Remember
Remember. Our faculty of recall is the one characteristic essential to a full humanity.
That is why Alzheimer’s Disease is so devastating. It robs its victims of what makes life precious and worthwhile. Literally it takes the joy out of living, erasing precious memories. Not only is it a tragedy for the afflicted, but for surviving family and friends as well.
But humans are not the only living beings possessing memory. It seems to be present up and down the tree of life. All species have some capacity for remembrance. Even the simplest organisms can learn to navigate primitive avoidance challenges. They remember.
Anyone possessing a pet knows that higher order animals are smart. Look how our cats learn to train us human beings. Get out the leash and our dog knew what was up, as Big B would jump up and down with excitement, tail wagging.
“Ned and Sunny stretch out together on the warm sand. He rests his head on her back, and every so often he might give her an affectionate nudge with his nose. The pair is quiet and, like many long-term couples, they seem perfectly content just to be in each other’s presence.”[1]
What sets them apart from what you might have been assuming is, they’re lizards and they’ve been together for a good number of years, longer than some human couples last.
Shingleback lizards meet to mate with the same partner over many years, one studied couple still making magic over twenty-seven years and going strong. They remember who loves ‘em.
Remember.
One of the most poignant scenes of Holy Week is a request for remembrance. When one thief asks another condemned if he might be remembered in paradise. “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And in that moment, he is enfolded into the blessed memory of the Eternal.
Here we have the Exalted One casting aside all privilege as he is dying in agony, and promising to hold another condemned in memory. A very strange “King of the Jews” who for us of low account, he sets aside his crown, as the hymn puts it. Truly, a bitter sweet moment on Calvary’s hill.
Memory and longing are sometimes the only forms of sacramental presence of the love of a lost one left to us. Through memory all living flesh is bound together in one seamless garment of life – past and present. Through memory hope is renewed.
As we gather around Thanksgiving tables in a few days, moments of joy will come to life as family stories are brought to memory and retold. Retold to laughter and to tears.
In our family, the remembered story that always brought laughter was an incident in our living room when I was in the second grade. I had persuaded my mom to help me with this cut-out western village on the back of a Cheerios box. Each box featured a different structure for the village. This one was a cabin of some sort.
Mom wouldn’t do it for me, she made me cut it off the back of the box, and she would fold the buildings and put the correct tabs into the appropriate slots. She began folding and I noticed she wasn’t reading the directions. “Mother! I scolded. “You’re not following the directions,” to which she answered, “Only an idiot would need these directions.”
As she continued to fuss with the building, she finally asked, “Where are those directions?” To which I haughtily replied, “Mother, you said ‘only an idiot would need these directions.’”
And at virtually every family gathering thereafter we would regale all with a retelling, and mother would laugh as hard as any.
In my mind’s eye I still picture her fussing in frustration with the parts of that paper Cheerios building. ¡Presente!
We call this Sunday, “Christ the King Sunday”. In our progressive day, the title seems somehow politically incorrect. This strange king came with no armament, no hoard of soldiers, not to conquer by force.
All prerogatives he set aside. Along the highways he traveled over those days with us – as one of us — he stooped to the lowliest, embraced the sickest, and I suspect, he remembered each from the cross.
He remembered that lad who shared his picnic lunch that fed hundreds. He remembered a shamed woman at a Sumerian well. He remembered the one leprous man healed. And he remembered the other nine who, in their frail humanity failed to show gratitude. And held all ten in compassionate memory. He remembered a desperate old woman who grasped at his garment that she might be healed, and a woman of great faith who returned home to find her daughter healed.
He remembered those of that faithful band of followers who had been with him over that brief span of years. Those dense guys who never quite got the mission, and that precious woman who would anoint his feet, a foretaste of an anointing for burial. And that faithful clutch of women who gathered at the foot of his cross in his dying moments. Probably the last vision of his dimmed eyes before they closed in death.
Remember.
Memory can be painful, damaging. I definitely remembered after touching the hot stove not to do that again.
The memory of failure and past mistakes, while needing healing, can be instructive. “Though your sin be as scarlet, I will wash it away.” It’s about confession and redemption – sometimes a life-long process, making amends and providing reparations. Without the visible acts of contrition, healing remains elusive. Remember and forsake thy foolish, destructive ways. Choose Life!
History is our collective memory. It’s not about dates and battles, or even the towering figures of the moment.
David W. Blight’s book, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, narrates the failure of Reconstruction after that conflict. As the years progressed, those memories became politicized, North, South, white and Black.[2]
Those wounds remain raw and open, memory selective. When I was young private, stationed in San Antonio, Texas, I encountered an entirely different memory of our national schism. Not the Civil War but the War of Northern Aggression. It was said to be all about states’ rights, not so much about slavery.
Those freedmen and freedwomen of the South had their own counter narrative to the mythology of a “Lost Cause.” And a precious, healing memory it is. Hear the story of redemption of starvation and death, the story of liberation at a racetrack in Charleston, South Carolina.
After the fall of Charleston, memory bore an incredible burden. At a race track, Planters Race Course, hundreds of Union prisoners of war had been held in the most inhumane conditions. Many died of exposure and disease, having been kept outside in freezing conditions without tents or other shelter. Over 257 had died.[3]
The dead were just unceremoniously dumped in unmarked graves behind the judges’ stand.
Black Charlestonians who witnessed this brutal treatment, the death and disease, remembered. After the capture of the city, they organized to honor those who had sacrificed so much for their freedom — those honored dead, who with their blood had procured their rebirth – slaves no longer but now, free American citizens.
On May Day, 1865, they planned the first Decoration Day at the graveyard of those 257 Union dead, labeled the “Martyrs of the Race Course.”
