and the shrinking tax revenues caused by massive unemployment and underemployment. Public employees are scapegoated while Wall Street gets a pass. Both Democratic and Republican governors and legislatures are attempting to balance budgets on the backs of the poor and those we rely on to teach our children, put out our fires, and make our streets safe and in this bleak winter free of snow.

But pragmatism isn't, in itself, a faith position. The United Church of Christ has always supported worker's rights especially the right to form unions and for workers to be allowed to be offered a fair collective bargaining process. It is important that UCC clergy and lay people not be intimidated in speaking out because their actions will be seen as political. Support of unions and the rights of workers are fundamental to our faith.

So, although I'm over 900 miles away, I join with my Wisconsin sisters and brothers in their call and response: "What's disgusting?" "Union busting!"

Although a bit difficult to hear, these are the comments of the Senior Minister of First Congregational Church in Madison. He is misidentified as a priest.

Dunkin' Donuts and the Reign of God

2011-02-09T09:59:00.000-08:00

I love Dunkin' Donuts hot chocolate with whipped cream. On mornings like this, when the temperature is in single digits with the wind chill, it is especially appreciated. But, my regular purchases of hot chocolate always leave me feeling a bit guilty. This is not only because my drink is served in a styrofoam cup. My main concern is that I recognize that the harried workers behind the counter are low wage workers. In other words, they are not paid a living wage for the service they provide. My sixties mentality says that I ought to boycott DD until it amends its ways and pays its workers enough to survive. My 21st century mentality tells me that even if I could lead a boycott successful enough to raise the pay of the workers to subsistence level, the price of my hot chocolate would be prohibitively expensive and DD would probably cease to exist and those low wage workers would be out seeking other low wage employment. Of course, I also recognize the power of the free market, and any efforts that I might take will have little effect. I assuage my guilt by always leaving a tip in one of the two mugs next to the cash registers.

Even with their bright orange shirts, Dunkin' Donuts employees and their plight are invisible to most of us. I was reminded of this last week, when one of the speakers at our low wage worker conference at Berkeley reminded the participants of a scene from the Ken Loach film, Bread and Roses. In this particular scene, two cleaners are kneeling on the floor of an office building in the early evening when what we presume to be corporate executives step over them without changing their intense, ongoing conversation or without acknowledgement of those who are 'underfoot.' One of the cleaners says to the other, "I have a theory about these uniforms. They make us invisible."

I admire community organizers, community workers, and those people who attempt to change the financial situations of low wage workers. Since Nassau County is one of the richest counties in the United States the plight of low wage workers is especially severe since the cost of living is so high. But before concerted action can be taken, if it actually can ever be taken in late-term capitalism, the folks who suffer to serve must be made visible. That is the first step in correcting the injustice that is heaped on the heads of low wage service workers.

Those who struggle with mental illness

2011-01-13T11:28:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday, during our worship service at WMCC, as I lit the Peace Candle, I named those who had died as a result of the massacre in Tucson. I also remembered those who were wounded including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Then, and I had to catch my breath for a second, I asked that we also pray for Jared Loughner. Jesus refused to allow us to do anything less than love those who are our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. What Jared Loughner had done the previous day to not only innocent victims, but to our nation as a whole, certainly made him into an enemy and persecutor of an entire nation.

Of course, the language of vitriol started immediately. In a climate of incendiary rhetoric should we have expected less? Blame was fired (that term is intentional) back and forth across the ideological spectrum and politicos and pundits chimed in with opinions that often saccharine-coated the actual intent of their efforts to blame the 'other side.' Some were less cautious with their verbiage and simply lashed out with the same vigor that had become part and parcel of their inflammatory language before Tucson.

But a second narrative began almost simultaneously with the first. Instead of being divisive, this narrative seemed to bring about agreement between the pundits and politicians. Jared Loughner was obviously deranged. His violent act was not the action of a sane person. This provided cover for those who felt as though the massacre had been laid at their feet. The man was insane. End of story.

I suppose, I agree. But something then arose that makes me wonder about the sincerity of those words especially among two prominent political figures. Governor Sarah Palin, in pointing out that society wasn't responsible for the act, placed the responsibility solely on the shoulders of Jared Loughner. Governor Mike Huckabee took things a step further. In his words, Jared Loughner was a 'whack job, nut and maggot."

Both governors are Christians. We should always take people at their word until proven otherwise. If Jared Loughner is insane then how can we hold him solely responsible for his acts, as Governor Palin suggests? The very definition of insanity would preclude a person being responsible for his actions. That doesn't mean that he should not be removed from society because he is obviously a danger to others. What is more troubling is the rhetoric of Governor Huckabee. His use of the terms 'whack job and nut' are not the words that I would expect from an ordained minister -especially in this volatile situation. But then, without taking a breath he uses the term 'maggot'. This seems to indicate that the evil action of Jared Loughner wasn't the result of him being a 'whack job or nuts' but because of a terrible flaw in his character which made him somehow subhuman.

In the Gospels, Jesus met those who were 'demon possessed' with compassion and healing. Demon possession was the understanding of mental illness in the time of Jesus. As difficult as it might be for any of us to accept, Jared Loughner is a child of God, and if he is truly insane, we should insure that his life-long punishment (nothing less is acceptable, in my opinion) is balanced with compassionate treatment. It is why I caught my breath last Sunday morning. I didn't want to offer Jared Loughner anything but hatred and condemnation. My faith was all that got in the way.

WMCC Pastor's Report for 2010

2011-01-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

It has been an exciting year to be a part of Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church. As your Pastor, I have enjoyed this first full year with you and have moved from being primarily an observer to that of a leader/facilitator. The cooperation of the Boards and Committees of the church as well as members of the congregation have made that transition quite comfortable.

Here are some of the reasons for excitement:

-a steady rise in attendance at morning worship with each passing month;

-the addition of ten new members to our rolls;

-the successful completion of confirmation for five youth;

-our most successful CROP Walk ever;

-many new children and families participating in the life of our church;

-major renovations in the Parish Hall, particularly a significant upgrade in Mayflower Hall;

-new doors on both of our buildings;

-a new boiler in the church and new windows in the ‘office wing’;

-the digging of a new well and repair of our sprinkler system;

-a new printer, computer and book shelves for the church office;

-new bookshelves, a desk and table for the Pastor's Study;

-a continued emphasis on mission giving as a central component of our budget;

-becoming a ‘5 for 5’ UCC Church (which means we give to the five major offerings/missions of the denomination);

-"officially" becoming an Open and Affirming Church and revising our Open and Affirming Statement;

-conducting a successful Pumpkin Patch with new support from our Scouts;

-a revamped Holiday Fair which included outside vendors;

-an enhanced worship space with the addition of banners, a new Advent Wreath and Christmas Tree and a lovely manger (courtesy of Manny Marino);

-access to contemporary hymns with the purchase of the New Century Hymnal;

-the purchase of chimes and the establishment of an 'ad hoc' chimes choir;

-the purchase of rhythm band instruments and the formation of a children/youth rhythm band;

-use of the UCC bulletin service to provide artistic bulletins as well as information on the denomination and missions;

-a well attended 8:30 Christmas Eve Service that was added with our usual 7:00 PM and 11:30 PM services (with luminaries lighting the way to all three services);

-a trial program in which we hired a Youth Coordinator -Catie Brandt;

-appointing of a volunteer publicity coordinator;

-the ongoing efforts of our Board and Committee Members, Church School teachers and assistants, Choir and Organist/Choir Director, Sextons, Church Secretary and numerous volunteers to insure that we continue to strive to be a vital, growing church.

The work continues. In 2011 we need to assess our Adult Education programs -attendance has been sporadic, at best. I hope that we will develop a Social Witness Committee as a subcommittee of BOCO. We should also look at our Board and Committee structure. I hope that we will have a spring meeting in which we will plan for next year with the intent of avoiding scheduling conflicts. We will continue to improve our physical facilities with an upgrade of our narthex and offices/choir room. And yes, we finally are getting around to installing a new church sign.

I have remained active in the Wantagh Clergy Council and have now attended my first meeting of the Metro/Suffolk Association of the New York Conference of the UCC. Maurene and I attended and served on the Jury of the Process and Faith Film Festival held in Los Angeles. We also attended the annual conference of the UCC LGBT Coalition which was held in San Diego. This year, I am serving as a committee member for planning this year’s conference in Tampa, Florida. Besides leading worship, making pastoral visits, doing pastoral counseling, attending board and committee meetings, and maintaining office hours I also write a church related blog and have developed a church Facebook page. Welcome to the internet age! Maurene and I had the pleasure of hosting a parsonage ‘open house’ where many of our members and friends were in attendance.

In 2011 we will continue to move forward with hope and anticipation. I appreciate your support of my efforts over this past year!

Respectfully submitted,

Ron Garner

In praise of Joseph. . .

2010-12-30T10:19:00.000-08:00

This is the sermon for Epiphany Sunday, January 2, 2011. The text is Matthew 1:18-25.

Joseph was faced with choices. Unlike the Joseph in the Christmas gospel of Luke, where he is almost irrelevant, in the Epiphany gospel of Matthew, Joseph is an active participant in the story. The choices he makes have a direct bearing on how the story develops.

The first choice he has to make is what to do when he discovers that Mary is pregnant. Surely he was angered. Joseph could have demanded retribution and a strict adherence to Jewish law. Mary could have been stoned to death at her father’s front door as prescribed by the book of Deuteronomy as punishment for an adulteress. Less severely, Joseph could have made Mary the recipient of Bethlehem’s derision by divorcing her in a very public manner.

The choice Joseph made, however, was compassionate. The writer of Matthew describes Joseph as a righteous man who was ‘unwilling to expose her to public disgrace.’ And so, quietly, without fanfare our loud protestation, Joseph ended his engagement to Mary.

You can’t find fault with those actions. Whatever Joseph felt about the event of Mary’s pregnancy, he didn’t want her to become the topic of a public scandal. Oh how we love scandals, and I doubt that the citizens of Bethlehem were any different. People are especially enthralled with scandals of a sexual nature. You have to look no further than the Tiger Woods’ scandal that broke a little more than a year ago. Or, you can simply turn to Pix 11 every weekday morning, between 9 AM and 11 AM and watch Maury Povich and an energetic audience as the paternity of children are determined midst cries of anger and anguish and the cheers of the crowd. Such public spectacles wouldn’t be on the air if there weren’t folks willing to watch.

Joseph must have known about this human tendency. And so he chose to quietly go about the painful task of breaking off his relationship with the woman betrothed to him. Joseph chose to do the right thing. And then he had that dream. I’m not all that sure that Joseph believed what the supposed angel of the Lord told him. I’m quite certain if Joseph had gone to a psychiatrist and told of his dream he would have been advised that his dream was just his subconscious trying to deal with the reality of Mary’s unfaithfulness.

After choosing to do the right thing, Joseph was now faced with another choice. Should he leave things as they were, or should he heed his dream. He chose the latter. Joseph now not only did the right thing, he did something miraculous. He opened himself up to the possibility of doing God’s work in the world.

Clark Strand writes, “It is the Bible’s way of telling us that a profound transformation has taken place [in Joseph], an inner revolution that allows [him] to midwife the birth of mercy and salvation into the world.” Our Catholic brothers and sisters refer to Mary as the ‘mother of God’. If we follow that reasoning as it pertains to Joseph then he was the ‘midwife of God.’ By taking Mary as his wife, he became the guardian and protector of his wife and child.

His miraculous acts had just begun: Joseph took Mary and the infant to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath; he brought them safely back to Israel after Herod had died; and he led them to Nazareth in Galilee to escape Archelaus the son of Herod.

I think oftentimes all we expect to get from our life within the church are guidelines for doing the right thing. We undersell what a community of faith is all about. Stories like that of Matthew’s Joseph reminds us that we are endowed by our Creator with the ability to do miraculous things. Each of us are presented with opportunities, individually and corporately, to be a midwife to the Christ in our time and place.

As Jesus gathered at table with his disciples on the night before he died, he reminded them to remember him but also to continue his work in the world. The stories of his life help us to remember him, but not just his teachings and his miracles, but also the miracle of Joseph who followed something as insubstantial as a dream and became the midwife of mercy and salvation in the world. We have heard the story and now as we share bread and cup may we go about the task of heeding our dreams and be God’s miracle makers -for that is truly what the incarnation is all about.

The birth of a new understanding of Jesus and Christianity. . .

2010-12-27T09:03:00.000-08:00

At yesterday’s Christmas pageant, our children and youth presented what would be considered by most Christians, a familiar understanding of the life of Jesus. In the role I played, (the Pastor) I discussed doctrinal matters that for sixteen centuries have had a major impact on what it means to be a Christian. Doctrines and beliefs like the meaning of Old Testament prophecy as they pertained to Jesus, the Virgin birth, the Holy Trinity. Original Sin, and substitutionary atonement (Jesus‘ death on the cross). Most of us, at least in Church School, became aware of each of those terms even if they were put in simpler language.

Harvey Cox, a professor at Harvard Divinity School has divided the Christian era into three distinct parts. The first three centuries of Christianity, when the early church was more concerned with following the teaching of Jesus than enforcing what to believe about Jesus. The second era encompassed the time between the fourth and twentieth centuries when the church focused on orthodoxy and “correct doctrine.” Yesterday’s pageant reflected this Age of Belief. About fifty years ago a new movement began in the church which will definitely impact the church of tomorrow. More and more Christians are ignoring dogma and breaking down barriers between different religions -spirituality is replacing formal religion. Interestingly enough, there are very few curriculums or scripts for Christmas pageants that reflect this new understanding. But whether embraced or not the church has moved from the ‘Age of Faith, through the Age of Belief, and is now moving more fully into the Age of the Spirit.

