Monday, June 22, 2015

Crossing over; about the murders in Charleston. June 21, 2015. The Rev'd Dr. Richard Smith


There are no words to capture the pain and anger and horror of what happened in Charleston this week. No words. I’ve read and listened to many words -- from the President’s to Jon Stewart’s to the New York Times’ to several pastors’. Their words, no matter how eloquent, all fall short of what happened, and I know mine will, too.

It would not be so hard if this were simply a matter of someone’s mental instability. But this is not mental illness. This is profound and ugly racial hatred.

It would not be so hard if this were simply an isolated case, a particular bad apple. But it’s not. This is part of a larger sinful fabric in which we are, each of us in one way or another, implicated. 

One Navajo scholar has lamented just how profoundly broken we are, how deeply this ugly sin of racism runs in our American DNA. He writes,  
Today I lament, I mourn over the life of each and every person that was violently taken in Charleston South Carolina. 
I lament that a 5 year old child was robbed of her innocence and forced to "play" dead in order to survive. 
I lament that today, the confederate flag is still flying in the Capitol of South Carolina. 
I lament the roots of dehumanization that exist within the founding documents of the United States of America; in our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and our Supreme Court case precedents. 
[He’s referring to that document we’ll so proudly read across the country in a few days on the Fourth of July. Just a few lines after it so nobly proclaims that “All men are created equal,” it refers to Native Americans, the very people we slaughtered as we stole their lands and livelihoods, as “Indian savages”.]

He continues,
I lament that our nation continues to celebrate its racist foundations with holidays like Columbus Day, sports mascots like the Washington Redskins and the putting of faces like Andrew Jackson on our currency. 
I lament the deaths of Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and countless others. 
[We could add Amilcar and Alex who were killed by the police near our church.] 
I lament the words of our political candidates who promise to lead America back to its former "greatness", ignorant of the fact that much of America's "greatness" was built on the exploitation and dehumanization of its people of color. 
I lament that today the dominant culture in America is in shock because in the city of Charleston South Carolina one individual committed a single evil and heinous act of violence, while minority communities throughout the country are bracing themselves because the horrors of the past 500 years are continuing into their lifetime. 
I lament with every person and community, throughout the history of this nation, who, due to the color of their skin, had to endure marginalization, silence, discrimination, beatings, lynching, cultural genocide, boarding schools, internment camps, [immigration detention centers,] mass incarceration, broken treaties, stolen lands, murder, slavery and [the doctrine of] discovery.
Lamentations by a Native American at the profundity of the evil unleashed in Charleston.

Today’s gospel is about a crossing over. Jesus and the disciples are crossing a lake. A storm arises, and the disciples get paralyzed with fear. Jesus, in that terrifying moment, gives them a teaching.

And maybe that teaching can speak to us this morning, give us a sense of how to stand, how to speak and act in this time of our own crossing over.

For we as Americans are crossing over. The racial, cultural, and economic makeup of our country is changing dramatically. This crossing over arouses fear and exposes some of our worst features: profound racism and white privilege, the incarceration of innocent men, women -- and in the case of immigrants, entire families -- all the police shootings, the displacement of so many poor families and seniors from their homes, and, most recently the murders in Charleston.

It is a time of profound upheaval and change, and in this crossing over, we, like the disciples, now find ourselves in a violent storm. 

Many scholars say that Mark intended this gospel story to be a metaphor for his own community’s struggle at the hands of the Roman Empire: Rome is literally slaughtering them, destroying their culture, forcing them to worship Caesar, stealing their modest wages in heavy taxes to the Emperor and leaving them and their families impoverished. In that context, the hope of throwing off Roman oppression was stirring, the hope of crossing over to a new world more rich in possibilities for life. Could a storm be far off?

They were crossing over, and along the way a storm arose. And Jesus, as the story goes, falls sleeps. And the fury of the waves becomes too much, and so the disciples wake him, they shout at him “Don’t you care that we are being destroyed?”