This is the retelling of that of that bittersweet day of remembrance as narrated by a New York Tribune reporter:
“’The ‘First Decoration Day,’ as this event came to be recognized in some cities in the North, involved an estimated ten thousand people, most of them black former slaves. During April, twenty-eight black men from one of the local churches built a suitable enclosure for the burial ground at the Race Course.”
“At nine o’clock in the morning on May 1, the procession to this special cemetery began as three thousand black schoolchildren (newly enrolled in freedmen’s schools) marched around the Race Course, each with an armload of roses and singing ‘John Brown’s Body.’”
“The children were followed by three hundred black women representing the Patriotic Association, a group organized to distribute clothing and other goods among the freedpeople. The women carried baskets of flowers, wreaths, and crosses to the burial ground. The Mutual Aid Society, a benevolent association of black men, next marched in cadence around the track and into the cemetery, followed by crowds of black and white citizens…
“When all had left, the holy mounds, the tops the sides, and spaces between them – were one mass of flowers, not a speck of earth could be seen…and as the breeze wafted the sweet perfumes from them, outside and beyond…there were few eyes among those who knew the meaning of the ceremony that were not dim with tears of joy.’
“While the adults marched around the graves, the children were gathered in a nearby grove where they sang ‘America,’ ‘We’ll Rally around the Flag,’ and ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’”
After the dedication, some thirty orations were given by Union officers and local black ministers. As picnics were broken out on the grass, “a full brigade of Union infantry, including the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts and the Thirty-fifth and 104th U.S. Colored troops, marched in double column around the martyrs’ graves.”[4]
Remember. Days of sacrifice; days of sweet freedom, days of gratitude – all held together in precious memory.
As Jesus from the cross enfolded the condemned, the desperate, the abandoned in loving memory, we celebrate One who casts aside the prerogatives of divinity to stoop in “Servant Leadership” to enfold us in the same gracious remembrance. Emmanuel, God with us. God in us and we in God. A very strange king, indeed, who hangs from the cross.
In precious memory all flesh is bound together in one “seamless garment of destiny.” — an ever-flowing stream of life. Memory is the sacramental presence of God’s enfolding of all creation unto Godself. Memory, the stuff of pure unadulterated Grace. The sacramental presence of all life wrapped up into the heart of God. You, too, Ned and Sunny. Blessed be!
Might it also be that even the most horrific things we do to one another and to creation find redemption in the memory of God? All restored? I pray so. You know the hymn: “And when from death I’m free I’ll sing and joyful be, and through eternity I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on, and through eternity I’ll sing on.” – all being folded into the great stream of the Mind of God. Amen.
[1] Hannah Tomasy, “Who Knew Reptiles Could be Such Romantics?” New York Times, Science Section, October 28, 2022.
[2] David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001).
[3] Ibid, 69-70.
[4] Ibid, 70.
November 20, 2022, Christ the King Sunday
“Remember”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney, St. Francis Episcopal Mission
Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43
Do Not Lose Hope
Early on in our marriage I learned one thing about my wife. She could be persistent. Once she got an idea in her mind, especially an idea concerning one of my chores, I might as well give in. I knew I would, sooner or later, anyway. This woman is most persistent. Okay, somedays I think, “obsessive.” I know where she got this from — her mother. Mom lived with us the last nine or ten years of her life. I got to know her pretty well. The apple did not fall too far from that tree.
Actually, it’s such women who redeem the planet. They are the embodiment of Jessie Jackson’s chant, “Keep Hope Alive. Keep Hope Alive.”
Luke tells of one such woman. This is a woman who has been wronged by an unjust judge, in fact a bully, and is seeking justice. At all hours of the day and night she is at his door demanding her due. After enough sleepless days, he realizes he’d better attend to her complaint if he is to have any peace. Yeah, I know this man. I commiserate with him.
In such manner we are enjoined by Jesus to be persistent in prayer. “Do not lose hope.”
When I was a young, unformed lad, my heart was set on a pocket knife. Did I mention this to God? You bet I did. Days and weeks went by and nothing happened. When I brought up this need to my parents, I was told that this wasn’t happening. “We’re not sending you armed to school.”
What the persistent women yearned for was not some minor trinket with which to impress her friends. It was JUSTICE. When we pray and work for justice, God will meet us on the picket line and in the polling both. God will work with us to keep hope alive.
Prayer is not some magic manipulation of God or reality. It is not a panacea for our neglect, indifference or stupidity. At best, it is a pouring out of the heart of what is upon our heart at the moment. It’s about what is roiling our soul. It’s about what keeps one awake at night. It’s a wrestling match with God. It is a summons to the Spirit within each of us. A summons to that Spirit within the collective community. As my friend Rabbi Beerman was wont to say, “My prayers are my marching feet.” All our feet.
Call it prayer. Call it meditation. Call it reflection. It is all about the essential inward journey we take to remain human. It’s about the journey we take to stay connected to others – our common life together — and to creation. It’s about the source of all life and what makes the day worth getting out of bed. It’s about putting on our pants one leg at a time and engaging in the existential struggle with God, with Truth.
The small vignette from Genesis of Jacob fleeing for his life, encountering an unknown stranger in the dread of night is a window to our faith vocation. It is to struggle for preservation, to struggle for a way forward. To struggle with the God of all hopefulness.
For Jacob it is a struggle which consumes the evening of despair. In the end is blessing.
“When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket…he said [to Jacob] ‘Let me go for the day is breaking,’ but Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ “What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed’…So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’”
This, like unto another story of holy perseverance in our faith tradition. A poor, destitute woman, really – a nobody in the eyes of the male deciders – demands her due, struggles with an obtuse, entitled man of power. In her struggle, she wears him down. That is the holy struggle of Jacob. She prevails and obtains blessing.