That is why I wasn’t hesitant about being the Pastor in yesterday’s pageant. The words I spoke were not only that of my character, but were in fact what I learned as a child and what remained influential for a significant portion of my adult life. The pageant was quite timely because I think it reminds us of where we’ve been if not where we are. But I must also admit that, for me, those words no longer ring true. I am still a follower of Jesus. I am still a Christian -although some of my fundamentalist/evangelical friends would debate that point. Fortunately, by the grace of God, I don’t return the favor. I just see my old way of looking at Jesus as something that no longer rings true for me. I had to lose my belief to find my faith. For me, faith isn’t about doctrines or creeds. For me faith is ultimately trusting in God, and discovering the nature of God in the person of Jesus. Fortunately, the United Church of Christ offers and encourages its ordained clergy to continue to search for truth and to lead congregations in that never-ending, always incomplete search. Like the Magi, we must look for a guiding star that will lead us to a deeper understanding of Jesus. Simply put, in the Age of the Spirit, we are being challenged to practice the religion of Jesus rather than simply a religion about Jesus.

The oppression of the middle class

2010-12-16T04:23:00.000-08:00

In preparation for a workshop I will be conducting this summer, I have reopened one of my favorite books, Paulo Freire's, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Along with Howard Thurman's, Jesus and the Disinherited, no other book has done more to shape my theological thinking. Both books were timely when I first read them in seminary, and with each successive read since then they have become more relevant.

The word oppressed bothers most of us in the United States. This is especially true of those of us who would consider ourselves part of the middle class. We think or oppressed people as the poverty stricken and powerless of Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and the poor and powerless of those nations we have deigned to call "tyrannical." But over the past three years, more and more middle class folks in the United States are finding themselves threatened in ways that tend to turn what has been know as "the American dream" into a nightmare. Jobs have been lost, homes are in foreclosure, pensions have been depleted and the prospects for a return to the pre-2007 lifestyle seem remote.

Pundits on television, radio and the internet speak of such folks as the "unemployed" the "down on their luck" and speak of the desperate need for 'jobs, jobs, jobs' even though more honest economists describe this time of high unemployment and lower paying service jobs as the "new normal." When you have six people searching for every available job you have to understand that the employer holds all of the cards -which equates to lower wages and less benefits. Those of the middle class who have not yet been rocked by the economic malaise live in a time of increased and ever increasing uncertainty.

But those in the middle class have a difficult time seeing themselves as oppressed. We still believe that every time we go to our polling place we are asserting some kind of authority over those who would govern us. Perhaps we want to believe that because it is so hard to admit that we now live less in a democracy and more in a plutocracy than ever before. Corporations and the wealthy control our politicians and call the shots. The late Howard Zinn reminded us that voting was more of a temporary feeling of power than any actual empowerment.

Friere did a masterful job in disclosing the fallacy of such thinking. Although he mainly applied the term 'oppressed' to the poor, he recognized the even more powerful trap that the middle class falls into when they believe they are not oppressed. He refuses to use polite language. The oppressed are those who have been dehumanized by an unfair economic system and the resultant unjust power structures that maintain such a system. Friere wrote:

In their alienation, the oppressed want at any cost to resemble the oppressors, to imitate them, to follow them. This phenomenon is especially prevalent in the middle-class oppressed, who yearn to be equal to the "eminent" men and women of the upper class. Albert Memmi, in an exceptional analysis of the "colonized mentality," refers to the contempt he felt towards the colonizer, mixed with the "passionate" attraction towards him.

Ted Rall describes the prevailing situation in the United States as a nation that is in the throes of 'late-term capitalism.' This, more than any illusions we have about democracy and the power of "we the people", is the controlling dynamic as we come to the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. The growing disparity of the wealthy from the poor and even the oppressed middle class is one example of late-term capitalism. A second example is the cavalier attitude that Wall Street executives took in awarding mind-boggling bonuses shortly after they were bailed out by taxpayers. Finally, since the manufacturing base of the United States is collapsing, the economic engine is being driven by the manipulation of money (derivatives, bundling of mortgages, etc.) ,which is handled by fewer and fewer corporate entities.

For the church to ignore this situation and how it will effect our churches and the communities that surround our churches is a huge mistake. To address this situation will be especially important for those of us who serve in historically comfortable middle class congregations. Using the reflection/action model espoused and honed by Paulo Friere we can begin a process that leads to the humanization of not only the oppressed but the oppressors, as well.

Only 25 Shopping Days until Christmas. . .

2010-12-03T03:56:00.000-08:00

As I sit at my computer writing this letter, I am reminded that today has become known as ‘Cyber Monday’. If I want to purchase Christmas gifts all I need to do is use this same computer as a home shopping mall. I can pull out a credit card, go on to the internet and in a few brief moments I can purchase gifts from a wide variety of stores and make arrangements to have them wrapped and shipped to their intended recipient. ‘Cyber Monday‘, the Monday after Thanksgiving, is the date when online shopping reaches its peak.

Of course, this media/advertising created holiday follows fast on the heels of ‘Black Friday’ when stores opened as early as midnight to lure hyper-shoppers in with promises of drastically discounted merchandise. This morning, Maurene informed me that nearly one thousand retailers will be participating in ‘Free Shipping Day’ on December 17th. The retailers will again offer discounted prices and will guarantee that your gifts will arrive at their intended destination by Christmas Eve. Black Friday leads to Cyber Monday leads to Free Shipping Friday!

Now at this point you are probably expecting me to go into some tirade about the ‘true meaning of Christmas‘ or how we should lead a movement to insure that Christmas Creches are placed on government property in an effort to ‘keep Christ in Christmas.‘ Frankly, I find these efforts so much drivel and almost as much a distraction from the life and teachings of Jesus as conspicuous consumption. I want to buy my children and grandchildren Christmas presents and refuse to feel guilty or make others feel guilty for wishing to participate in gift giving.

You see, following Christ is much more demanding than some superficial posturing. The demands of discipleship are much more substantial than simply knowing the details of the Christmas legends as told by Matthew and Luke. Yes, Virginia, there are two different Christmas stories that we insist must be crammed together into some seamless narrative. Those of us who attend church regularly or at least semi-regularly often complain about Christmas and Easter Christians, and yet in our ancient creeds only the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus seem to be of any importance. Why shouldn’t folks only show up on Christmas Eve and Easter morning?

So celebrate this season! The good Lord knows that we need something to celebrate! If you watch the nightly news it is hard to not believe that the world is falling apart at the seams. Soak in the spirit of a candlelit church on Christmas Eve! Joyously sing the carols that tell the Christmas legends in song! With each passing Sunday watch with anticipation as another candle is lit on our Advent wreath. And yes, enjoy the hustle and bustle of shopping and the gaudily lit and decorated homes of your neighbors. But, beware, the child in the manger will still be around after the ill-fitting or unwanted gifts have been returned, the January sales have ended, and the decorations are back in the attic. The child in the manger became the man of Nazareth and it is in following him that we discover true hope, peace, joy and love.

Sincerely,

Ron

Rethinking God. . .

2010-11-30T00:14:00.000-08:00

This past Thanksgiving weekend provided us with three startling examples of how God is viewed by many in popular culture. After his team's thrilling comeback over Alabama in the 'Iron Bowl', Auburn Coach Gene Chizik when asked about how his team came back from a 24 point deficit exclaimed, "God is good!"

The second example involved Buffalo Wide Receiver Steve Johnson. Johnson dropped a pass in the end zone that would have given the Buffalo Bills their first win of the season. The next day, on his Twitter page, Johnson offered up a public prayer to God in which he blamed the Holy One for the situation. Johnson was particularly upset because 'he praised [God] 24/7.'

Third example: over this past weekend, a Public Service ad could be seen on many different cable networks. It reminded us that each day 2000 African children die from the very preventable and treatable disease of malaria. It asks viewers to go to a particular website and offer financial contributions to put an end to malaria.

If God can pull victories out of almost certain defeat for Auburn; if God can cause a talented, wide open, wide receiver like Johnson to drop a pass that would have led to victory; why can't God cure malaria in Africa without relying on the charity of kind hearted people? Is it a warped sense of priorities on the part of God?

Perhaps it is time with rethink how God works in the world. The sad thing is, most people are more interested in Auburn's success and Johnson's failure than they are in the harsh reality of malaria and African children. The talk around the water cooler on Monday was certainly more focussed on college and professional football than it was on human suffering. The fact that God didn't favor Auburn over Alabama; nor did God cause Steve Johnson to drop a perfectly thrown pass; nor did God callously allow 8000 African children to die over the four day weekend of a treatable illness escapes us. When we view God so simplistically, so magically, our priorities become skewed. Enjoy the ups and downs of football, but at least give a thought to dying African children. I'm sure God does.

2010-11-29T18:20:00.001-08:00

Black Friday thoughts. . .

2010-11-26T07:44:00.000-08:00

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday. Isaiah 58:7-10

On Wednesday evening, this was the text that I read just prior to Rabbi Marci Bellows preaching the sermon at our annual Wantagh Interfaith Thanksgiving Service. Although the words from Isaiah, as read, were powerful, and Rabbi Bellows did an excellent job of interpreting them, I couldn’t help but wonder how the words of the prophet, both Isaiah and Marci were heard by those in attendance.

You see, what struck me about the reading from Isaiah was that we join it in the middle of a thought. The words, ‘Is it not’ that begin the pericope leave us wondering what preceded the exhortation. The writer of this particular passage assumes that [s]he is speaking for God. What precedes this is an indictment of the current ‘religious’ practices of the nation. Israel was attempting to “draw near to God” Isaiah 58:2 with elaborate fasting rituals. Those rituals missed the mark. God redefines the fast in the verse that immediately precedes the Thanksgiving Eve reading.

Is not this the fast that I choose; to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. Isaiah 58:6

Biblical injunctions rarely make us feel comfortable. It is easy in this season when many of us put our most charitable foot forward to domesticate this reading from Isaiah. We even leave out the verses that point beyond simple charity and demand justice. We often forget that in the most famous story of Christmas charity, Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, Ebeneezer Scrooge not only provides a succulent feast for the Cratchit family but he begins to pay his employee a living wage. He also insures that Tim gets proper medical attention. Simple charity, temporary relief to a never-ending problem, is insufficient and unbiblical (in both the Hebrew and Christian testaments).

Simple charity gives more relief to the giver than to those who receive. Simple charity allows us to race out at 3 AM on ‘Black Friday‘ and continue to consume things we don’t need. Many of us will assuage our guilt by throwing a few scraps into the Salvation Army kettle that we’ll find strategically placed in front of our shops and supermarkets. With that ‘religious’ gesture we’ll make believe that we have done enough. We’ll return to our warm homes, wrap our gifts, eat our food and forget for a while, at least, those who are hungry, those who lack clothing, those who lack homes. We make believe that our charitable giving is the ‘fast that God requires. We’ll believe that lie, because the alternative is too demanding. “Charity is all that God demands,” we’ll tell ourselves. And only in our nightmares will we be reminded of the words of Isaiah, Charity isn’t enough, it never was enough.

Sermon for November 14th

2010-11-13T14:06:00.000-08:00

At the conclusion of the service, a minister went to the exit and waited for members of the congregation to come past. As he was shaking hands one member stopped and looked him directly in the eyes. “Reverend, how do you go about writing and preparing your sermons?” he asked.

The minister didn’t hesitate with an answer. “I actually don’t write them. Every word I preach comes from the Holy Spirit.”

The congregant shook his head and after a moment’s pause sincerely said, “Funny, I never thought that the Holy Spirit would be that boring.”

Whether we like to admit it or not, at some point in today’s service some if not many of you will become bored. Your mind will wander, you’ll find yourself distracted or you’ll be looking at your watch wondering when you’ll be able to head home. You might be embarrassed about your short attention span or even feel guilty.

What if I told you that boredom was a gift from God? We don’t often think of it in that way, but perhaps we should. Child psychoanalyst Adam Phillips explains that boredom is a process of tension in which a person is both waiting for an event and looking for an event. The tension of waiting and looking can lead either to a secretly negotiated hope or a recurrent sense of emptiness. If it is the latter, true desire dies on the vine and turns into hopelessness.

In other words, boredom is like standing at a fork in the road, one road leads toward hope the other leads to despair. When we are bored, we still have the capacity to make a choice. Following Christ, is like a constant process of standing at unending forks in the road, and choosing, as the scriptures tell us, life over death. Choosing hope over despair. If we take the wrong path, temporary boredom can turn into despair or apathy.

That is what happened to the church at Thessalonica. Some of the members of that faith community had allowed their boredom to turn into apathy. They had become idle in their work. Not their occupation, mind you, not their day job, but the work of their vocation -bringing about the kingdom of God. We should never confuse vocation with occupation. Vocation is a word that sprung from our own Christian faith. A vocation is what God is calling you to do, or what God has called you to do. In a world society that often asks the occupational question, “What do you do for a living?” the vocational question is significantly different, “What do you do to be fully alive?”

Sometimes what we do as an occupation might make us feel inadequate, but how we live out our vocation is far more important. Paul was speaking of vocation when he reminded the Thessalonians, “Do not be weary in doing what is right.”

Dr. Tony Campolo is an internationally renowned evangelical speaker, and while Tony has spent much of his life traveling around the world speaking, his wife, Peggy, has chosen to stay home and pour herself into raising their two children, Bart and Lisa. Yes, just like the Simpsons. Peggy Campolo finds that when she travels with her husband, she's often in conversations with some of the most impressive and sophisticated people in the world. Sometimes she said she would feel intimidated and even perhaps question her own self-worth. She was succumbing to the occupational question instead of focusing on the vocational question. And so Dr. Campolo said to her, "Well, honey, why don't you come up with something you could say when you meet people that will let them know that you value what you're doing and think it's important?" Well, not long after, they were at a party, and there a woman said to Peggy Campolo in a rather condescending tone, "Well, my dear, what do you do?" Tony said he heard his wife say, "I am nurturing two Homo sapiens into the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they might become instruments for the transformation of the social order into the kind of eschatological utopia God envisioned from the beginning of time." The other woman said, "Oh, well, I'm just a lawyer." *

That is what vocation is all about. We are to become instruments for the transformation of the social order into the kind of eschatological utopia God envisioned from the beginning of time.” Jesus put it much more simply, he told his disciples that their vocation was to proclaim and bring about the kingdom of God.

Boredom is not about hopelessness, boredom is an opportunity to pause and ask yourself what can I do to help bring about God’s reign in my home, in my place of work, in my community. All to often we look at life through our occupational eyes when our priority should be looking at life through our vocational eyes.

Mother Teresa was once asked by a reporter, "What is your biggest problem?"