Then, after he has calmed the winds and the waves, but before they reach the other shore, Jesus offers these trembling disciples some challenging words. 

In Greek these words are often translated, “Why are you afraid? Where is your faith?” But I think they are better translated, “Why are you so timid?” It’s a subtle difference. The Greek word here is the same one Paul uses, for example, when he writes to Timothy, “God did not give us a spirit of timidity. He gave us a spirit of power, and of love, and of a good mind.”

So in the very midst of the storm Jesus is challenging the disciples “Why are you so timid? Where is your faith?” This is no time for cowering, for being shy, for being cynically resigned as though this is just the normal way of things. This perilous, terrifying moment requires all the more boldness and all the more love. 

Just when all hell is breaking loose and they are losing everything, when they have nothing left to hang onto and God seems to be asleep and they feel so helpless and fear is in their throats, Jesus is challenging them not to be timid, but to live out of their faith. 

Their faith that, despite all evidence to the contrary, God will not leave them to face this violent storm alone. And that same God empowers them, urges them now, in the face of this violent storm and all this bloodshed and oppression, to stand boldly and to speak and live their truth. 

A couple of days ago in Charleston, several family members of the slain spoke to Dylann Roof, the man who killed their loved ones. After a number of them had spoken, the granddaughter of one of the victims said  “Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate ... everyone's plea for your soul is proof that they lived in love.” And then she added with boldness and determination, “Hate won't win." 

This is how it works sometimes for followers of Jesus: In the midst of the storm, with all the hate and trauma and grief, with tears running down your cheeks, and your knees shaking, you live, speak, act not with timidity but with boldness, out of your faith.

“God did not give us a spirit of timidity. He gave us a spirit of power, and of love, and of a good mind.”

Could the teaching of Jesus in today’s gospel guide us in our current crossing over? What might it mean for you personally to live, speak, and act boldly at this hour?

Let me close with the words of South Africa’s Alan Boesak: “When we go before Him, God will ask, "Where are your wounds?" And we will say, "I have no wounds." And God will ask, "But why? Was there nothing worth fighting for?”

Monday, June 15, 2015

Seeds, June 14, 2015, the Rev'd Dr Richard Smith



Two very different parables about seeds in today’s gospel. Each parable reveals a very different facet of this disruptive and uncontrollable thing we call the kingdom of God.

The first parable urges us to trust a natural growth process that happens when a seed is planted.

There is the story of the man who sowed seed in his field, and every day dug up the soil to see how the seed was doing. He wanted to catch each moment in the interaction between seed and soil and intervene in their natural lovemaking. He did not trust the seed and soil to grow without his ongoing tweaking. Needless to say, nothing ever grew.

The parable of Jesus in today’s gospel offers a different strategy. Once contact is made between seed and soil, between the word of God and the human heart, a process of development begins. This process is more mysterious than we know and we should not interfere with it, not try to tweak it. It’s a matter of paying attention to that process, of trusting it, cooperating with it. Paying attention.

Pay attention to where God at work in the world around you.
Where is love breaking out, justice being pursued, freedom being won, human dignity being insisted on and restored?

Pay attention to where God at work in your own heart.

  • Where do you find beauty?
  • When does your heart melt?
  • When do you get goosebumps?
  • When does your heart begin to race from a new sense of purpose? 
  • When do you feel outrage at injustice, and find hope in an otherwise dark moment? 

All of these are signs of God’s presence, and it’s a matter of being actively attentive to them both within and around us, trusting them.

And then, when the harvest arrives, cooperating with that process, going into the field with our sickles to bring in the crop.

But most of the time, it’s a matter of waiting patiently, with trust.

Sometimes finding our deepest joy and purpose in life is less a matter of some dramatic action, some heroic decision made in haste, perhaps out of fear of never finding it, than it is of simply going about the rhythms of our days, “sleep and rise night and day”, trusting that God is at work in our lives, leading us step-by-step to a fuller and richer life; the seed is slowly germinating and growing into the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head, then the abundant harvest, then the bread.