To God? Into the wider world? Once prayer has been launched and set loose, who’s to know the end of it? Definitely beyond my pay grade. But I do know my own heart, if I listen closely. If I attend to my needs and the needs of others, the needs and pain of the world – I find a divine reply. Sometimes as clear and distinct as my wife’s summons. If I allow that prayer, that inspiration, that idea to germinate and take root in my heart, it stirs up my gumption. It grabs hold of my date book and my wallet – my hands, heart and mind. That I know is the power of prayer. The courage to change the things I can change and the wisdom of when to stand back.
Without that interior life of prayer and reflection, these days it’s nigh on impossible to keep hope alive. It takes a village to keep hope alive, or at least a community of care. All of us is most often smarter and wiser than any one of us. Jacob did not cross the ford at Jabbok by himself. He took everybody with him. All.
The Children of Light are today up against racial hate and misogyny in many forms, whether on the Los Angeles City Council or those here at Claremont attempting to keep Claremont free of “those people.”
Right now, toxic masculinity is killing the planet. Thomas Friedman correctly notes that Putin’s war is not only a war against Ukraine and the West, it is a war against the planet.
We only have a decade left to mitigate the worst effects of global warming, and Putin’s war is diverting international attention and resources from this priority. This is what Friedman writes:
“There was no good time for Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked, idiotic invasion of Ukraine. But this is a uniquely bad time. Because it’s diverting worldwide attention and resources needed to mitigate climate change — during what may be the last decade when we still have a chance to manage the climate extremes that are now unavoidable and avoid those that could become unmanageable.”[1]
Does Putin care? Not a bit.
But one does not need to go halfway around the world to discover such men. Right here at home we have Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville on Black people: “They’re pro-crime,” Tuberville said. “They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.”[2]
This is not just a dog whistle. It’s a bullhorn. And nary a Republican colleague has called him out on this racism. “I might have chosen other words,” one halting milquetoast mumbles.
This is what’s destroying America, dragging us down into a cesspool of shame. No, you don’t have to travel far to encounter such. We have plenty of our own homegrown piggy guys.
We idolize them. Is there any other reason such antisemitic idiotic narcissists as Kayne West get such good press and such huge followings? – with his rant about going “Death Con 3 On Jewish People?” This is America??? Sounds more like a Nazi thug out of the 30s. Or, maybe it is America — Charlottesville, USA, August 2017? Appalling and disgusting.[3]
That poor, indigent woman going up against a judge who couldn’t be bothered would have instantly recognized these guys. All cut from the same cloth of self-centered entitlement.
Folks, that’s why we have unions — so women are not subjected to such atrocious behavior in the workplace. So, there is redress, justice.
It should be noted that among the staunches opponents to Putin’s ware are several prime ministers of the Nordic countries – all women. They know what it is to have had to take a bunch of crap from ignorant, sexist men. And they aren’t going to take it from Putin.
The prime minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas’s speaking for her nation: “When it comes to Putin then, of course he is a war criminal and must be prosecuted for the crimes of aggression he has committed.”[4]
“And you shouldn’t be negotiating with terrorists because it pays off for them. We will pay a higher price in the long term,” she added.”
When asked about an “offramp” for Putin in Ukraine, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said there’s only one off-ramp for Putin.[5]
“The way out of the conflict is for Russia to leave Ukraine,” Marin told a reporter on Friday. “That’s the way out of the conflict.” She bluntly added, “He can leave.” Whereupon she turned heel and walked off.
She would have understood what that woman supplicant before this judge would have had to contend with. That is the struggle that engages God. And will throughout this dark night of war. Is there blessing to be had? We’ll see. Ukrainians are learning what all peoples have learned when emerging from subjugation: Freedom’s not free. These brave people continue to keep hope alive through the missiles and the atrocities inflicted upon them. In the subways singing hymns and other songs, they do indeed keep hope alive. And also, for the rest of us who join them through the miracle of electronic media.
I close with two women, courageous women who have fortified my hope this week. One is Cori Bush. She came to my attention when I saw her on TV camped out on the steps of Congress all night, urging her fellow representatives to address homelessness, addiction and marginalization. She herself had been homeless at various times in her life. Probably one of the very few congressional members to know such extreme circumstances. Her new book, Forerunner, is her life story. I know now the source of her strength – she is very clear about from where her help comes. It from the Lord who has taken up residence in her heart.[6]
Get that book. It’s not an easy read given the trauma Cori has endured over her life. But as a nurse, a pastor, an activist, and now a congresswoman from Missouri, she has endured. She inspires all of us to keep hope alive.
The second woman getting the Last Word is Loretta Lynn, award-winning Country Music gem from Appalachia.
Loretta’s songs were stories of heartbreak, betrayal, addiction and poverty.
Long ago as a little guy I’d turn on the old tube radio and listen to these songs. One night my father came in and when he heard what I was listening to, yelled: “Turn that off. You don’t want to be a G-D hillbilly, do you!” This was the West Virginia culture he had rejected.
Much later in life, I developed an appreciation for the stories these songs told – the pathos, the deep longing, the blessing of a culture that tied people together at the deepest levels.
Loretta Lynn endured it all, growing up in a backwoods holler in Tennessee. Married at the age of fifteen to a sometimes-faithful husband who struggled with alcoholism. Mother of three of her six children before she was twenty. Yet she prevailed. Her people have prevailed.
Her signature song, “Coal Miner’s Daughter” was an earnest prayer which brought hope to millions all across the nation’s airwaves. Loretta gets The Last Word.
“Well, I was born a coal miner’s daughter
In a cabin, on a hill in Butcher Holler
We were poor but we had love,
That’s the one thing that daddy made sure of
He’d shovel coal to make a poor man’s dollar
“My daddy worked all night in the Van Lear coal mines
All day long in the field a hoin’ corn
Mommy rocked the babies at night
And read the Bible by the coal oil light
And ever’ thing would start all over come break of morn[7]
All we can say for her and for all these persistent, in-your-face women is, “Thanks be to God and Blessed be!” You have “struggled with God and with humans.” By the grace of God, You will prevail. Amen and amen!