Mother Teresa answered with one word: "Professionalism." She continued, "Here are these servants of Jesus who care for the poorest of the poor. I have one who just went off and came back with her medical degree. Others have come back with registered nurse degrees. Another with a master's in social work, and when they come back with their degrees, their first question always is, "Where is my office?" Then she said, "But you know what I do? I send them over to the House of the Dying where they simply hold the hands of dying people for six months, and after that, they're ready to be servants again." *

Mother Teresa’s nuns had learned important skills, they had become doctors, nurses and social workers. But they lost sight of their vocation. When we believe that our occupation is more important than our vocation we can become bored with the very essence of what life is all about. But our God is a God of second, and third, and unending chances. Our God is a God who always leads us to the next fork in the road. Our God is a God who sends another train along when we narrowly missed the last one. So you’re bored. Not to worry, just get on board the next train God sends your way.

Let us pray.

Ever-calling God, allow us to embrace our vocation with enthusiasm and never grow weary of doing what is right. Allow our boredom to be seen as a call to action. Allow us to follow your Son Jesus down whatever road we are led. Amen.

* The Campolo and Mother Teresa stories came from a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Victor D. Pentz

Whom would Jesus vote for?

2010-11-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

Or should if be, "For whom would Jesus vote?" or, and I admit this one is always difficult for me, "Who would Jesus vote for?" (Who or whom baffles me.) Anyway, I left the acronym as close to the now overused WWJD (What would Jesus do) for a specific reason. It would be more identifiable as a pertinent question for those of us who follow Jesus to ask ourselves.

By law, I would never use my role as a pastor to advise, hint at, or even suggest which candidates might be most in line with the teachings of what Jesus proclaimed as the 'kingdom of God'. But, whether grammatically correct or not, I attempt to answer that question every two years when I participate in the process of voting. I will say that more often than not, my candidates have gone down in a blaze of glory. That somehow comforts me. Like a salmon, if you are swimming against the current, you are swimming in the right direction.

So, in this divisive and troubling year I will head off to vote. And as I step into my private cubicle I will ask the question, "Whom would Jesus vote for?"

This morning's New York Times . . .

2010-10-23T07:59:00.001-07:00

This morning's New York Times makes for depressing reading. As more documents are released by Wikileaks we are discovering more of the horrors of our seemingly unending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The tales of torture, the murdering of innocent civilians, and the realization that our military and governmental leaders ignored these atrocities are gut wrenching.

What is equally disturbing is how these documents point out the extent that corporations and private contractors are deeply involved in the conflicts. In fact, there are more civilians in theater than soldiers. It brings the profit motive into the picture and frighteningly makes us recognize that with each passing day, corporations and civilian contractors are making money in this quagmire. If you leaf back to the editorial page you will be confronted with the staggeringly high suicide rates of our troops, the repeated deployments, and the shocking fact that those in the combat zones are being drugged to keep them functioning. It seems as though this is another 'profits over people' situation.

The UK's Guardian doesn't spare its language as much as the 'paper of record' does here in the United States. It calls the actions "war crimes". Whether one agrees or not, we must begin to ask the question, "when will this farce be brought to a close?"

Sermon for October 24th

2010-10-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

This is the second sermon of the series on prayer. The text was Luke 18:9-14.

How do you react when you hear the prayer of the Pharisee in this parable of Jesus? “God, I thank you that I am not like the other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” Although I’m sure that isn’t the emotion Jesus was trying to elicit, I find myself, two thousand years removed from the telling of the story, looking at the Pharisee with some admiration.

You have to like someone who is so sure of themselves and of their relationship with God. You especially have to admire someone who seems to know the mind of God and what God requires with such certainty. He does offer God thanks. Gratitude, even when tinged with arrogance, is a universally recognized facet of prayer.

I also find his personal piety admirable. He fasted twice a week and was a good steward of God’s resources -placing fully a tenth of his income in the offering plate. If we travel back in time those two thousand years we might find ourselves enamored with this Pharisee. When organized religion wasn’t disdained as it is today, religious leaders like a Pharisee were highly respected. This is especially true when the Pharisee compared himself to the shady individuals that he listed in his rather short and to the point prayer: thieves, rogues, adulterers and the always reviled tax collector.

The Pharisee was an exemplar of the righteous man, as measured by the traditional religious practices of the day. The tax collector, on the other hand, was obviously unrighteous. A tax collector was known for his dishonest dealings with others, he was considered disloyal to his country, and he disregarded his religious duties. Many Judeans would have assessed both of these men as they were depicted in the parable. The parable ends with a wisdom saying that preceded Jesus by centuries, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” The writer of Luke wanted to insure that the readers and hearers of Jesus’ parable understood its radical message.*

For all of his certainty, it becomes obvious that the Pharisee didn’t know God nearly as well as he thought he did. He tried to lift himself up to God by chronicling his devout religious practices. But that is not what God, as seen through the eyes of Jesus, wanted. In fact, it is explicit in all four of our gospels that God came down to us. Our God is a God who is not afraid to become humble.

You must excuse the up and down language that I have just used. It is both habitual and the most effective way for us to hear. But it is very metaphorical. In fact, the most sterling example of the humbleness of God is in the striking language of the first chapter of John’s gospel. There is no ‘God above’ in this hymn to the nature of God.

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us” is preceded by the words, “[God] was in the world, and the world came into being through [God]; yet the world did not know [God]. [God] came to what was [God’s] own, and [God’s] own people did not accept [God].”

The Pharisee in attempting to lift himself to God, missed the point. God chooses to live with us -not above us. The Kingdom of God is within us and among us. In his futile attempt to lift himself to God, the Pharisee also attempted to lift himself above others. He wanted to make comparisons. He wanted God to be impressed with his religious accomplishments, his strict observance of the law, when compared to those who were obviously failing in their religious duties. He had traded in the very nature of his Creator and had begun to worship an idol of his own and his tradition’s own making.

If we accept the fact that we are created in the image of God, then it is critically important that we deal with others as God deals with us. Again, using that problematic ‘up and down‘ language, we are most revealing of the nature of God, not when we try to lift ourselves up to some imagined heaven, but when we humble ourselves by being in relationship with those around us.

Humility, whose root is the same as the word humus, reminds us that we are people of the earth. It adds weight to the legend of creation which has God forming us out of the dust of the earth.

In his excellent new book, The Greatest Prayer, John Crossan argues that the whole thrust of the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus taught the disciples was a poetic representation of how we are to live in the world. It reflects the ‘up and down‘ language of the time of Jesus, and when we pray that, ‘Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven‘ we are not only recognizing what God desires, but we are more importantly recognizing our most important task as Christ’s followers. We are to work in collaboration with God to bring about the kingdom in this time and this place.

I like the fact that in his parable, Jesus makes a point of saying that the tax collector “would not even look up to heaven”. This not only reflects his humility, it also reminds us that too often when we set our minds on heavenly things ‘up there’, we miss God who has chosen to dwell ‘down here’ with us.

Let us pray.

Humble us, O God. Not so that we wallow in our sins and in our failures, but so that we will reflect your humble nature. For we are truly exalted when we choose to live fully in your presence. A presence that is not up there, but down here. Amen.

* For this portion of the sermon, I used insights from, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say, by Robert Funk, Roy Hoover and The Jesus Seminar.

Sermon for October 17th

2010-10-17T14:35:00.000-07:00

This sermon was based on Jeremiah 31:27-34. It was the first of two sermons on prayer.

This morning, I want to talk about prayer from my own spiritual perspective. In fact, I suppose that prayer is something that is best talked about from just such a perspective.Each of us, have our own perceptions about prayer, based on our past experiences, both within faith communities and in our own personal prayer lives.

The earliest prayers that I remember were those said by the adults in my little church back in central Indiana. Even through the fog of those childhood memories, I can remember how important prayer was to the Greensboro United Methodist Church. Every Thursday evening a faithful few gathered for the weekly prayer meeting. It was a time when joys and concerns would be lifted to God in either gratitude or in heartfelt petition.

The subject of the prayers that sticks in my mind the most were the prayers offered for my younger brother Jeff. You see, Jeff was born with cerebral palsy. The lack of oxygen at his birth had left him with severe mental and physical disabilities. In his fourteen years of life, he never spoke, never walked, and couldn’t feed himself.In a small church, Jeff was known by everyone. It seems like every prayer service that was ever held, and that is probably my imagination, but on many occasions Jeff’s name would be lifted up with a request that God heal him.

My other early memory was that I never believed that would happen. In fact, I felt guilty that I didn’t have enough faith in God to believe that those prayers someone wouldn’t at some future time produce the desired effect. Call me a skeptic, but even at an early age I just didn’t believe that that was the way God worked in the world.

Even though I saw those prayers of the faithful of my church as misdirected, perhaps even frivolous, I never resented the fact that they were given voice. In fact, they provided me with comfort. The nurturing and caring spirits that those prayers came from taught me something of the love of God -even when I rejected the premise behind the prayers. It was those prayers, said faithfully and insistently that probably led to my choice of vocation more than anything else.

If I would have grown up in the Catholic Church, I suppose we would have offered prayers for my brother to St. Jude, the Patron Saint of Desperate Cases and Lost Causes. Now, I must face that skepticism which honestly hasn’t changed all that much. The neural pathways that were destroyed in the minutes of Jeff’s birth left him without hope for a cure by medical professionals and miraculous healing.

Why do I still believe in the power of prayer?

C. S. Lewis said, "I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God- it changes me."

I’m no C. S. Lewis. The need to pray doesn’t flow out of me all the time. I don’t “pray without ceasing” as St. Paul suggested to the members of the church at Thessaloniki. But there are times that I feel compelled to offer thanks to God for some joy or deliverance, or ask for God’s help in a time of trial. I have even, rather humorously, taken on some of the habits I learned from my Evangelical parents now that my 58 year old bones and muscles don’t cooperate as smoothly as they once did. When I get up in the morning or from sitting too long and stiffness has set in I will often utter the phrase I heard quite often in my home “Help me, Jesus.” I say it as more of a joke than anything, and I’m sure God understands the humor behind those words.

But still, I’m drawn to those words by C. S. Lewis. “I pray because I’m helpless. . .I pray because the need flows out of me. . .It doesn’t change God -it changes me.”

Jeremiah understood this. After all his frustrations with a stubborn people who wouldn’t follow the laws of God and had been led into exile, he came to a new conclusion about God and how God worked in the world. Jeremiah proclaimed to Israel and Judah, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

Prayer is not as much about changing our thoughts and our beliefs as it is about changing our hearts. God doesn’t require us to leave our minds in the parking lot when we enter church. When we lift up names or nations or groups of people oppressed by violence, poverty or natural disaster, we sometimes recognize that those prayers are best left at the feet of St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.

But still we pray. Because in those prayers we recognize that we are interconnected, not only with each other, but with God. When we care enough to pray we are reminded that God cares enough to suffer along with us -the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. We pray, not to change God, but to change ourselves.

WMCC's Christmas Cantata

2010-10-13T17:06:00.000-07:00

Hsia-Jung Chang, the Choir Director and Organist of Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church, has commissioned a special work for this year's Christmas Cantata. The work is based on Howard Thurman's famous poem, The Work of Christmas. The Cantata will take place at morning worship on December 12th at 10:30 AM.

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among brothers,

To make music in the heart.

from The Mood of Christmas, by Howard Thurman, 1973

Sermon for October 10th

2010-10-09T13:52:00.000-07:00

This sermon is based on Jeremiah 29:1,4-7. St. Francis Day and the blessing of the animals is often observed on October 4th.

On Thursday evening, just before the Deacon’s meeting, I was walking the dog for the second of our two-a-day rituals. As we rounded the corner at Jerusalem and Oakfield Avenues we came upon a pigeon, sitting at the edge of the street. The bird was obviously in some distress, its head was turned back beneath its wing and it obviously couldn’t fly. Jonesy eyed the pigeon with some interest, as Labrador Retrievers are prone to do. We walked on down Oakfield. I assumed the pigeon’s life was near its end and shrugged it off as just part of the cycle of life.

Our early morning walk on Friday brought a surprise. The pigeon was still there, it had moved just a few inches and its head was still tucked beneath its wing. The surprise of finding it still alive, still struggling, still in distress, had an unexpected effect on me. I found myself touched by the struggles of this pigeon. I paused for a moment and offered a prayer for this lonely injured bird. We often, when we think of pigeons, think of them in unflattering ways. Flying rats, disease carriers, unceasing scavengers, and makers of messes are just a few thoughts that come to mind. But here I was, at the corner of Jerusalem and Oakfield feeling a sense of sadness and concern for this lowly bird.

It reminded me of the people of Judah who found themselves in exile. This thought was all the more powerful because just across Jerusalem Avenue, fully one hundred or so pigeons roost on the telephone wires above the street. We see them every morning on our walk. Here on this side of the street was a solitary pigeon, separated from the flock, alone, in distress, and in an apparently hopeless situation.

The fact that all of this was being played out on Jerusalem Avenue gave the pigeon's predicament even more significance in light of today’s reading from the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah, still a resident of the holy city Jerusalem, wrote a letter to the former residents of that great city who are in exile and captivity in Babylon. Unlike the other prophets of his day, Jeremiah didn’t mince words. The other prophets were predicting a imminent return to Jerusalem. Jeremiah, offered a much more honest but brutal assessment of the exiles’ situation. They were going to remain in Babylon for a long time.

This brutal assessment of the exiles situation leads to a rather stunning piece of advice -or since Jeremiah claimed to speak for God, an unexpected command. “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.” Jeremiah 29:5-6

Jeremiah told the exiles to get on with life and in a rather subtle way told the exiles that they would live in Babylon for at least three more generations. The addressees of the letter would see not only their children but their grandchildren born in this foreign land.

Jeremiah doesn’t command them to rise up against their oppressors. Jeremiah knew that such an effort would be in vain. Violence only begets violence. An uprising would ultimately fail. And so, Jeremiah looked upon them with compassion, he offered them a way to live through a difficult situation, but encouraged them to multiply, much as their ancestors multiplied while in slavery in Egypt.