Our task most of the time is simply to pay attention to what is God is doing, often very subtly, hidden and underground, both within and around us.

The writer Nikos Kazantzakis tells us that once when he was a boy he noticed a cocoon stuck to a tree; a butterfly was about to emerge. He waited a while, but it was taking too long, so he decided to warm the cocoon with his breath. The butterfly finally emerged but its wings were still stuck together and it died soon afterwards.

Kazantzakis says, “I just couldn’t wait for the sun to complete the necessary process of patient maturation. That small corpse is until this very day one of the heaviest burdens on my conscience. But that’s what made me understand what a true mortal sin is: trying to force the great laws of the universe. We have to have patience, wait for the right time and then follow confidently the rhythm that God has chosen for our lives.”

The second parable about the mustard seed reveals a very different facet of this uncontrollable kingdom: This kingdom is very disruptive.

I’ve always liked this story of the mustard seed, found comfort in it. The mustard seed is so small, but grows into a huge shrub. Like my faith, so small and fragile, that can, with God’s grace, do great things. I still find a much-needed comfort in this understanding of this story--an encouraging, hopeful word.

But did you know there’s another side to the mustard seed? The shrub it grows into is a nuisance that will, if you let it, destroy your whole carefully planned garden. This is not like the beautiful, powerful Cedars of Lebanon we sing about in the psalms. This is a bitter-smelling shrub, about 3-4 feet tall, that shoots out uncontrollably in all directions. It can overrun your whole garden.

And that, Jesus says, is what the kingdom of God is like. Watch out!

Every Sunday around this table we pray, “Your kingdom come.” But be careful what you pray for! You have been warned! Like a mustard seed disrupts your awesome garden, the kingdom of God will disrupt your life.

It’s like falling in love, or deciding to raise a kid. Perhaps a carefully planned career path gets tossed aside. You spend your time and money differently. You discover new joys and delights, and you sacrifice some things you thought you could never live without. The kingdom is disruptive like that, like love.

That kingdom drove Martin Luther King to Selma, Rosa Parks to the front of the bus, many of the Freedom Fighters to have their legs broken, Cesar Chavez to Delano. It is, I suspect, what draws many of us to this part of the city, to worship here--in a tragic and beautiful neighborhood like this, a crazy community like ours--when, if we had more sense, we’d be reading the New York Times in some trendy coffee shop, or doing brunch.

And into your carefully planned garden, the mustard shrub attracts birds--birds that are unwelcome because they will eat whatever other seeds or fruit you may be trying so hard to grow.

As the word of Jesus takes root in your heart, you’ll begin to notice people starting to cross your path seeking shelter from their storms. Don’t say you were not warned. They will find you.

They might come, like many come here to St. John’s, after a night on the streets asking for coffee and a few bucks for a Big Mac, or on a Saturday morning for a bag of groceries.
Sometimes they might be like the family we met-- Ricardo and Amelie and Nicole--who needed our help to keep their family from being torn apart, from Ricardo being unjustly deported to Guatemala where his life would be in danger.
Or they might be like the young ex-gangbanger who was trying to start a new life, who needed a few odd jobs to earn some money, and later some help to bury his girlfriend after she was tragically shot and killed.
Or, in another way, it might be one of the struggling non-profits in the neighborhood who can’t afford today’s high rents for meeting space and who asks to use our church.

The kingdom will completely disrupt our carefully planned worlds. And just as the birds of the air find shelter in the branches of the mustard tree, so people will seek us out for shelter.

So the kingdom is beyond our control. And it is, like a mustard shrub, disruptive, a nuisance.

And yet...and here’s where it gets a little weird...it’s also our hearts’ deepest desire, something we rightly pray for week after week: Your kingdom come. Go figure.