[1] Thomas Friedman, “Putin’s War is a Crime Against the Planet,” New York Times, September 27, 2022.
[2] Eugene Scott, “Democrats Call Sen. Tuberville’s Comments About Crime and Reparations Racist,” Washington Post, October 11, 2022.
[3] Cole Delbyck, “Kanye West Tweet About Going ‘Death Con 3 On Jewish People’ Removed By Twitter,” HuffPost, October 9, 2022.
4 Astha Saxena, “Europe’s new ‘Iron Lady’ Kaja Kallas calls on West to not negotiate with ‘terrorist’ Putin,” Express, October 9, 2022.
5 Nick Mordowanec, “Video of Finnish PM Explaining Putin’s ‘Way Out’ of Ukraine Viewed 4M Times,” Newsweek, October 7, 2022.
[6] Cori Bush, The Forerunner (New York: Knopf, 2022).
[7] Loretta Lynn, “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” written and sung by her and various artists, released in 1970. The song became a number one hit on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart later that year.
October 16, 2022, 19 Pentecost, Proper 24
“Do Not Lose Hope”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney, St. Francis Episcopal Mission
Genesis 32:22-31; Psalm 121; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-6
A Champion of Nobodies
Sunday, when I opened the LA Times, right on the lefthand column was my sermon title for today. It was an article on the Afro-Columbians, living in a remote jungle of that nation. These people live by subsisting on marginal gold panning. They are people living in La Toma, a string of small villages in a most remote area of Columbia, populated by former slaves of African descent.
The article featured an activist, Francia Elena Marquez whose aim is to change “the economic model of death to an economic model of life.” She is the champion of “the nobodies.”[1]
Francia is a single mother, a former live-in maid who escaped the poverty of that situation to become a community activist. She was awarded a Nobel Prize for her battle against illegal gold mining.
Today she is improbably Columbia’s vice president, elected along with Gustavo Petro, an ex-urban guerilla fighter, the first leftist president of Columbia and its 50 million people.
It was her popularity with the young and with women who put that ticket over the top. She’s the first person of African heritage to attain such prominence. Never even held any office before this. Walls throughout the land were emblazoned with her slogan, “Vivir sabroso” – live life to the fullest.
She and the new president take office in a period when Columbia is recovering from narco-violence, massive inequality and lawlessness. In a land dominated by the white-mestizo male elite, she has battled sexism, classism, inequality and gender prejudice.
She has weathered death threats, political slander and racist taunts. Yet she persisted. She is now an international rock star. No, she’s not a Communist revolutionary. But a revolutionary, yes!
Only because of an aunt, did she find the funds for a school uniform, books and tuition to go beyond an elementary education. Her mother had eleven children and absolutely no money. Unlike many American children, she knew the sacrifice of another for her education.
Her primary teacher recalls that Francia Elena was a very serious student, and very much an extravert. “But I never thought that the Francia Elena who was my student would so quickly become vice president of the Republic of Columbia.”
As a teenager she joined neighbors protesting a plan to divert the Ovejas River to produce even more electricity by a dam that had flooded much of her community’s ancestral lands, a project that devastated traditional fishing grounds the people depended on.
Columbian authorities further awarded mining contracts to multinational corporations without any input from those living in the villages of the area, contrary to Columbian law. She and her movement initiated lawsuits. Lo and behold! They won. A major victory for the “nobodies.”
The situation got much worse when those same companies employed right-wing paramilitary goons and began killing locals panning for gold on what they considered their lands. Soon bulldozers and backhoes moved in and began tearing up their beautiful river.
The river was now filling with mercury and cyanide and other toxic chemicals. The operation led to massive deforestation. Anyone interfering with this desecration was threatened with death.
It was at that point that Francia Elena recruited eighty black women, attired in their signature head turbans, the March of the Turbans, from over 300 miles away to march against the illegal activities of these companies.
These women camped on the doorstep of the Interior Ministry until, three weeks later, authorities agreed to evict the illegal miners. Again, score one for Francia Elena’s “nobodies.”
By then she was a single mother of two and receiving death threats. For her safety she left for the big city, joining millions of the dispossessed from the land by violence and narco-terrorism, illegal mining and the gangs they employed. She studied law.
Francia Elena has raised expectations of the “nobodies” all across Colombia, especially little girls. One young girl in nursing school panning for gold one morning with her husband and three-year-old said, “We have learned a lot from Francia and from our ancestors.”
If ever there was a contemporary to St. Francis, it is Francia Elena. St. Francis is the saint of the “nobodies.”
Listen to her testimony: “I am a part of the struggle against structural racism.”
“Among those women who raise their voices to stop the destruction of rivers, forests and wetlands. Among those who dream that, one day, all human beings are going to change the economic model of death to an economic model of life.”[2]
She’s accused of inexperience, lack of knowledge. Baloney! She knows something the previous government NEVER knew – the people! Their toil, their poverty, their lack of opportunity. The same people St. Francis knew.
All of life is tied together in one marvelous, divine, holy web of life. Besides our Lord, how do we have knowledge of God? From creation, the creation that Francia Elena continues to fight for.
The one psalm I learned as a child – remember, I had a terrible memory for this sort of thing – was Psalm 121, the opening. Of course, back then in the King James Version, “I will lift up my eyes to the hills — From whence comes my help?”
Psalm 19 was another one I did remember from Sunday school Bible drills. “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”
The splendors of nature are a door to the heart of God. St. Francis knew this. Brother Sun. Sister Moon – they testify to the goodness of the created order. Early on I was fascinated by the vast panoply of the heavens. In our community college I volunteered as the astronomy coach for Professor Bruff, hauling out our school’s telescope every Wednesday evening if there was half a chance of seeing through the dense muck of the Norwalk, California sky. It was always a bit of a thrill to focus in on Saturn and its rings or Jupiter with its Great Red Spot, which is larger than our planet Earth.