I just finished re-reading Charles Dickens’ classic novel, A Tale of Two Cities. In his writing we truly do experience the best of times and the worst of times. We see how the brutality of the aristocracy of France is returned with full force by the peasants after the storming of the Bastille. But interspersed in these worst of times moments, when human brutality is fully evident, we see moments of great compassion and care. We see an understanding by some of the heroic characters of this novel that we are created by our God with hearts that are made to be filled with compassion. Such compassion makes us realize that we are all interconnected that God does not divide us into nations, or tribes, or religious groups.

All of humanity was created in God’s image, and in speaking for God Jeremiah startlingly reveals that God loves the Babylonian oppressor as much as God loves the Hebrew exile. “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” Jeremiah 29:7

Marcus Borg, in trying to define who Jesus is for Christians, called him “St. Francis plus.” That is not only an attempt to define Jesus, but Borg’s effort to say what an important figure St. Francis is in our Christian tradition. St. Francis believed and lived as though God’s compassion wasn’t limited to humanity but extended to the whole of creation. Our first hymn was a tribute to that understanding and echoes the words and life of St. Francis.

God’s heart was open to the Babylonian oppressors and the Babylonian exiles and so he opened the heart of Jeremiah to that same compassion. God’s heart was open to the beasts of the field, the fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and so he opened the heart of St. Francis to that same compassion. God’s heart is open to people and to pigeons, and so, in a moment of vulnerability, my heart was opened to an injured pigeon who sat on the street at the corner of Jerusalem and Oakfield Avenues.

It is in those moments, when our guard is let down, that we discover the compassion of God, and recognize that that same compassion has been bestowed on us by a loving and compassionate Creator.

Reinventing Work

2010-10-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

“What do you do?” That is a question that most of us hear throughout the course of our lives. It is often one of the first questions asked of us when we make a new acquaintance. What we do as an occupation, or what we did before we reached retirement age, is by our society’s standards one of the definers of who we are, if not the central definer. Our language betrays its importance. What do you do for a living? or, what do you do to earn a living? equates our occupation with the meaning of life itself. Some people, when they retire, feel that life has lost its meaning.

In the last four years we have watched as unemployment has soared. Although we hear that the recession has ended, it is hard to convince those who have lost their jobs, their homes and who now find themselves unable to find work that the worst is past. Many economists are now saying that high unemployment is the “new normal’ and that lower paying service sector jobs will predominate in the future. That is a frightening prospect for not only those who are currently in the workforce, but for those who fear what sort of future their children might face. It seems as though the American dream is turning into a nightmare.

The extent of this problem was recognized long ago. In 1980, in his book, Good Work, E. F. Schumacher prophetically wrote: “It is no longer possible to believe that any political or economic reform, or scientific advance, or technological progress could solve the life-and-death problems of industrial society. They lie too deep, in the heart and soul of everyone of us. It is there that the main work of reform has to be done -secretly and unobtrusively.” Echoing Schumacher, our current problems are not just economic and societal, more importantly, and to a greater degree, they are spiritual.

In a nation where our occupation is such a crucial element in how we see ourselves unemployment, underemployment or less than meaningful work can leave us emotionally and spiritually bereft. As I indicated in my preparatory letter for our, “Let’s talk” evening, these issues should shape how we see mission to our community in the years ahead. Our church can play a significant role in pastorally and prophetically addressing the issues that come with the “new normal.” Our discussions at the “Let’s talk” session primarily focussed on our church life, but in partnership with our church issues, we must also look around us. Employment, unemployment, and underemployment issues are much closer to us than we’d like to think.

This Sunday, we will spend some time with the prophet Jeremiah as he addressed the concerns of those who had been forced to leave Jerusalem and Judah and were now in exile. Like the “American dream” the “Jerusalem dream” had turned into a nightmare. Jeremiah saw this not just as a societal and economic problem to be overcome, but as spiritual opportunity. In our perilous time, God offers us the same amazing opportunities.

Repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell

2010-09-22T11:10:00.001-07:00

Yesterday's Senate filibuster on the Defense Appropriations bill was disappointing on several fronts. As a nation we continue to spend far too much on defense and the waging of two wars. The skewed priorities, the devastating results of war, and the current economic crisis make such spending not only ill-advised but immoral, as well.

The second issue was that it seems more than likely that the bill was never debated because it contained an amendment to repeal the current "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. When I got up this morning and began walking the dog I was intending to address this issue on our highly visible church sign. But, by the end of the walk, I felt that I must. I did hesitate a bit. Christians must be very circumspect in how we speak of the military. Too often, "supporting the troops" is interpreted as "supporting the war(s)". For me, personally, that is not the case. But as a former Army Officer (first as an infantry officer then as a chaplain) I do have great respect for the young men and women who sacrifice so much. When I was a company commander at Ft. Benning, GA, I was quite aware that some of my soldiers were gay or lesbian (it was an Administrative Company). This was before the days of DADT. I chose to ignore their sexual orientation and simply evaluated them on performance. It was not an issue with me, and thankfully it wasn't an issue with other soldiers either.

I am happy that I belong to a denomination that addressed the issue of gays and lesbians in the military by a General Synod Resolution back in 1993. Full inclusion in the military is not just a social justice or civil rights issue, it is a faith issue as well. Yep, I support the troops, ALL the troops.

Sermon for September 19th

2010-09-18T15:36:00.000-07:00

This sermon is based on Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 and Luke 16:1-13.

In internet parlance, this letter went viral this past week and has been read by thousands if not millions of people. It is a letter to President Obama from a physician named Roger Jones.

Dear Mr. President:
During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone.

While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one pack of cigarettes every day, eats only at fast-food take-outs, and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer. And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care? I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture" a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture based in the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me". Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear.
Respectfully,
ROGER STARNER JONES, MD

The second letter we heard read this morning was a letter written to Theophilus purportedly by a man named Luke. The portion of the letter we heard read today was the parable often entitled the parable of the dishonest manager. What startles us about this parable, is that Jesus makes no judgement about the dishonest actions of the manager. If anything, Jesus praises the dishonest manager for his shrewd actions and bemoans the fact that his disciples aren’t as shrewd in their earthly dealings.

We hear the parable and wait for Jesus to pass judgement, and yet he does not. We are shocked by this. If you were here last week then this story clearly points out the supposed sin and the supposed sinner.

I think that is why Jesus often spoke in parables.In these stories Jesus wanted to reveal the nature of God and make the hearers of the parable recognize how often and how far we miss the mark of being created in God’s image.

How did you feel when I read the letter from the physician? As a side note, legend has it that Luke was a physician as well. Most of us have probably been culturally conditioned to nod our heads in agreement with Doctor Jones. We probably find ourselves agreeing that the patient had brought her emergency room visit on herself. The fast food diet, the cigarettes, the pretzels and beer had taken a toll on her body. The gold tooth, the elaborate and costly tattoos, the expensive tennis shoes and that new cell phone showed that she wasted her money on frivolous things. To top it all off, she was on Medicaid. The picture is complete, this is one of those welfare queens we hear so much about, especially in difficult economic times. And so, the good doctor completes his assessment, if there was any doubt, by commenting on her irresponsibility and dependency. "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me".

I don’t know if this Doctor’s opinion of his patient affected his treatment of her. I would hope not. I would hope that Doctor Jones lived up to his Hippocratic Oath which commands physicians to “do no harm.” But I have no doubt that at least one person was harmed in this emergency room meeting -Doctor Jones himself. By passing judgement on this woman that he had just met, by allowing negative feelings to come between them, he had surrendered his God created image for a false God. Instead of practicing the compassion and love of God, he served an idol, a god of judgement and negativity -a graceless and merciless god.

Jeremiah asked two rhetorical questions, Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Today’s African American Spiritual which we sang answers Jeremiah’s heartfelt questions. “There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole; there is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.”

Doctor Jones had chosen the Christ-like vocation of healing the wounded and bringing wholeness to those who were sick. But Doctor Jones needed healing as well, he needed the healing of a soul that had lost its divine spark. A soul closed down to others by negative feelings and judgement. A soul that had reduced his relationship with his patient to what it was costing him in taxes. Jesus cautions us about dealing with others in such ways. “You cannot serve God and wealth”.

Father Anthony de Mello in his book, "Awareness", wrote: “What you judge you cannot understand.” Understanding the patient’s situation flew out the window when Dr. Jones judged the woman he met in the emergency room. I would add to Father de Mello’s statement, “What you judge you cannot understand.” And, what you cannot understand you cannot fully love.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus reminded us to, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” He added this aphorism immediately after he had talked about how we were supposed to love not only our family and friends, but our enemies and those we consider unrighteous Scholars have often said that this phrase of Jesus is best translated as, Be compassionate, as you heavenly Father is compassionate.”

When we meet those in need without judging or negativity, only then can we truly offer healing only then can we be compassionate as God is compassionate. And it is in that non-judgmental healing, that we ourselves are healed. “There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole; there is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.” Thanks be to God.

My dad and Alan Simpson

2010-09-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

[God] shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat the swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Isaiah 2:4

My father had a truly American occupation. After returning from World War II he decided to go to work at the Ingersoll Steel Mill in New Castle, Indiana instead of taking a civil service job in the Post Office for which he was highly qualified. He had been the Postmaster on his ship during the war and his father was the Postmaster in his hometown of Greensboro, Indiana. I suppose he could have taken the position if for no other reason than nepotism! Instead, he decided to work on the back breaking and repetitive assembly line. He was employed at Ingersoll Steel until he retired. He left as the man with the most seniority. He rejected an hourly wage and elected to do ‘piece work‘ because if he worked hard enough he could make more money. It was grueling work, but my father did it without complaint.

My father fit well in a capitalist system. Although he was a ‘union man‘ he hated strikes because his primary concern was a steady paycheck. He also decried not the union as much as corrupt union leaders and the more selfish younger workers who had little regard for the retirees that went before them. Dad kept his mouth shut and did his job -day in, day out, without complaint. He didn’t ruffle the feathers of management and if he ever had any complaints about his work, he kept it to himself.

When I heard Alan Simpson’s disingenuous comments about Social Security recipients gathered around the government ‘tits’ I wondered if he could ever understand someone like my father? My father worked hard, paid into social Security and Medicare, worked two jobs for much of his adult life and remained a productive member of society even after retirement. But, by most standards he never achieved the so-called ‘American dream.’ He rented instead of owning a home until after he had retired and then purchased the modest home that had been the home of my grandparents. The family car was usually a beater and my father and mother were quite frugal with the family finances. The primary reason being that my younger brother had cerebral palsy and much of the family finances went to his care. Of course, my parents could have decided to ‘institutionalize‘ Jeff to decrease the financial burden, but thankfully they chose to keep him as an integral part of our family.

Since Dad’s death, his VA Benefits, his Social Security and Medicare payments have allowed my mother to continue to live comfortably though not extravagantly. My father’s pension, for 30 years of labor is only slightly above $200 a month plus some supplemental health insurance. Due to a recent fall and a consequent broken hip my mother has had to move into a nursing home. Even with all of my parents hard work both in the factory, gas station and at home my mother is now approved for Medicaid. You see, my parents invested too much in the present to properly prepare for the future. My parents didn’t have ‘a number‘ like the current ING advertisements suggest. What’s your number? wasn’t a question that my parents could ever consider. I’m sure Mr. Simpson has a number!

Alan Simpson has condescendingly declared war on such people. Those who after retirement or due to some crisis in their lives must rely on government entitlements (itself a dangerous description). Such language divides people in a nation that is already dangerously divided. It is hateful language that has no place in public discourse.

Yes, my father did ‘piece work.‘ As I think about it, most of his time at the steel mill was spent making plowshares. I like to think of that as ‘peace work‘ as well. The prophet Isaiah would agree! Tthe plowshares that Dad made were used by farmers to produce food. Some of that food was ordered by the wealthy in the fanciest, poshest and most upscale restaurants. But some of that food was purchased with food stamps and went into the mouths of hungry children. Some of that food was purchased with Social Security benefits or served to the residents, like my mother, of nursing homes.

My father lived by the philosophy that if you couldn’t say anything good about someone, perhaps you shouldn’t say anything at all. I wish Alan Simpson could have met my father. More importantly, I wish Alan Simpson would practice Dad’s philosophy. That is the ‘peace work‘ to which public officials like Alan Simpson are called.

Where Mike Malloy got it wrong. . .

2010-08-28T17:16:00.000-07:00

I find left-wing radio commentator Mike Malloy to be an often vitriolic but always entertaining figure to listen to as I fall asleep. It is obvious that his passion and his anger are not the actions of a 'radio clown' or some kind of 'theatrical performance' to get a larger share of market. Malloy often points out that his listening audience and number of stations that carry his program are far exceeded by his right-wing counterparts. I find in his anger the frustration that many Americans are feeling these days on both sides of the political spectrum. His cynicism and gloomy outlook are heartfelt.

But I must strongly disagree with something he said on his Friday evening, August 27th program. Not that this is my only disagreement with Malloy, but one that I feel quite strongly. Malloy knows that there is a wide variation of belief within the Christian religion. He speaks intelligently on the subject of Christianity to some extent. He also knows the difference between say a Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell and a Jim Wallis and the late William Sloane Coffin. Of course, he is drawn to a more inclusive. progressive Christianity. But on this particular Friday evening he stated that although he had sympathies with more liberal Christians, he said that in the end any Christian was "insane." I find that unfortunate for two reasons:

1) I think Mike Malloy assumes that all Christians have some beliefs that he would find untenable with our scientific knowledge (i.e., a big god up in the sky, eternal salvation or damnation, bodily resurrection, etc.) That is not the case;

2) He unleashed this tirade in attacking Glen Beck's 'Restoring Honor' rally with emphasis on how it besmirched the memory and legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. Reverend is the operative word. I would submit that four of the greatest social justice movements of the last century (if not the four greatest) were all accomplished primarily because of the leadership provided by religious people and courageous religious leaders. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Christian theologian, was executed by the Nazis for his work in attempting to save holocaust victims. Mahatma Gandhi, a devout Hindu who embraced the truth he found in all religions, brought the British empire to its knees by his practice of non-violence which was founded on the principles of his religion. Dr. King, a student of Gandhi, brought non-violent practice to the American civil rights movement and grounded it in the teachings of Jesus and his own Christian faith. It was southern churches that led the way in organizing the demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience that were so effective. Finally, Archbishop Desmond Tutu used his position as an Anglican leader to not only define the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa but to institute truth commissions which have been instrumental in bringing about reconciliation.