When we lived out in the desert, serving at my first church assignment, most any evening one could look up into the sky and see it lit up with stars beyond imagining. The desert sky was black as velvet filled with twinkling wonders once you got away from the light pollution of our small town.
I still remember friends — a mother and her three children — driving out to visit us from Los Angeles. As soon as her van came to a stop, the side door slid open and out popped one of the boys. He looked up into the night sky and gasped, “Wow, you don’t have much air out here,” as he beheld the majesty of the Milky Way overhead.
St. Francis was not only a champion of the “nobodies,” but of the entire created order. It’s all connected. Only later would I learn to more fully appreciate this wonderful saint.
I find I am doubly blessed to serve a parish named in his honor.
You want a picture of God? Look at those who have a care for the least of these, activists like Francia Elena Marquez. Look at those who have a care for creation like writer and activist Bill McKibben. Like my friend Brian Ebersol, whom I would often see along the bike trail with his sack in hand, picking up the trash others had carelessly tossed. Most any morning I would see him walking out there. Champions of the “nobodies.” Champions of creation.
As we bless the animals today, I recall to mind our beloved Skippy, the dog I grew up with. Dad had gotten him to keep Mom company when he went off to fight in World War II. She said that she could tie him to my baby carriage parked outside the store when she went in to buy some groceries, and that dog wouldn’t let anyone approach. That was definitely another era. Skippy was my champion.
For our animal friends and family, we give thanks, O Lord. For the beauty of this blue-green earth, we give thanks and for the star-spangled heavens. To the psalmist and most of all today, St. Francis, that wastrel who renounced all to bring the Church back to life – THANKS BE TO GOD!
Listen to a song inspired by the work of Francia Elena Marquez, sung by two girls in Columbia, Jinller Leany, 12, and Andrea Torres, 15:
I was born Black and my companion is the sun/To the rhythm of the marimba and first the drum/My name is African mixed with Spanish/I am proud of my race and I give thanks to God/Proud of my race and I give thanks to God/Black I was born, and Black I am.[3]
A blessed St. Francis day to us all. Amen.
[1] Patrick J McDonnell, “She’s a Champion of the ‘Nobodies,’” Los Angeles Times, September 25, 2022.
[2] Op cit.
[3] Ibid.
October 2, 2022, 17 Pentecost, Proper for St. Francis Feast Day,
Blessing of the Animals
“A Champion of Nobodies”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney, St. Francis Episcopal Mission
Exodus 22:21-27; Psalm 121; Galatians 6:14-18; Matthew 11:25-30
Just Get Over Yourself
Recently, I’ve received a number of emails for burial insurance. Like the plague victim in “Spamalot” about to be carted off to the cemetery, I loudly protest, “I’m not dead yet. I’m not dead.”
The next day a postcard arrived from Forest Lawn. I thought about scrawling across the front of it, “I’m not dead yet,” and sticking it in return mail. Return to sender.
But, as Luke’s passage on the rich man in purple cloth who dines sumptuously while a poor man, Lazarus, at his gate, surviving on scant crumbs from the rich man’s table, clues us in – we get that we all have an expiration date. No one lives forever. Though my dad thought that was a real possibility. In his case, anyway.
Eventually, there comes a summing up. As Dionne Warwick crooned, “What’s It All About, Alfie?”[1]
What’s it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give?
Or are we meant to be kind?[2]
For those at ease in Zion, life slips away, comes to much of nothing if it’s only mindless entertainment and consumption. Amos promises exile. Maybe not in a foreign land, but exile from our interior selves. Exile from any sense of national purpose. A deadly, soul-killing existence – a different sort of exile.
The pandemic gave us all space to figure this out. But at ease? No, few of us are at ease. For too many, especially our youth, this pandemic has been a soul-killing disaster.
In our forced isolation we have become a nation in despair.
Teen suicide has reached epidemic proportions. Medical authorities now call the needless loss of life “deaths of despair.” We’re talking suicide, drug and alcohol poisoning, and alcoholic liver disease. They’re rampant.
These deaths are at the highest level in the history of our nation according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – the CDC.
This is mainly a scourge of those on the bottom of the economic totem pole – those whose wages and life circumstances have not kept up with ever rising costs. They are not lazy or shiftless: many are doing two or three jobs and trying to raise a family.
Anne Case, in an interview with Newsweek Magazine, lists some of the factors leading to these “deaths of despair.” “The pillars that once helped give life meaning—a good job, a stable home life, a voice in the community—have all eroded.”[3]
Just drive down through the main streets of many business districts. All you see is boarded up storefronts and littered sidewalks. Livelihoods are emptied out. The few rehabilitation efforts promised are mired in bureaucratic incompetency and endless lawsuits.
In many households family-time has disappeared. Just the amount of homework many teens are burdened with is unbelievable.
I read an article in The Atlantic of a father who writes for that publication. He had become concerned about his sleep-deprived thirteen-year-old daughter who was being transformed into a zombie. He decided upon an experiment.[4]
He would try her homework schedule for a week. He figured her time in class was about the same hours he put in at work. As she started on her homework upon arriving at their house, so would he also do the same homework.
Monday, he opened her algebra book and for some time stared at the problems until he finally remembered what a polynomial was. He finished the problems in around 45 minutes, then turned to her reading assignment in Angela’s Ashes. He figured that there was around an hour and a half, maybe two hours of reading here. But then he had to find several quotable passages and write an essay on one of them. Another hour or so. And he hadn’t even gotten to her earth science assignment.
Opening that book, he came upon the most brain-numbing writing imaginable. At one point a “chart 3” was referenced. He flipped through page after page until he found that. Finishing the reading, he fell asleep around one or two AM. And this was only Monday.
How is it kids in Finland hardly bring any homework home yet score highest on international tests of math, science and language? What do these people know that our educational system hasn’t figured out?