I believe the stories and common threads of truth that exist within religions can unite people around issues of social justice. Mike Malloy, in this instance, threw out the baby with the bath water. If these four men are truly insane then the world needs a lot more of their type of insanity.

Sermon for Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2010-08-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

This sermon used Amos 2:6-16 as its foundational text.

While we were in Indiana this time, Maurene and I took a few hours to go to the Indiana State Fair. We attended last year, when we went home for my family reunion, and enjoyed it so much we decided to go again this year. The State Fairgrounds are located and surrounded by a neighborhood in Indianapolis of what appears to be low income housing. The tell-tale signs of an impoverished neighborhood are apparent as you drive into the fairgrounds. Homes in disrepair, businesses that cater to and exploit people who are struggling to survive are in abundance.

It struck me, that many of the people who lived around the fairgrounds, wouldn’t be able to celebrate as citizens of the ‘Hoosier’ state. They couldn’t afford the tickets to enter in to the grounds, let alone purchase the expensive array of Midwestern food that makes the fair such an enjoyable event. To be just outside the fairgrounds, to hear the music, to see people frolicking on the ferris wheel, the roller coaster and other rides on the midway, to smell the food and not be able to participate must be a painful experience.

To be denied entrance into the joy and celebration of the fairgrounds makes one feel undervalued by society. Such people can stand at the entrance to the fairgrounds but can’t go in. Amos talked about such people when he spoke of [pushing] aside the needy [at] the gate.

In today’s lesson we heard the words of Amos, a humble shepherd from the backwater town of Tekoa, one who probably couldn’t get through the gate himself, pronouncing judgement on the nation of Israel. The words he spoke to Israel came at the end of a long tirade against the tribes and nations that surrounded Israel and Judah. All of them, were about to be overrun by the mighty Assyrian empire. It was inevitable, there was no hope that the tide of history could be turned around. Israel and Judah were going to be overrun and many of its citizens were going to be led out into exile.

Amos, the prophet, spoke a painful truth. It was a prophet’s moment in a time that demanded a prophet. I must admit, most of the time when I have read this text I have seen it as an indictment of the wealthy and powerful -and I suppose that in many ways it is. But, in spending time with Amos over these past few weeks, I have become aware that more importantly than what it says to the wealthy and powerful, it is more a prophet’s words about how we treat those who are undervalued in society -like the folks who live around the Indiana State Fairgrounds but can’t go in.

Jesus said that we would always have the poor with us. Amos certainly doesn’t deny this fact. But what Amos and Jesus, eight centuries later, also had in common was probably not a radical redistribution of wealth as much as it was the recognition that we are most fully human when we recognize that God values each of us equally. The poor are not to be exploited to enhance the coffers of the wealthy.

In God’s kingdom everyone will be able to pass through the gates and celebrate joyously the feast that God has prepared. Everyone in the realm of God will be able to ride the roller coaster, go into the livestock barns and see all of the amazing sites. Everyone in the commonwealth of God will be recognized not by their monetary wealth and position but because they are loved by God no matter what their social status might be.

William Sloane Coffin, in his first sermon at Riverside Church said, “The tragedy of our country today is that most os us do not believe that we are loved by God -not really. If we do think so, we don’t think so emotionally. Consequently, our much vaunted individualism is selfish instead of selfless.”

It is that selfishness against which Amos spoke. Desperate times create the prophet’s moment when a prophet’s message is demanded. We live in such a time.

How the world has changed in just the brief time since I first spoke to our Search Committee in the spring of 2008. Like in the time of Amos, we seem to be facing a perilous future. In under two years we have watched the world economy collapse. We are told it is only a recession but I find such words mute when applied to real people. A recession is when your neighbor loses his or her job, a depression is when you lose yours. We are told that high unemployment and a preponderance of poorly paid service sector jobs will be the new norm.

These are indeed times when churches just like ours must speak a prophetic word. The painful truth that comes through in the words of Amos as he specifically calls Israel to task for its exploitation of the poor is the even more troubling truth that “things will never be the same again.” But it is in painful, profound prophetic words, powerfully pronounced that we find our hope for the future. That is our task that lies before us, that is our Amos-like challenge. Just because we live in a world where more and more people feel undervalued, because they have lost their jobs, lost their homes and if that is not yet the case they live in fear that such losses might occur in the future -in such a world we would do better to offer not comfort as much as truth. The truth that although one’s circumstances might make them feel undervalued, they are totally and unconditionally valued and loved by God.

That is the prophetic task that people like us, poor shepherds from Tekoa, are called to powerfully, prophetically pronounce. We have value if for no other reason than God values each of us. I conclude with more words from the late, Bill Coffin: “What the prophets [like Amos] teach us to believe and what the world regards as belief are not the same. . . Prophets recognize that revelation always has to be worked out, that there is a progressive nature to moral judgement. So they criticize what is, in terms of what ought to be. They judge the darkness of the present by the light of the future. And they reject what is narrow and provincial, in the name of what is universal. Prophets know that just as all rivers finally meet in the sea, so all individuals, races and nations meet in God.” And it is too that God that we offer our thanks and praise. Amen.

The mythology of "supporting the troops"

2010-07-30T04:23:00.000-07:00

Like the three word phrase 'Remember the Maine' that rallied support for the Spanish-American War, "I support the troops" has been the four-word battle cry that has been on the lips of the pseudo-supporters of the latest wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The phrase was more often than not directed at those of us who supported neither war. Somehow, it attempted to equate our opposition to war to disregard and disrespect for our servicewomen and servicemen. For the great majority of war opponents that was never the case.

It was easy to show your support for these wars. For a buck ninety-five you could place a yellow ribbon on the back of your car and join your fellow Americans in celebrating our incursions into two countries which never would be able to supply all that much opposition. Even the most dire predictions of fatalities and casualties on our side were relatively low when compared to Vietnam or Korea. It was an easy war to support, especially on the heels of the pain caused by 9/11 and it required little more than the uttering of a phrase, the waving of a flag, and the purchase of a yellow ribbon.

But now support is waning. In this past week the release of classified documents has brought the horror of war a little closer to home. The revelation of the huge new security bureaucracy that has been created without public knowledge is 'hot off the press.' Coupled with the admission by the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army that we aren't really doing that good of a job taking care of (supporting) the troops upon their return from Afghanistan and Iraq, it is easy to see why those who were more than happy to send young men and women off to war are now becoming squeamish as they view the results. What is most terrifying is the admission that the war is 'unwinnable'. So at the end of this decade long struggle we won't be able to celebrate a signed treaty or participate in flag waving parades of triumph. This is the way modern war ends -not with a bang but a whimper.

We are left with the lies: that we could break the back of the Taliban; that we would 'smoke' Osama bin Laden out of his cave; that we would be greeted as liberators; that the war would pay for itself; that there were 'weapons of mass destruction.

But the greatest lie of all is that we 'support the troops.' You see, for all of the talk about our exploding deficit the financial cost of war has been left out of the discussion. We rail against entitlements and government wasteful spending and yet the cost of this war is rarely mentioned in such discussions. Why? Because if we talked about it, it might be conceived as a failure to 'support the troops.' So as politicians and pundits argue over whether the 'Bush tax cuts' should be extended the truth is becoming more and more clear. As a nation, we have never truly supported the troops. We have funded these wars on someone else's dime. It is our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will be paying for these 'unwinnable' wars. We've only waved the flags and bought the bumper stickers.

Flat Screen TVs and the Kingdom of God

2010-07-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

Chances are quite good that this is the shanty town where the workers who did the finally assembly of your flat screen TV live. Tijuana is the "television capital of the world." Finally assembly takes places just south of the US border because television manufacturers can avoid the environmental laws of the US, pay their workers less that $60 for a 72 hour work week, and still have only a short transportation distance to US warehouses where the televisions are then distributed to the giant box store retailers that sell the televisions at "affordable" prices. Birth defects are obscenely high among maquiladora (sweatshop) workers who are exposed to huge amounts of mercury and other heavy metals that are used in final assembly.
The first glimpse of the shanty town is overwhelming. Carlos led us to a small rickety footbridge that provided the only access into the village. The footbridge was over a dried up river bed which had flooded just a few months ago and wiped out 30 homes that had been built in the bed of the river after the village of 10,000 had become too large for the land on the river's banks.
Carlos speculated that this child's parents were both working at one of the maquiladoras and that he was either home alone or with his siblings. Maquiladora workers normally work 12 hours per day and 6 days a week. Such children are open to sexual exploitation or any other calamities that might occur in the life of a child left alone for such a long stretch of time. This child spent some of the time while we visited the shanty town playing in a dried up river bed that was often the spillway for illegal chemical dumping from the surrounding sweatshops.

Border Immersion Experience: Part 1

2010-07-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

The purpose of my participating in the Border Immersion Experience was to begin preparations to lead a mission trip to Centro Romero in the Fall of 2011 or Spring of 2012. If you think you'd be interested in participating just send me an email at ron.garner@gmail.com and I'll keep you informed of our progress.

Dr. Carlos Correa Bernier, our host and Program Coordinator for Centro Romero, was a most gracious and committed leader.
Crossing the border from San Diego to Tijuana. This photo was taken from our bus.
This work of art is on the first wall between Mexico and the United States. Entitled, "The Way of the Cross of Jesus the Immigrant" it reads, "Assaulted by the police, betrayed by the 'Coyotes' (those who promise safe passage to the USA for a price), and hunted by the border police." Depictions of this work of art are placed all along the wall between Mexico and the United States.
Peter is the Minister of First Congregational UCC in Washington D.C.. He stands by the first of 3 to 5 walls that make up the "friendly" border between the Tijuana and San Diego. The crosses on the wall represent a few of the thousands who have died trying to cross the US/Mexican border.

Rethinking salvation

2010-07-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

I've always struggled with the word 'salvation.' Growing up in a church where John 3:16 was a foundational, if not the foundational text, salvation was all about being 'born again.' Salvation was the be all and end all of Christianity.

The primary question you had to answer to prove that you were a Christian was, "Are you saved?" If the answer was yes, it might lead the questioner to a second one, "When were you saved?" Most of us, who were truly born again, could give a date and time that we prayed the 'sinners prayer' and offered our hearts to Jesus. Although I was less than certain of the date, I do remember the situation. Like many of my fellow 'born againers' I 'backslid' on occasion and so I spent time at the altar of my Methodist church insuring that my salvation was still in effect.

I don't discount those experiences. Without my upbringing I wouldn't be a practicing Christian today. But in the intervening years since my childhood I have continued to puzzle about what salvation means and how relevant it is to my current life as a follower of Jesus. I am aware that my own wrestling with 'salvation' isn't just the result of my own evolution, but that the entire centrality of 'salvation' in even evangelical communities seems to have diminished -at least the 'born again' aspect. Haven't you noticed that you see less 'John 3:16' signs at sporting events these days? My own experience seems to point that as we grow as followers of Christ we are gracefully born 'again and again' throughout our lives.

My latest pondering on salvation came as I reread Walter Wink's insightful book, Jesus and Nonviolence: The Third Way. Yes, I'm a born again Christian, but in later life I have come to recognize that that 'rebirth' requires us to live out our lives in a challenging way -a way that reflects the life of the 'pioneer and perfecter of our faith.' Wink, using the insights of Robert Miller writes: "The issue is not, "What must I do in order to secure my salvation?" but rather, "What does God require of me in response to the needs of others?" It is not, "How can I be virtuous?" But, "How can I participate in the struggle of the oppressed for a more just world?" Otherwise our nonviolence is premised on self-justifying attempts to establish our own purity in the eyes of God, others, and ourselves, and that is nothing less than a satanic temptation to die with clean hands and a dirty heart."

The Good Samaritan 2010

2010-07-06T18:26:00.000-07:00

This sermon is based on Luke 10:25-37. It was prepared for morning worship at WMCC on July 11th.

I read these words on an internet blog this past week. “President Obama gave a long, rambling speech on illegal immigration and did not mention the Mexican government once. In fact, the word “Mexico” appeared one time — in connection with a human interest story about an immigrant success story. A man from Mars might have thought the problem was as much Canadian as Mexican.”

In these difficult economic times, the subject of immigration has become a hot button issue. Maurene and I will journey into the eye of the storm on Tuesday when we participate in what is termed a “Border Immersion Experience” in San Diego and the border area just south of San Diego. This event is hosted by Centro Romero, a UCC organization that educates individuals and groups about immigration issues as they pertain to Latin America and the United States. They do this by engaging people on both sides of the border and discussing the legal and humanitarian issues around immigration.

Each of you, like the blogger that I quoted earlier, may have a very definitive position on the issue of immigration. The blogger was quite concise in his opinion. The immigration problem is a “Mexican” problem.

Jesus offered the lawyer who questioned him quite a conundrum. Jesus threw into his parable a Samaritan. Samaritans were viewed in the time of Jesus much as Mexicans are today. They came from a different culture, they worshipped in a decidedly different way and in a decidedly different place. And here is a Samaritan on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. What was this foreigner doing in Judea? Why had he crossed the border that separated the hated Samaritans from the holier-than-thou Judeans? Just the word Samaritan could enflame passions and ignite long held hostilities.

Our blogger uses the word Mexican as a code-word for illegal immigrant seemingly unaware that it is not only Mexicans but Hondurans, Guatemalans, Salvadorians, and Costa Ricans who cross our southern border seeking work or a better life. Of course, there are also drug traffickers in the mix and members of violent gangs. But for the most part, those who illegally cross our borders are displaced farmers who are trying to eke out a living for their families and who have been unable to find work in their own country or adequate support from their own governments.

Is there a Christian position on undocumented workers and the current immigration crisis?

Too often, Christians address this issue by immediately talking in legal terms. That is what the lawyer wanted to do with Jesus. He wanted a legalistic answer. The lawyer wanted a set of rules to follow so that he within the law. But Jesus answered in an unexpected way. The question couldn’t be answered simply by a recitation of the law - “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus knew that love was a word that was often spoken but rarely practiced. Love, especially love of neighbor, required action not just words. And in the case of the man who was attacked by robbers, the Samaritan showed his love of neighbor by practicing acts of mercy. When he cleaned and bound the wounds, when he placed the man on his donkey, when he cared for him that night and paid the innkeeper to continue that care he showed mercy. Love wasn’t confined to legal precedents or mere words, love was brought to fruition in the Samaritans acts of mercy.