His daughter was a fairly bright young thing. Think about the average student completely overwhelmed by it all. Dropout time for them!
Indeed, what’s it all about, Alfie? No wonder we’re raising a stressed-out generation that is escaping through pills and suicide or violent video games.
Recently, we lost a modern prophet if ever there was a one – Barbara Ehrenreich. As a social scientist she wondered how it was, given the continued relative decline in wages that the working poor survived.
So, she left the hallowed halls of ivy, abandoned academic security, and for a year she took those menial, low-wage jobs that 60 to 70 percent of our citizens toil in, nine to five – and ofttimes many more hours a day. This is NOT the Dolly Parton glossy movie fantasy.
Ehrenreich cleaned houses, worked as a Walmart sales clerk, waitressing, hotel maid, nursing home aide, scrubbing floors on her hands and knees.[5]
At first, she thought she’d stick out as “other.” Nothing in common with her workmates, but soon bonded with several as they opened their lives to her. One of the most pressing problems for those whom she encountered was housing.
Ehrenreich quickly discovered that if one wanted to live inside, two jobs were essential. A good number of her workmates were reduced to living in their cars. Some lived in crowded quarters with three or four other women. Several lived with boyfriends and one had moved back with his mother.
There was hardly any “free,” personal time. Barely any for lunch. She was always hungry towards the end of a shift. No wonder it’s called “grinding poverty.”
One night the boss caught her grabbing a bowl of clam chowder. She’d often seen the other women do this. “No eating,” Stu snaps. Though there’s not a customer around to see food making contact with a server’s lips. “No eating!”
Barbara tells her coworker that she’s going to quit, at which point Gail replies that she thinks she’ll follow her to Jerry’s, Ehrenreich’s second job.
Yes, as Dolly Parton belts it out: “Workin’ 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin’/Barely gettin’ by, it’s all takin’ and no givin.’” Drop into bed dead tired and do it all over again in the morning. What a way to make a livin.’
These are the folks languishing at our gate, the gate of the richest nation on earth – ever. These are the poor who live in squalor so we might have clean, tidy homes. These are the people who ruin their health on fast food on the run while we enjoy fine dining, or grab a bite at McDonalds. These are the women who neglect their families so our children are well cared for. These are Lazarus’s companions left to rot at the splendid gate of America.
We’re only passing through momentarily. How do we want to be remembered? What’s it all about?
How to be remembered? We could take a cue from Merrick Garland.
The arc of Garland’s life of service is instructive. Give your life, or at least some part of your spare time, to a greater cause. It’s not all about us. As the kids say, “Get over yourself.” That’s when we begin actually living, not just existing. That’s when life smiles back.
But I digress. Back to Merrick Garland. There’s the sign we see as we enter the forest, heading to Lake Arrowhead. “Only you can prevent forest fires.” Yes, it’s Smokey Bear.
Garland in his recent speech welcoming newly naturalized citizens at Ellis Island, would urge us, I imagine, “Only you can prevent Democracy fires.” There is nothing permanent about our democracy, no long-haul guarantee.
It’s all based on “rule of law.” Without that, the whole enterprise goes up in flames – one big national Dumpster fire.
Listen to Garland’s wise counsel. This is what he told those new Americans:
“The Rule of Law means that the law treats each of us alike: there is not one rule for friends, another for foes; one rule for the powerful, another for the powerless; a rule for the rich, another for the poor; or different rules depending on one’s race or ethnicity or country of origin.”[6]
“The Rule of Law is not assured. It is fragile. It demands constant effort and vigilance.”
Here’s something worth devoting one’s life to. Or maybe just a few moments in a supermarket checkout line. Or a letter to the editor.
America, get over yourselves. Let’s try a little self-transcendence. Re-read the book of Amos. More wise counsel. In his advanced years, Merrick Garland is definitely NOT taking his ease in Zion.
Madison, warned us that no Constitution could save us from ourselves if we surrendered to ignorance, imbecility, and faction. In his address to his home state of Virginia, as he advocated for ratification of the proposed Constitution, this is what he told those delegates:[7]
“But I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men [and women] of virtue and wisdom.”
“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks–no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”
Virtue? There are presently more people in the cult of QAnon than there are Episcopalians or Presbyterians in America!
Virtue? Look at the craziness of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene! Consider the duplicity of Governor DeSantis and his theater of the absurd at Martha’s Vineyard, using duped immigrants as political pawns. Is this what those poor folks fled the corruption and gangs of Venezuela for? Governor, these are people for God’s sake!
Our Democracy needs an awful lot more perfecting to safeguard the poor huddled at the gates of an extravagantly wealthy America. Masses of our own citizens yearning to be free of an economic system that grinds them to dust.
A lot of perfecting to do, indeed we need. Definitely time to re-read the book of Amos. “Read, mark and inwardly digest.”
As Judge Garland urged us, it’s up to each one as we are given wisdom and opportunity to create a land where all can enjoy its riches and splendor.
It’s up to each of us to spread the opportunity and joy around.
The other day Jai read to me from the sports section that Maury Wills had died. With his talent, he surely spread the delight we have in America’s national pastime, baseball.
Wills held the all-time record for base stealing. As a child I remember watching him in total fascination as he inched away from first base. Six, then ten, then twelve feet – shifting back and forth from foot to foot, just taunting the pitcher to turn and throw to first.
The minute that pitcher twitched, Wills would be off like a bolt of lightning headed for second. The crowd held its collective breath for a second, then went wild. Moments before the ball arrived for the tag, Wills had slid in on his belly. SAFE!
With the same delight I watched a video clip of Jim and Verity’s daughter Haden hitting a triple at a recent tournament.
At first the video didn’t show what happened to her after she hit the ball. Then I saw her far off streaking to second, rounding it then heading toward third. Yeah, the crowd went wild.