Is there a Christian position on undocumented workers and the current immigration crisis? I would say, “Yes.” And I think we can come to the answer by taking two different paths.

The first is contained in the law. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That requires us to put ourselves in the place of those who cross our borders illegally. If your family was starving and you knew that you could find work, poorly paid work but work all the same, on the other side of the border would you cross it even if it were illegal? I think most of us would. At least, I hope we would.

But that is too simple an answer. When we place ourselves in the position of impoverished Latin Americans, we quickly realize that we love ourselves and our families too much to let them suffer when hope might rest just a border and desert crossing away.

But since that isn’t our reality, posing the question in that way can become manipulative. Jesus didn’t ask the lawyer to put himself in the shoes of the man who was robbed and beaten. Jesus allowed the lawyer to remain in his own social location and address the issue from that perspective. If we are to be good neighbors, if we are to love our neighbors as ourselves we must show mercy. Jesus refused to qualify on the subject of mercy, he refused to talk about extenuating circumstances. Love is most fully shown when we show mercy toward those who suffer. In fact, it is our only acceptable response to suffering if we truly are followers of Jesus.

Is there a Christian position on undocumented workers and the current immigration crisis? Yes, the Christian position is to show mercy. We as individuals are called to show mercy to those who are in our country without proper documentation, we are also called to demand of our leaders that immigration reform, which is desperately needed, be just and merciful in its application. To practice less ourselves, and to demand less of our political leaders would be unmerciful and unChristian.

Which of these three, the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? The lawyer said, “The Samaritan, for he was the one who showed him mercy.” To that, the one we claim to follow simply said, “Go and do likewise.” Thanks be to God.

Another way of looking at the immigration debate

2010-06-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

I received this transcript of a speech from the Long Island Council of Churches.

Remarks by AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka at the City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland Ohio
June 18, 2010

Thank you, President Roller [City Club Board President Jan Roller].
Good afternoon. I am delighted to be here with you in the great city of Cleveland. I want to talk to you about the grave economic challenges we face today – and the labor movement's vision for where we need to go.
There is no better place to have a discussion about our economic challenges than Cleveland—where business and labor built the American middle class. Cleveland embodies both the consequences of our failed economic policies of the last three decades – and our hope for a different future.
The economic crisis has hit hard here—116,000 lost jobs in the last decade in Cuyahoga County. Eighty-six thousand home foreclosures last year alone. A self-defeating attempt to address budget shortfalls by attacking school budgets and teachers.
But we can also see a glimpse of a better future in the Lake Erie wind turbine project—with turbines built here in Ohio, in the OneCommunity Project fiber optic network, and in Cleveland's role as a global center of fuel cell development.
We're at a turning point today. The economic course our nation started on in 1980—the effort to have a low-wage, high-consumption society that imports more and more of what it consumes—has hit the wall. We cannot afford to stay this course– of letting the private sector and the financial markets run amok, of outsourcing everything that's not nailed to the floor, and of pushing down workers every chance we get. And last night's vote by Republicans in the United States Senate to block a simple extension of unemployment benefits for the most hard-pressed people without jobs is just the latest shame. At some point, there is nobody left to buy the junk that we import from everywhere but here.
We now face a future of prolonged high unemployment and stagnant or falling wages—unless we do something different.
Today I am going to talk about doing something different.
We need a new national economic strategy for a global economy.
At the heart of our strategy must be a workforce with world class skills and world class rights and trade policies that serve the interests of the American people. But today I also want to talk to you about what may seem like a strange subject--immigratio n--because it is patently clear that we cannot talk about our national workforce strategy unless we face head-on our own contradictions, hypocrisy and history on immigration.
The truth is that in a dynamic global economy in the 21st century, we simply cannot afford to have millions of hard-working people without legal protections, without meaningful access to higher education, shut off from the high-wage, high-productivity economy. It is just too costly to waste all that talent and strength and drive.
But immigration reform is not just an economic issue. The way we as a nation treat the immigrants among us is about more than economic strategy—it is about who we are as a nation.
I grew up in a small town in Southwestern Pennsylvania, not that far from here. The immigrant path led from the coalmines to Pittsburgh to Cleveland.
And if you look around Cleveland at the ethnic clubs and the churches, you see a city that immigrants built--Hungarians and Poles, Irish and Italians, Serbs and Croats and Jews, as well as African Americans. Cleveland is a city where the traditions of the places we came from are the very foundation of our community.
It was not easy when my family came to this country. My parents fled poverty and war from different corners of Europe. When I was a kid, there was an ugly name for every one of us in all twelve languages spoken in Nemacolin, PA—wop and hunkie and polack and kike. We were the last hired and first fired, the people who did the hardest and most dangerous work, the people whose pay got shorted because we didn't know the language and were afraid to complain.
We got to the mines and the mills, and the people already there said we were taking their jobs, ruining their country. Yet in the end the immigrants of my parents' and grandparents' generation prevailed, and built America. This is the history of my family, and this is the story of Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Detroit and Chicago and Baltimore and a thousand cities and towns across America.
And yet today I hear from working people who should know better, some in my own family – that those immigrants are taking our jobs, ruining our country. Haven't we been here before?
When I hear that kind of talk, I want to say, did an immigrant move your plant overseas? Did an immigrant take away your pension? Or cut your health care? Did an immigrant destroy American workers' right to organize? Or crash the financial system? Did immigrant workers write the trade laws that have done so much harm to Ohio?
My friends, we are most of us the children of immigrants.
But there was no labor movement in America until workers learned to look at each other and see not immigrants and native born, not white and black, not different last names, but our common fate as workers.
The labor movement believes that our goal as a nation should be a future of shared prosperity – not stubborn unemployment and a lost generation. That our economic strategy must bring us together instead of driving us apart. Our strategy must help us be the kind of country we want our children to thrive in—the country our history tells us we can be. The home of the American Dream.
So exactly what is the American Dream? Some will tell you the American Dream is the idea that in America anyone can become rich. And the fact that the upper reaches of our society are relatively open is a good thing about our country—but it is not the American Dream.
The American Dream is not that a few of us will get to be rich, but that all of us will have a fair portion of the good things in life. Time to be with our families. The chance for our children to get an education and the opportunity to make their own way in the world. Laws that protect us, not oppress us.
The American labor movement is all about the pursuit and the defense of this idea of America. And we have learned through our history that it is only when working people stand together—in the workplace and at the polling place—that the American Dream is secure.
Recently, the American Dream brought a man my age named Elvino and his son Ramon to America from Mexico. They are experienced bricklayers and were hired to work on a large mixed-use housing development—a public project. They and thirty others worked for five weeks, and the contractor just never paid them.
workers are taking this injustice to the U.S. Department of Labor, thanks to the efforts of Bricklayers Union Local 18 in Cincinnati and the Interfaith Worker Rights Center—whose members understand that truly an injury to one is an injury to all.
Immigration to the United States is part of a larger picture—the picture of how we are getting globalization wrong. There is no better way to understand that than to look at what has happened between the United States and Mexico since NAFTA was implemented in 1994.
NAFTA was sold to the American public on the idea that increasing trade with Mexico would create good jobs in both countries and slow the flow of undocumented workers coming to the U.S. from Mexico.
Instead, inequality has grown and workers' rights have eroded in both the U.S. and Mexico since NAFTA's passage. And illegal immigration flows have tripled.
Today we treat our relationship with Mexico as if it were a national security problem—solvable with military aid and a militarized border. And that is a dangerous mistake. The failures of our relationship with Mexico represent a failed economic strategy. They cannot be solved with guns and soldiers and fences. They must be addressed through an economic strategy for shared prosperity based on rising wages in both countries.
Instead, at the heart of the failure of our immigration policy is an unpleasant fact, one that you almost never hear talked about openly: Too many U.S. employers actually like the current state of the immigration system—a system where immigrants are both plentiful and undocumented—afraid and available. Too many employers like a system where our borders are closed and open at the same time—closed enough to turn immigrants into second-class citizens, open enough to ensure an endless supply of socially and legally powerless cheap labor.
Our immigration system makes a mockery of the American dream. The people doing the hardest work for the least money have no legal protections, no ability to send their children to college, no real right to form a union, no economic or legal security—no way to turn their contributions—their years of hard work—into the most fundamental right of all, the right to vote. That is intolerable for a democracy.
Recently, I met a young woman named Fabiola, who came to the United States when she was two years old. Her parents have worked in the United States for twenty-two years. Fifteen years ago, her father became a U.S. citizen, so all her younger siblings who were born here also are citizens. But Fabiola fell through the legal cracks and is now too old to become a citizen under current immigration law.
But that has not stopped her from working hard to live the American Dream. Recently, she graduated from the University of California with a degree in international development. But she cannot find a job in her field because she is undocumented.
How does Fabiola's story make any sense in economic or human terms? Her talents and her education are being squandered because our immigration system is simply not working
That is why the AFL-CIO is fighting to fix this broken immigration system as a crucial element of our broader economic strategy. Because we stand for the American Dream for all who work in our country. Because we are for ending our two-tiered workforce and our two-tiered society. And because an underclass of disenfranchised workers ends up hurting all workers.
But we are not for any kind of immigration reform. We will not support the return to outdated guest worker programs that give immigrants no security, no future here in the United States, no rights and no hope of being part of the American Dream.
Immigration reform must begin with the principle that workers in the United States deserve to enjoy a fair share of the wealth we create—that wages should move up with productivity. The labor movement and a broad coalition of faith-based and immigrants' rights groups have worked with former Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall to put together such a program for comprehensive immigration reform.
The AFL-CIO is for a fair path toward legalization for all undocumented workers who are working to realize the American Dream. We are for the DREAM Act, that gives young people like Fabiola a future in the only country they know.
We need an independent commission to determine our society's genuine need for more immigrants, and then we need to build a pathway that allows immigrants to be securely part of our country from day one—able to assert their legal rights, including the right to organize, without fear of retaliation.
And together with this commission, going forward we are for establishing real penalties for employers who break the law. We must focus enforcement not on those who come here seeking the American Dream, but on those who would exploit them.
This is the reform the labor movement is fighting for.
But instead, we see today a dangerous drift toward a politics of hate. Last month, I went to Arizona to stand with working people who were the target of a hate campaign—a campaign for racial profiling waged by the state legislature and signed into law by the governor. A campaign to make anyone who might look like an immigrant live in fear of the police. All of us should fear such a system: In the end, don't all of us who aren't Native Americans look like the immigrants and children of immigrants that we are?
As President of the AFL-CIO, my message to working people is that we all are bound together by our lives as workers, our dreams for our families, and our hopes for this country's future. The labor movement stands for giving all workers in America the right to dream the American Dream.
Unfortunately, the American Dream is slipping away.
Today, as in any economic crisis, there are people who offer hatred and divisiveness as the solution to the crisis. If our political leaders do not lead, if they do not offer help in the present and a clear strategy for prosperity in the future—starting with good jobs—those voices of hate will grow, they will become more powerful, and they will feed on the public's anger and pain and desperation.
President Obama has laid out in broad terms the approach we need to take. He has spoken out for creating good jobs, rebuilding manufacturing, taking on the challenge of climate change and energy independence, growing exports and investing in our infrastructure, including our education infrastructure.
If we are truly going to build a world class workforce, we need to restore workers' fundamental human right to organize and bargain with their employers. And we need to make sure every worker in America – documented or undocumented – is protected by our labor laws. That is why it is so urgent that we reform our immigration system.
The President's strategy also requires that we invest in rebuilding our country. Consider this fact—as a result of the economic recovery act, we are now in the process of planning approximately 500 miles of high-speed rail, including lines here in Ohio. Sounds good, until you realize that China, a country about the same size as the United States, is in the process of constructing 5,000 miles of high-speed rail.
Restoring workers' rights and building workers' skills. Creating the infrastructure of the 21st century. Thinking strategically when it comes to trade policy. These are the strategies for making the American Dream as real for our children as it was for my parents.
But that will not be enough. We as a nation must be true to our better selves—employers must not make a buck on the backs of workers who live in fear of deportation, and workers must stand together in the workplace for good jobs, safe jobs, health care for all, and retirement security we can count on. And so when we talk about making the American Dream real, the labor movement stands for making it real for all of us who do the work of our country. All of us—no matter what we look like, who we choose to love, or where we come from. Surely there we can find common ground.
Thank you.

Corporations are not people. . .

2010-06-19T18:11:00.000-07:00

While waiting to return to Long Island at the Indianapolis International Airport, I had a chance to stop at one of the restaurants on the concourse and catch a bit of the US Open. Suddenly, the televisions throughout the restaurant switched channels to the World Cup Football match between England and Slovenia. Since I now am a naturalized citizen of the UK, I wasn't all that upset, but most of the other patrons began to request that the televisions be switched back to the golf. Finally, a rather frustrated waiter announced that "corporate" had decided that during the World Cup all matches would be shown on all of the televisions in each restaurant. I think most of us were stunned.

It's a sign of the times. Corporations are taking over more and more of the decisions that effect all of our lives. It startled me that "the customer is always right" mentality has been replaced with "management makes the decisions and the customer be damned." But it encompasses more important issues than what television program is watched in a restaurant. Corporations have been given by our Supreme Court, in an unwise decision, unlimited ability through financial contributions to influence our politicians. How pathetic to hear a member of our House of Representatives apologize to BP for a supposed 'shakedown.' And that apology came before the corporations were able to give unlimited financial contributions to buy favors and influence over those who are supposed to represent the people. They are already in control.

Is this a faith issue? Most definitely. Jesus reminded us that 'the love of money leads to all kinds of evil.' When corporations have more influence over elected representatives than the people that elected them, that is not only undemocratic -it is evil. And the problem is, when such evil is perpetrated by a corporation we can't even find a person to name. It is dangerous systemic evil in which no one has to take responsibility. That is because corporations aren't people. For the Supreme Court to give them the same status with the added benefit of almost unlimited financial resources is morally reprehensible.

When the son becomes the father: A sermon for Father's Day

2010-06-18T12:49:00.000-07:00

This Father's Day Sermon is also on the Sunday that the New Century Hymnal is introduced to our congregation. We will be using the NCH throughout the summer. The text for this Sunday is 1 Kings 19:1-15.

Elijah is on the run. His life is under threat and so he heads to the wilderness and finally arrives at Mount Horeb, the sacred mountain of God. The God who had strengthened Elijah in the past had now seemingly abandoned him.

Elijah needed a new understanding of God if he were to continue to be God’s prophet. Isn’t it interesting that Elijah was expecting God to show up in the wind, in an earthquake or in fire? That is an ancient understanding of God that still shapes our thinking. If your home is destroyed in an earthquake, or by a hurricane or lighting strikes your house and burns it down -your insurance company is likely to say that the occurrence was an ‘act of God.’ Images of God as all-powerful, a God who can intervene in history at any point in time, a God who can bring destruction through the forces of nature predominate our thinking.

Jesus comes along centuries after Elijah and offers and image of God much different than what Elijah had expected. Jesus refers to God as like a father. But not the patriarchal father that was the social norm at the time of Jesus. Jesus described this father God most completely in the parable of the prodigal son. The father breaks all social conventions in his ability to love, forgive and show compassion to a wayward son who would normally have been ostracized by not only the family but especially by the head of the household -the all-powerful father.

Faithful people in every age are tasked with reflecting on their images of God to insure that they do not trap the Holy One in some narrow, literalistic prison. The ancient understanding of the nature God who comes in the earthquake, wind and fire is replaced for Elijah by a God who comes in sheer silence.

That’s interesting isn’t it? Not only silence, but sheer silence. It is only in the silence that Elijah is able to understand what God would have him do next. He is to return to the rough and tumble world of the politics of Israel from which he fled. Elijah was tasked to do something he would rather not do.

We’ve all experienced those times and tasks in our lives. Times we’d rather not live through or tasks we wished were not ours to do. For these last several days, I have lived through such a time and been involved in just such a task. How I wish my father were still alive to handle this difficult time of transition in the life of my mother -his wife.

Becoming my Mother’s attorney in fact and taking on the power of attorney role is something I wished to avoid. Like Elijah I would have rather fled to the wilderness. I couldn’t hope to care for my mother nearly as well as my father had in their fifty-five years of marriage. My father was wiser and like the father in the parable of the prodigal son would have accomplished the tasks that I now faced with copious amounts of love and compassion.

What do I do if mom’s heart stopped, do I ask the doctors and caregivers to take extraordinary efforts to resuscitate her or let her die peacefully? How do I explain to my mother that she will have to leave her assisted living apartment and move into a nursing home? How do I make a decision on what that nursing home should be? What of her property and possessions do I keep and what do I give away? These are the tasks that I have wrestled with over the last two weeks.

The amazing thing about Jesus was that he revealed to us something of the nature of God. He didn’t only do it by comparing God to a father, he did it through his healing presence, through his insightful parables, and through his actions toward those in need. In those moments of sheer silence which have been few and far between in these last days I have recognized that that is our task in life as well. Through our actions, we are to reveal the nature of God, especially to those most in need.

Whether I liked it or not, whether I felt up to the task, for my mother in need, the son had to take on the role of the father. That’s the danger of ossifying our language into only the images of the past. Our first hymn this morning “Dear God, embracing humankind” is known to most of us by the more familiar, “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.” I would guess that most of you are quite content with the older version. But do these very familiar terms of Lord and Father speak to our times as effectively as they have in the past.

I saw a sign in front of a church while I was back in Indiana. It stated: “There is no mystery in God.” I don’t agree. As Marcus Borg says, “God is mystery with a capital ‘M’”

The New Century hymnal is our denomination’s attempt to convey to our worshipers that God cannot be put into a box. All language about God is insufficient to fully describe the mystery that is God. The God of earthquake, wind and fire, is also the God of sheer silence. The God who anointed Israel’s kings is also the God who welcomes prodigal sons and cared for the least of those in society with a special compassion. Our language about God should be liberating and freeing and open to all people. We are not mankind, we are humankind and it is in our humanity that God fully embraces us.

My most striking image of God came the last time I saw my younger brother before his death. His body was distorted by the crippling effects of cerebral palsy. His respiratory system no longer could sustain his life. And as I left for school that morning, I saw my mother sitting in a steamed filled bathroom, my brother draped across her lap as she embraced him and tried to give him some relief from his terrible congestion. That is the image of God that works best for me -a God who can’t intervene as we might like, but a God who is with us in our suffering and embraces us in our humanity. And that is what God calls us to do.

I couldn’t prevent my mother’s fall, I can’t heal her heart or stabilize her blood pressure, and I can’t undo the ravages of dementia. But I can try to reveal something of the nature of God as she faces the ultimate mystery of life and death. That is what we are called to do, and that is all we can do. Thanks be to God.

Sermon for Trinity Sunday

2010-05-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

This week's sermon is based upon Psalm 8 and John 16:12-15.

This past week, many of us have spent at least a few minutes of time watching the oil and heavy drilling mud as it has spewed from the riser one mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. If not angered, most of us have been saddened by the death of eleven men who lost their lives on the exploding oil derrick. Most of us have been angered or saddened as we have watched people’s lives shattered and their way of life altered for years to come as a result of oil invading the fishing areas, beaches and wetlands of the southern coast. We have been touched by the sight of wildlife struggling against a coating of oil. And amidst the finger-pointing and politicization of the tragedy most of us have recognized that something has gone terribly wrong with our way of life.

Surely this wasn’t what the Psalmist meant when writing of God: “You have given humanity dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatever passes along the paths of the seas.”

You see, there is a great difference between giving one dominion and a modern understanding of domination. There is also a great difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Whatever the final verdict is on stopping the flow of oil, we must marvel at the engineering feat that created the Deep Horizon oil well, and the amazing knowledge that has been exhibited in trying to stop this volcano of oil from fouling the sea, beaches and wetlands any further. But knowledge, however technically sound and proficient can look at any situation superficially, without understanding the full ramifications of actions based solely on that knowledge. Something more is needed.

Krista Tippett, host of National Public Radio’s program ‘Speaking of Faith” provides a wonderful definition of Wisdom. “This is a part of life where we give ourselves over to essential, exacting, majestic questions that no other discipline quite presses in quite the same way: What does it mean to be human? What matters in a life? What matters in a death? How to love? How can we be of service to one another and the world?”

Remember when we invaded Iraq. We were assured that “shock and awe” would carry the day. Our well-trained forces and their sophisticated weaponry couldn’t be matched by the Iraqi forces and their sanction depleted military. It was quite true. We rapidly moved to the heart of Iraq, Saddam Hussein was on the run, and our President was able to declare that the mission was accomplished. And when looked at superficially it was.

But our leaders knowledge of combat operations didn’t allow for a prolonged insurgency, the anger caused by the killing of innocent civilians, or the ethnic and tribal hostilities that sprung forth when Saddam’s dictatorial control was ended. Our leaders had knowledge, but what was most needed was wisdom.

If we have been created to be just a little below the Creator, how can things get so messed up? How can our economy that has some of the best minds in the world working on it each day be in such shambles? How can two wars that seemed so winnable now continue to drag on with the war in Afghanistan rapidly approaching the day that it will have exceeded the Vietnam war in length? How can remarkable feats of engineering prowess fail so utterly and leave such terrible devastation in its wake?

Our knowledge has failed us. Our knowledge has failed us because it has not been tempered with wisdom. When we look at today’s verses from John’s gospel, it is best to approach it with some knowledge of the text so that we can discover the wisdom that lies beneath the words.

Jesus almost certainly never uttered these words to his disciples. You see, the writer of John’s gospel wasn’t an historian. The writer was a committed follower of Jesus who was trying to comfort and sustain a community in a time of persecution. The question for John wasn’t what would Jesus do, but the more important question, what would Jesus have us do.

John was saying to the gathered community, Jesus still had more to say when his life was cut short. There was still more wisdom to be imparted -still more of life to be illuminated. And it was in communities of believers like John’s that the Spirit would continue to speak.

We have to believe that in Christ we have a source of wisdom deeper than human knowledge, because knowledge so often fails us. But that belief must never allow us to become arrogant that our wisdom makes us superior or that the world will truly see the wisdom of God as wise. St Paul said: “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.”

That is the painful reality about following Christ. Our proclamations are often seen as foolish and we as fools. We can yammer on about the Holy Spirit, but most folks will look at us skeptically, preferring to limit the work of the Holy Spirit to speaking in tongues or the handling of snakes in some ecstatic frenzied worship service. The wisdom of God will more often than not lead us to be maligned and marginalized. The wisdom of God is seen by the world as naive and ineffectual. It is probably why Paul reminded the church at Corinth that God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Using mystical language, John’s Jesus tells the disciples that the Holy Spirit will declare to his followers the things that are to come. Jesus consistently warned that violence only leads to more violence, that the love of money over the love of neighbor destroys the fabric of society, and that human knowledge which is not tempered by God-given wisdom can even destroy the good creation that God has given us.

John’s words hold true today. In John’s often convoluted writing the truth shines through -God spoke then; God is still speaking. In this season of Pentecost we are reminded that God gives us access to a wisdom that can bring light to our darkness and illumine even our darkest times.

Sister Joan Chittister writes: “Pentecost is a delicious time. A shaft of light has come to pierce the uncertainties of the seeking. We are living now with a torch in our hands, however dark the darkness. For the early Christians -- and for us now -- it is a matter only of allowing the Spirit to transform us so that our life and the life of Christ do finally merge, do really melt into one another, do truly become one, are united both here and hereafter.” Thanks be to God.

A few thoughts on Pentecost. . .

2010-05-17T14:08:00.000-07:00

This Sunday, May 23rd, is Pentecost Sunday. The central focus of Pentecost is the amazing story told in the second chapter of Acts. Those who had assembled together on that day heard the rush of a mighty wind and tongues of fire rested upon each of them. Then, filled with the Holy Spirit, each person began to speak in languages other than Aramaic. Now that is some miracle!

When we take this story at face value we get all wrapped up in the miraculous occurrence and miss what I think is the real miracle of the story. After the crowd hears people speaking in their own language and expresses their bewilderment Peter addresses the assembled crowd. He doesn’t actually say anything that hasn’t been said before. In fact, he quotes the prophet Joel who had lived in Judah as much at five centuries earlier. The words of Joel and Peter are still powerful and a bit bewildering even today.

"In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and you old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit: and they shall prophesy." Acts 2:17,18

This past week, WMCC officially became a ‘God is Still Speaking’ church. We are now renewing our commitment to be a church that offers radical hospitality to all who enter. That is what Joel and Peter were doing when they said that a generous God ‘pours out the Spirit on all flesh.‘ If we are to truly fulfill our calling to be a ‘God is Still Speaking‘ church we must also understand that we must be a church that, through our words and actions, is speaking a radically different message. In the Pentecost Sunday gospel John puts on the lips of Jesus these telling words: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” John 14: 27

Our troubled hearts and fear comes from the recognition that we don’t really want to convey God’s radically different message to the world. We’d rather fit in, we’d rather not make waves, we’d rather be comfortable with our long held beliefs than be challenged to speak out in a decidedly new and different way. But when we do that, the church simply becomes another social organization that blends in to a culture and society in desperate need of transformation.

Paradoxically, Jesus reminded those early followers that it was only in adopting this radical way of living that we could truly find peace. Pentecost peace is a peace that is able to overcome our anxieties and fears and to allows us to speak boldly to all who will listen. Pentecost Sunday reminds us that we are ‘Unexpected people doing extraordinary things.’

My second letter to Glenn Beck

2010-05-15T13:59:00.001-07:00

May 15, 2010

Mr. Glenn Beck

FOX News

1211 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

Dear Mr. Beck;

It has been two months since I wrote you inviting you to come to Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church to participate in a dialogue on the topic of social justice and the Christian faith. As you might remember, my church sign stated: “Sorry, Mr Beck. Jesus preached social justice.” That particular sign went viral and received coverage on CNN and MSNBC. That surprised me because I had only intended it to reach those people who travelled down Wantagh Avenue in front of our church. Our church telephone, website and email address were inundated with messages. I fully admit that it is much more a result of your impact on American culture than my humble seven word missive. But, it started a useful conversation. One might say that God works in mysterious ways.

I must admit that I joined the boycott that was suggested by Reverend Jim Wallis. I had, for the most part, adhered to that boycott except when I came across you on a couple of occasions while “channel surfing” or read or heard recent statements you have made on a variety of websites that I frequent. But today, I was surprised to find that you have a Saturday show on FOX News. I assume it is a taped repeat of a weekday telecast.

I did pause long enough to hear you continue to rail against churches that preach and teach social justice and again label Jim Wallis as a marxist. I was astonished that you said the words “social justice” do not appear in the Bible. You might be interested to know that the word “social” doesn’t appear at all, but the word “justice” appears 134 times in the New International Version and most often when the Biblical prophets were calling the nation of Israel to be a nation that practiced justice. This was not an individualized act of charity, but a moral imperative to people -not a person. Therein lies my disagreement with you, a disagreement that is shared by roughly 80% of the people who contacted me about our church sign.

Again, I would like to invite you to come to Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church at a time of your convenience to have a public dialogue about our differing interpretations of social justice and what it means to people of faith. I can guarantee you that you will be treated civilly and that no one, to use your words, will attempt to ‘drop a bag of hammers on you.’ In fact, I would assume that a majority of the audience would support your position since you are a celebrity and well-known social commentator. I can also assure you that I am neither the Biblical scholar nor as eloquent as Rev. Wallis. Of course, a dialogue with Rev. Wallis would be preferable, since he is a well-known and respected Evangelical minister. If that were the case, I would happily offer my church for the dialogue; although I would imagine a larger venue would be in order.

Of course, my church cannot pay you for an appearance, although we would reimburse your travel expenses. I would suggest that because you would undoubtedly draw significant numbers of people that we sell reasonably priced tickets and donate the proceeds to a mutually agreed upon charity. I look forward to a response to this second letter.