Hayden gives this sport her all. She puts in the work. Watching her is a delight!
Might we also give our all to something greater, something outside ourselves. Something that will free up those huddled at our gates? Something that will bring joy? Yes, we need Bread AND Roses, too.
Herein is the beginning of eternity. A life of blessedness!
What’s it all about, Alfie? Are we meant to take more than we give?
I think not. As Alfie’s song questions each, “Do you believe in Love?” Back to Dionne Warwick:
As sure as I believe there’s a heaven above, Alfie[8]
I know there’s something much more
Something even non-believers can believe in
I believe in love, Alfie
Without true love we just exist, Alfie
Until you find the love you’ve missed, you’re nothing, Alfie
When you walk, let your heart lead the way
And you’ll find love any day, Alfie
Alfie.
So, let’s get to work. We’re not dead yet. Amen.
[1] Burt Bacharach /Hal David, Alfie lyrics.
[2] Bert Bacharach, Hal David, “Alfie,” 1966.
[3] Blake Dodge, “What are the So-Called Deaths of Despair? Experts say They’re on the Rise,” Newsweek, Jan. 14, 2020. See also, Anne Case, Angus Deaton, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020).
[4] Tom Taro Greenfield, “My Daughter’s Homework is Killing Me,” The Atlantic, October 2013.
[5] Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001), 32.
[6] Merrick Garland, https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-merrick-b-garland-administers-oath-allegiance-and-delivers, delivered on September 17, 2022.
[7] Madison: Writings, ed. Jack N. Rakove (New York: Library of America, 1999), 398.
[8] Op cit.
September 25, 2022, 16 Pentecost, Proper 21
“Just Get Over Yourself”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney, St. Francis Episcopal Mission
Amos 6:1a, 4-7; Psalm 146; 1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31
Taking Care of Business
It was a late Friday afternoon; this was to be Joe’s last day at First Federal Bank in the town of Outback. Joe was beside himself. He’d just been given notice “his services were no longer needed.” Fired – in short.
Okay, he wasn’t the sharpest teller on the line. His drawer rarely balanced out at the end of the day. He held the record for just rushing through the doors at the last moment each morning, right before the first customers had arrived. He’d been admonished for his tardiness several times a week. His attire barely passed the dress code, rumpled shirt, stained tie and all. Not the image of sartorial splendor. The Steve Bannon attire with a haircut by whoever did Boris Johnson’s. You get the picture.
He’d been warned time and again. Finally, the branch manager had just had it.
This distraught teller panics, pulls out a gun and demands that each of the other tellers fill an empty sack with as many bills as they have in their trays.
As the dishonest teller flees the bank, waving his gun about, he meets several of his cronies out on the sidewalk. In haste he begins distributing the contents of his sack to them. All in the hopes that if he is caught, some of these friends might feel ingratiated to him and put him up when he’s out of prison.
As he’s just finishing passing out the ill-gotten loot, the bank manager erupts from the door. Seeing what is taking place, the manager now praises this teller for his ingenuity and shrewdness. For “the art of the deal,” if you will. For taking care of business.
Do we buy this story? Can’t make this stuff up?
Well, listen to the story Jesus tells. In what way is it any different? A crooked manager has been caught out by the owner of the estate. He scurries about, asking each debtor to jigger his note, reducing what was originally owed the master. On discovering this deceit, the owner smiles and praises this dishonest manager who has now cheated him twice: “And the master commended the dishonest manager because he acted shrewdly…”
Most scholars believe that this is the point at which Jesus’ parable originally ended. The add-on maxims and such on wealth and the “children of this age” are Luke’s attempts to make this story palatable to moral sensibilities. He didn’t quite know what to make of it any more than us moderns.
Indeed, this is a most difficult saying. Are we to believe that Jesus actually encourages, praises such dishonesty?
We’d be crying, “throw the book to be thrown at him”. Where is Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice when we need them? Should this grift go unpunished? Is there no indictment? “Lock him up. Lock him up. Lock him up,” would be the chant.
The beauty of Jesus’ parables is that they admit a number of interpretations. They are polyvalent — capable of a multitude of images, interpretations and meanings – and have always been, down through the ages.
One of the reasons for the shrewdness of the “Children of Darkness” is that they are totally unapologetic in their cynicism, in their grift. It’s all about them, nobody else counts. Might makes right.
Maybe Jesus praises their authenticity as scoundrels. They are grifters and make no bones about it. They know how to take care of business. They are the practitioners of “Realpolitik.”
It’s Stalin’s boast when Winston Churchill brought up the possibility of the Pope’s involvement in the Teheran Conference, “How many divisions does the Pope have.” That realism will always trump naïve religious idealism in the councils of this world.
As Martin Luther King and the leaders of the 50s and 60s Civil Rights movement learned, if one is to depend on “soul force,” you’d best get it mobilized and know the right moment to deploy it. Rosa Parks did not decide to refuse to vacate her bus seat for a white just on a spur of the moment whim. Her protest was well planned in advance. Malice of forethought. And the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott was launched off that effort.
Reinhold Niebuhr drew on this story when he penned his book, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. Why is it that the Children of Light so often end up with the short end of the stick? They are too often oblivious to their own mixed motives, thus too hesitant. “We’re too nice,” as my friend Vern would often say.
So, what to make of this disturbing parable? Here’s my take. In the cause of human solidarity, act boldly. Or as Luther said, “Sin boldly – but believe in the grace of God all the more.” And keep your wits about you.
Here’s a story on how this all worked out for our prison chaplain Chris Hoke — a lay visitor to the incarcerated and agricultural workers in the Pacific Northwest. A very improbable journey of daring, suspense, danger and, well… you judge for yourself.
Part of his ministry has been in the migrant labor camps, providing whatever support he could with his limited Spanish and resources. Chris had been working for sometime with Tierra Nueva, his job being to visit and accompany migrant families to appointments and such.
In part, this is the mission statement of Tierra Nueva, Chris’s employer:
“People marginalized due to race, social class, language, lifestyle, or legal status often reach the conclusion that God is against them and that they are not welcome in the Church. And mainstream church members find few opportunities to encounter people at the margins. Bridging that chasm not only elevates those on the outside, but it can also transform those inside the Church”.[1]
Chris introduces us to two laborers from one field cabin, Arnulfo and his friend Magdeleno. Both men had met a couple of years ago in the asparagus fields near Stockton and decided to stick together.
Arnulfo left his family in Michoacan, Magdaleno had left Puebla as a single man. He spoke Zapoteco and a smidgen of Spanish. “They belonged to no one. All season they had only each other.”[2]
It’s the end of the season with cold rain settling in, it was time to be on the move. Arnulfo and Magdaleno had no car. They wanted to fly – not down to the San Joaquin Valley in California, but to New Jersey where some friends had carpentry work for them. They had to fly, as traveling by bus was considered too risky due to all the ICE agents who stalked the Greyhound stations.
AND… the two of them would look less suspicious if traveling with a tall, white U.S. citizen. At this point Arnulfo pulled back the corner of his mattress to extract a wad of cash, which he folded and put it into Chris’s hand.
Well, part of his duties at Tierra Nuevo was to accompany workers to appointments and such… but to New Jersey?
They would use the money to also buy Chris a round trip ticket as well so they could more easily move through the airport with some degree of confidence. It took Chris some fifteen minutes to understand the plan due to Arnulfo’s rapid-fire Spanish. He had to repeat himself several times. Finally, Chris got it. He was to turn this wad of cash into three tickets to New York.
“If I’d know how to say “Hell yes!” in Spanish, I would have.” This would definitely be a stretch to the duty of “accompany.”
A week before the flight Chris sat in that small cabin on one of the mattresses and pulled out the boarding passes from his coat pocket. And a receipt with the exact change left over. He wanted to make it clear he was a pastor, not a coyote, a paid smuggler.
It began to dawn on Chris that he could get in real trouble here. It was one thing visiting jails and labor camps, quite another “aiding and abetting the movement of undocumented immigrants across the U.S. interior.” And it wasn’t just him. He’d persuaded his fiancée Rachel to come along. Being half Panamanian, she would make the group of them look less suspicious. Besides, she’d always wanted to see New York.
On further reflection, he wondered what on earth was he thinking, putting her at risk as well.
Inside the airport, security lines moved slowly as our small group of travelers approached the podium. The TSA agent leaned forward, passing a blue light over Chris’s and Rachel’s boarding documents. On the other side of the scanner, they waited for their two companions.
The agent scrutinized the identification papers of Arnulfo and Magdaleno, paused a moment and motioned over two other TSA agents. After a few comments to Arnulfo, he said to the two men, “These IDs have no expiration date,” which he then repeated to Chris.
Chris had called the airport ahead of time and was told that these Mexican national identity cards would be no problem. “Every ID,” the agent snapped, “must have an expiration date.” Mexican identity, apparently, does not expire.
“I’m going to have to ask you four to step into this line over here,” motioned the agent. We were trapped. Caught.
“Yes, I thought to myself. Yes, I’m a failure. A bad coyote. A bad pastor. Mission failed.”[3]
Chris’s thoughts racing through his mind, contemplated the future. Arnulfo and Magdaleno would not be going to friends tonight. They would spend the day answering questions and filling out papers. And headed for a deportation hearing. No friendly skies. No complementary Cokes or pretzels.
After being directed to pass through the scanners, the four were escorted to an enclosed area and told to wait. And they waited and waited, but no one came.
As they stared at each other, Chris said, “Vamos” — let’s go. They sidled out into the main concourse. They heard no shouts behind them. And their gate was soon right in front of them.
Flashing red letters proclaimed, “FLIGHT DELAYED. Estimated time one hour.”
What to do? Chris could think only of disaster. As they waited, huddled together on a small padded bench, Rachel had a better idea. She broke out a sandwich and divided it into four pieces. Arnulfo suggested a reading from the scriptures. Chris flipped through the pages of the Santa Biblia while expecting at any moment someone in a uniform to appear around the corner.
He found in Acts the story of Peter’s imprisonment. Chris asked Magdeleno to read. He read of Peter’s captivity in chains and guards watching him in the night … of how angels wake Peter and he slips through four layers of security as the guards slept close by. “Get up quick! “Put on your coat and follow me,” the angel urges.
By the end of the story, the announcement came over the speakers, it was time to board. As they stood in line for their boarding documents to be scanned, Chris noticed one important thing missing from Arnulfo’s and Magdaleno’s passes: the initials of the agent who would have checked them through.
He quickly took both passes and a pen and scratched on them their authority for departure – JC.
“Enjoy your flight,” the attendant chirped as she scanned the four through.
Now, for the last six years, when December winter cold comes to the Northwest, Chris and his now wife Rachel, can expect a call from Arnulfo, who is now back with his family in the home he saved for and built in Michoacan, Mexico. He also sends Magdeleno’s greetings.
He congratulates Chris and Rachel on their recent marriage. As soft snow settles over the landscape, Christmas is coming.
That’s how, through a bit of grace, hutzpah, and savvy – that’s sometimes how we children of The Way make a “way out of no way.” And through the guidance of the Spirit, it shall be sufficient. Heart pounding, but sufficient. Taking care of business. Amen.
[1] https://www.tierra-nueva.org/peoples-seminary
[2] Chris Hoke, Wanted (New York: Harper One, 2015), 56-73.
[3] Ibid, 65.
September 18, 2022, 15 Pentecost, Proper 20
“Taking Care of Business”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney, St. Francis Episcopal Mission
Amos 8:4-7; Psalm 113; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13