Sincerely,

Rev. Ron Garner

Pastor, Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church

Wantagh, NY 11793

Thoughts on Ascension Day

2010-05-13T08:18:00.000-07:00

My liturgical calendar informs me that today is Ascension Day. Unlike other Christian holidays, I wouldn't normally know that fact. In fact, it always sneaks up on me as a surprise. I'm often not aware of it until I open my calendar on the sixth Thursday after Easter. I've never led or attended an Ascension Day worship service and honestly I don't know if I ever will. Many of us folks on the reformed side of the tradition don't find this holiday holding any special significance. Remember, John Calvin wasn't even a fan of Christmas or some of the important movable feasts. My guess is that his position was more a fear of becoming "Romish" or some misplaced fear of idol worship or set liturgical services.

At Easter I made the comment that I wondered if churches often commit liturgical suicide especially in regard to our Christian holidays. Do we fail to speak of things that might well be metaphorical as just that? Or from the pulpit and in our liturgies do we reinforce things that many people who desire to follow the life and teachings of Jesus can no longer (if they ever did) accept? Do I really believe that Jesus headed up toward heaven like some kind of divine astronaut? More importantly, is that an essential belief that I must adhere to if I am to consider myself or be considered by others a Christian?

Both the historic Nicene and Apostles' Creeds contain the phrase "he ascended into heaven." The more recent United Church of Christ Statement of Faith makes no mention of an ascension and WMCC's proposed "Who we are. What we believe." statement goes a bit further. We simply say, "[We] believe that the life, teachings, crucifixion and continuing spiritual presence of Jesus offer a vital foundation for personal fulfillment and communal well-being." This along with our opening statement "that we have found an approach to God through Jesus Christ " seems sufficient. Don't we need a few churches that grapple with the often simplistic literalistic approaches to scripture that are reinforced by our liturgical practices? Are we driving away a significant portion of our communities because they simply cannot accept the traditional/orthodox approaches to the life of Jesus and yet are powerfully drawn to how he lived and what he taught?

I would even go so far as to say that as far as this particular Christian holiday (at least on this particular sixth Thursday after Easter) I wonder if even a metaphorical interpretation is all that helpful. Perhaps it is even destructive to our desire to make disciples. I celebrate those Christians who find Ascension Day full of meaning whether from a historical or metaphorical perspective. But, I also celebrate those Christians who do not see it as essential for "personal fulfillment and communal well-being." Can't we have it both ways?

Mother's Day Sermon 2010

2010-05-11T04:26:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have begun to perceive Mother's Day as a bit of a "Hallmark holiday." I find the efforts of the UCC to make it a "Festival of the Christian Home" a little more appropriate with one caveat. We must be careful to remember the different constitutions that make up homes in our society and not get lured into only defining them in traditional terms. Since we are considering new hymnals for our church, I decided that it would be most appropriate to delve into the rich metaphorical language of Isaiah since that same rich language is a central aspect of the NCH. I used as my texts: Isaiah 49:14-16 and Isaiah 66:12-14.

When the New Century Hymnal was first published in 1995, I along with most of my congregation were skeptical about its content. Although it contained many exciting new hymns and most of the old favorites, some of the language was disconcerting. Some changes were quite welcome, archaic words like thee and thine were changed to you and yours.

Other changes made sense also. In the third verse of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, Christ’s birth no longer raises the sons of earth but raises us all from earth. It no longer gives just them (the sons) a second birth but gives us all a second birth. In the New Century hymnal we can still climb Jacob’s ladder, but we can also dance Sarah’s circle. That’s a nice example of more inclusivity

But the consternation that was raised about the hymnal focussed on it’s language about God and most vehemently about the use of feminine metaphors to describe God. It was cynically viewed as political correctness and was often dismissed by opponents with a phrase like, “If God the Father was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”

Those who protested forget how shocking the word “Father” for God must have been when those around Jesus heard that very relational word come from his lips.

That brings us to Isaiah. In today’s readings we hear striking images of God as a Mother. What makes that even more significant is that God as Mother was the ramblings of one author but in fact two different authors. Our reading from the 49th chapter was written while the people remained in exile and felt forgotten. The exiles cry out, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.”

God answers back, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? . . .I will not forget you.”

The reading from the 66th chapter occurs years later, when Cyrus has freed the exiles to return to Jerusalem, and yet there are divisions among the now freed people. Some were worshipping other gods or had become comfortable even in their exile and weren’t all that convinced that they should return to the rubble and ruin of the homeland; or if you prefer, the motherland.

But God promised to that uncertain people not only prosperity but comforted Israel in her uncertainty. “You shall nurse and be carried on her arm. As a mother comforts her child so I will comfort you.” And then the kicker, “You shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

In other words, don’t remain in Babylon worshipping the gods of your oppressors. You are free now, return to your home and worship the God who mothers you.

That passage reminds Maurene and I of Mother’s Day in England. It is not called Mother’s Day, it is called Mothering Sunday. It is not on the second Sunday in May, it is a movable feast, celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent. It was historically the time that worshippers left their villages and travelled to the nearest city or town that had a cathedral -also know as the Mother Church. It was also the time when young women and men who had become servants for wealthy families, were allowed to return to their homes and their mothers for a visit, usually with a bouquet of flowers and a simnel cake.

The God of our two authors in Isaiah is a God who does not leave us in our difficult times and is with us in each new adventure. The God of Isaiah is a God who dwells with the exiles and then summons them back to their home -to the motherland, to the mother church, or as it was in the time of Isaiah, the mother temple.

Scientists tell us that their is a part of our brain that makes a special mirroring connection with our mothers. It is in our DNA to be linked to the woman who gave us life. We don’t just understand that link from a scientific point of view. Many of you have asked me since I returned from Indiana how my mother was doing. To understand that question in its fullest implications, it must also be understood to be a question that asks, “Ron, how are you doing?”

You see, whether we had a utopian relationship with our mothers, or one that left much to be desired, the link will always be there. A sixty five year old Yalom had a dream in which at the end of the dream he asked, “How did I do, Mommy?” Some people even suggest we can never be really be adults till both of our parents have died. As long as Elizabeth Garner lives, I will still be her little boy. Even when our caring roles have been reversed in these past few years, I am still my mother’s son. The link is there not only because of neural pathways in our brains that link us to our mothers, but it is there because of a life time of relationship.

The link is a powerful one. Why do adopted children at some point in time invariably seek out their birth mother? It is usually not because they have a poor relationship with their adoptive mother -a mother who unselfishly chose to raise a child without the maternal birth link as a binding factor. No, most children seek out their birth mother because they realize they are linked inseparably because the child is created in the image of the mother.

That is how it is with God. We are created in the imago Dei -the image of God. We carry God with us wherever we go, whatever trials and tribulations come our way, whatever joy and prosperity we are blessed with, however far we feel removed from God or try to remove ourselves, God’s image remains with us.

One of the joys of this past year that I have spent with you is working with our confirmands. In just a few weeks, they will take a further step on their journey of faith, a significant step. They will no longer be children, although I suppose their mothers and fathers would argue that point, but to this community of faith they will be equal partners.

They bring new insights to us, the fit in well with hymnals such as the New Century Hymnal. You see they see God as a mystery, Mystery with a capital “M.” A mystery where a word like Mother is perfectly acceptable as a metaphor for God. This will be for all time, their Mother church. It was the church of their childhoods and the church in which they became full members.

Today, we do more than celebrate our mothers or those who have been, and that can include men or women, those who have been like mothers too us. We remember those who have nurtured and guided us on our way. But we also celebrate the church, where we return to again meet our mother God. May this always be a womb of safety, a place where we are nurtured and nursed and bounced on the knee of a loving and gracious God.

We pray, as we shall sing. Lord, let us in our homes agree this blessed peace to gain. Unite our hearts in love to You, and love to all will reign. Amen.

Walking humbly with our God. . .

2010-05-08T03:51:00.000-07:00

Humility is one of the prophet Micah's three great requirements when he spoke of what God truly wanted of us mortals. The ancient text puts humility in the third slot, after "doing justice" and "loving kindness." When speaking to a Progressive Christian Network gathering in southwest England I said that although I agreed with Micah's list (to do otherwise would show a lack of humility) I wasn't enamored with his order. I would have placed "walking humbly with our God" in the first position because I believe the other two requirements grow out of humility -much as plants grow out of humus.*

That's right, humbleness is a derivative of the Latin word, humilitas, which roughly means "low" or "from the earth." I believe the church, at its best, blooms where it is planted. Our theology should be shaped by "getting down and dirty" in the communities that surround our church. Who are the "dirty and unclean" people who are rejected by the self-regulating purity codes of our community? Who is left out? Who is ignored? Who are the "least of these" where we live? That is the starting point, a humble one at that, for any church who wishes to follow the life and teachings of Jesus.

How often our lack of humility gets in the way of this way of living out our faith. Too often churches get all wrapped up in a "what will the neighbors think" mentality. It is far easier to assimilate the purity codes of our communities than challenge them.

We would do well to take a lesson from our Amish brothers and sisters. Central to their understanding of humility is the concept of gelassenheit. The Amish are definitely people "of the earth" who live without being overly concerned about what their neighbors might think of their strange practices. Gelassenheit means to let things be even in a time of uncertainty and mystery. Churches often have problems with uncertainty and working with the lowest people in our society (again this is not a pejorative term but a reflection of our current social structures) leaves us with a healthy dose of uncertainty. Yes, uncertainty is healthy. The mystery of gelassenheit is that Jesus described working with "the least of these" as the only way to understand and be in relationship with God. If we want to reach the heights we must get down in the dirt. The idolatrous purity codes of our culture and community do not make us presentable to the Holy One, they only separate us from our truest selves and from God as Jesus understood God.

The ancient words of Micah formulate a way that the church can return to its roots and again truly be a "grassroots movement."

* Micah 6:6-8 (NRSV paraphrased)

Getting our hands dirty for Jesus!

2010-05-07T10:51:00.000-07:00

I love this photograph that my step-daughter Jessica took of her hand after a recent foray into our garden. It reminds me that to plant something or to nurture a growing thing we have to get our hands dirty.

One of the raging debates that is currently going on in our society is whether or not the "tea party" movement is in fact a "grassroots" movement. Members of the movement insist that it is, others say that it is not. Detractors point to Glenn Beck and Republican operatives as either the originators of the movement or closely associated with the movement since its inception. I honestly don't know how it originated, but it is not a "grassroots" movement by my definition -and I only claim this definition for myself and my understanding.

For me, grassroots movements only start at the very lowest levels of a society. I take that understanding from Jesus and his grassroots movement. He ministered and worked with those who were on the lowest rungs of society -the outcasts -those who were "unclean" by the religious sensibilities of the time. Jesus didn't mind getting his hands dirty and even took the radical step of teaching and living out the practice that if you didn't spend your energy and time with such folks you would never understand his obscure reference to the "reign of God."

This wasn't a new concept that was instituted by Jesus. Care and solidarity with the outcast was a central focus of the biblical prophets in Hebrew scripture. In the eyes of the prophets, how a nation treated the stranger, the widow and the orphan was a measure of its health. If Israel wished to remain prosperous as a nation then personal self-interest had to be replaced by or at least become secondary to caring and nurturing what Jesus called, "the least of our brothers and sisters." That troubling phrase should not be seen as condescending -it is a recognition of the social strata that exist in almost all cultures. The people on the bottom, the dirty unclean people, are where Jesus discovered the kingdom of God. People as well as nations can only fully live when they get down in the dirt with those who are outcasts.

The "tea party" movement is all about self-interest. Its members are concerned about the taxes they pay, its members are concerned about how healthcare for the poor and uninsured will effect their healthcare, its members are concerned about how the huge deficit will impact the lives of their children and grandchildren, and though much of their rhetoric is aimed at the government they have plenty of vitriol left for immigrants -those who dwell at the bottom of our society.

The life of Jesus makes some pretty harsh demands on us. I won't go so far at Rabbi Jesus went and say that we must sell all our possessions and give them to the poor, or even as far as the early Christian communities went when they pooled all of their resources and shared everything in common. But, even in a radical capitalist society like ours, I believe that we are called to be advocates for those who are below us (not in the eyes of God but in the eyes of society). It is with the unclean of our time that we can get our hands dirty just like Jesus did. And amazingly, when we are willing to get our hands dirty we discover the better part of ourselves.

Anger is fear in costume.

2010-05-06T04:14:00.000-07:00

I recently watched the documentary, CSNY/Deja Vu, which told the story David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young on their "Freedom of Speech Tour." What amazed me most about the documentary was not the insights that it provided into the tour's inner-workings. What left me speechless and laughing out loud (or is that lol) was how attendees angrily stormed out of the concert when it became political. How could you attend a CSNY concert and NOT expect it to be political at some point? Of course, subtlety was in short supply. The cause of most of the outrage was directed at the song, "Let's impeach the President for lying. . ."

Since returning to the USA from a nine-year exile in Great Britain I have found another source of amazement. Why does every issue in our nation quickly descend into angry rhetoric? Terrorism, the role of government in our society, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, taxation policy, energy policy, immigration, gays in the military -you name it, the discussions will quickly become sound-bite battles. Much heat is produced but little light.

Gerald Jampolsky reminds us that there are only two real emotions -love and fear. That same reality was expressed by the late Fr. Anthony deMello who spoke in the more Buddhist terms of attachment or desire. Show me an angry person and I will show you a fearful person. Show me an angry person and I will show you a person who is attached to a very narrow-minded viewpoint of how the world is supposed to be. Fearful people spend much of their time online reading the blogs of other people with whom they agree. It doesn't lessen their fear, it only reinforces it. Instead of being able to see themselves as fearful they angrily lash out at those things which produce their own unexamined fears.

One of the most common phrases in the Bible is "fear not." It is most often uttered when God is calling for someone to do something that is outside their frame of reference. Fear cripples us from seeing the world in a different way. Fear keeps us from being agents of transformation. Fear makes us angry and hostile to anything outside of our entrenched narrow-minded viewpoint.

"The truth will make you free." Those words of Jesus speak to our current situation in the United States. When we accept the truth, when we recognize the truth, we are free to be loving and compassionate people. We can be transformed and transforming. I wonder if all those angry people didn't storm out of the CSNY concert in anger because they feared what the truth. Years of war haven't made us safer. Years of war have crippled our economy. That's a hard truth to accept, but it is necessary if we are to do our part in bringing about "the reign of God."