Destiny or Fate — Your Highway?
When I was sixteen, like many kids my age, I was more than excited to be going in to the DMV, prepped for the written exam and ready to get my learner’s permit. After I had waited for what seemed an eternity for a window clerk to grade my test, I then went to the vision test.
That’s where things fell apart. I could read the big capital “E” at the very top, but couldn’t understand why the rest of the chart was so blurry that I couldn’t discern anything else.
The examiner told me I needed glasses. The way I was now, I’d be a menace on the highway. I wouldn’t be able to see where I was going, and I’d be flat-out lucky to get there alive.
Needless to say, I left the DMV office pretty dejected. Hopes dashed. I was not going to be on the highway to any exciting teenage days, or to anywhere else — anytime soon.
So, I know a little of the dejection a couple of Jesus’ disciples may have felt as they walked a dusty road to an out-of-the-way, nowhere place.
We open Luke’s post-Easter account of a couple of down-at-the-mouth followers of Jesus on the road to a small village, Emmaus. All their hopes dashed with their teacher having been executed by the state – a most ignominious death. Most of the followers having fled, returned in mourning to their previous lives. That road to Emmaus is some seven miles – walking on foot, these men must have had quite some while to allow discouragement to set in as they plodded along. The Risen Christ of Easter morn was already a distant memory.
Today, as our pews have now emptied out three weeks after Easter, many of our people have fled along their own Emmaus Roads with little or no direction as to where they might be headed.
Lost in their misery, those original travelers hardly take notice when they are joined by a third, a stranger whom they do not recognize.
“And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ He asked them, ‘What things?’
The disciples recounted for the stranger the events of those last several days of how their teacher, the one they were sure was sent from God to redeem Israel – was put to death on a cross, and all their hopes dashed. They mourned the fate of their friend Jesus, tortured and crucified by the powers in charge. And though some women claimed to have seen him alive, these two hadn’t. Probably just some old women’s tale.
“’Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!’”
He then proceeds to recall from the prophets, beginning with Moses, all that had been said about himself. But the travelers’ eyes were still not open to his identity. That is because there is one more thing for them to learn.
When they near their destination, the stranger now has their rapt attention. As he moves to proceed on his destination, they implore him to stay with them. As they all sit down to table, he takes the bread and blesses it and breaks it.
Their eyes are now opened and they recognize him for who he truly is – as he vanishes from their sight. “’Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’”
This is Luke’s answer to the question, how should we, those of us who have not seen the historical Jesus, receive him into our hearts: by immersing ourselves in the story of our faith journey as reveled in scripture AND in table fellowship around the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup of the New Covenant. These two experiences for believers will be sufficient.
They will fortify our journey on our Road to Emmaus as we experience the presence of the Risen Christ in fellowship around his table and remember our sacred history as a people and its promise.
Are we on a road that takes us wherever fate and chance might land us? Or are we a people of destiny, called to live out a sacred vocation of all that we are called to be?
Having flunked my eye test, I felt I was on a road not going much of anywhere. It wasn’t until I heard my name called as I listened to Dr. King addressing several thousand students in Lincoln, Nebraska, that I began to have a sense of purpose.
I became aware of a new horizon beckoning – a calling worthy of my interests and abilities. A destiny greater than myself. That has made all the difference in the world – opening the windows to my soul, the windows to the world, the windows to a Power greater than myself.
Like those men who knew him not, what a surprise who discovered the sacred in their midst on that dusty road.
After services at St. Francis, last Sunday and after a nap, Jai and I went to Temple Beth Israel for a program on the Holocaust, Yom HaShoah as it’s known in in Hebrew.
I had always known from family lore that we got the name, “Gross,” when several generations ago one of my maternal grandfather’s forebearers married a Jewish peddler who had come into town in Iowa. That’s where my mom’s maiden name of Gross came from. And, when asked by one of my sons if we had “that much” Jewish blood in the family, I responded, “It would have been enough for Hitler.”
As I sat through the evening’s talk by Professor Wendy Lower of Pomona College, as several family members of Holocaust survivors lit candles of remembrance, as we recited responsive readings and listened to a couple musical offerings composed by survivors, I suddenly found myself ambushed by an overwhelming emotional realization, “These are my people.” Intellectually I had always known this. Ethically, I could affirm our unity. But that night came a much deeper realization. Yes, it would have been enough for Hitler.
It is through this immersion in my faith tradition that has come the profound awareness that we are all one – not only an intellectual understanding, but one deep down in the gut, in the heart. “Never again,” must also be my pledge. As Dr. King would proclaim, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Our mutuality I affirm each time we gather around the Lord’s table and ground ourselves in the promise of our ancient writings. They fortify. They give perspective. And they are indeed “Bread for the Journey.”
Had I never received the testimony of Dr. King, I have no idea where fate and chance might have landed me. Rudderless and adrift. Endlessly seeking an illusory rainbow’s end.
To paraphrase Robert Frost, I took that road with Christ and his company to Emmaus and “it has made all the difference.” It has given me the strength and wisdom to say, “Never again. I will remember.”
We have a sign on our front lawn: “Black Lives Matter.” After the nation watched in horror as the life was indifferently snuffed out of George Floyd, we have come to a new awareness of the terror that has always stalked America. A violence “as American as Apple Pie.” Now, no longer inflicted by men in funny sheets and pointy hats, but a terror perpetrated by the very same ones charged with ensuring public safety. The litany is long: Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Briana Taylor, Tamir Rice…the list exhausts the memory. On and on it goes.
That yard sign is a political statement, an ethical statement. Those whose lives are discounted and cut short by state violence do matter…MUST matter.
That sign in front of our yard is, for sure, a political and ethical statement. It is now an existential statement in a way I would not have previously understood. That is because our new daughter-in-law to be this October is African-American. She’s a beautiful soul, precious in the eyes of God – and in the eyes of our family about to welcome her.
I now understand the message of my sign with the same emotional impact as I do Dr. Lower’s talk this past evening in her remembrance of the Jewish families that perished at Babi Yar, that killing ravine outside of Kyiv in Ukraine, September 29-30, 1941.
As a child I became sensitive to the racism in our society when our Black neighbors were flooded out of their home while on vacation. Our church was a citadel of deafening silence. This atrocity took place right under our noses and no one said anything. Not a word from the pulpit…would have been unseemly to mention such in our nice, polite, respectable neighborhood – read white.
Injustice against one is an injustice against all. Faced with such racial terror, we must answer, “Never again!” We will remember.
It will possibly be our grandson, our granddaughter who is the future victim of police violence by some hotheaded cop with a chip on his shoulder. Someone for whom Black lives matter not a wit.
It has been my life’s journey down this Emmaus Road, in the company of Christ and his followers that my soul has been opened to the suffering around, and also to the hope that we can do better. Must do better.
On my journey I have encountered the Risen Christ in many guises. And am so much the better for these blessed meetings.
It is the very same journey that has sensitized me to the journeys of those on the road of recovery. Our nation is drowning under a tidal way of “deaths of despair.” It has made me aware of the millions in our cities and in rural areas who have no idea where their next meal is coming from, or if they will even have a roof over their heads.
As the evening at Temple Beth Israel closed with a rendition of the music from Schindler’s list performed by a piano/cello duet, silent tears flowed down my cheeks. It was an exquisite moment of remembering that we are all God’s children – all “tied together in the single garment of destiny.”
One of the unison readings of the evening, which resonated with King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” was a piece based on a text by Rabbi Bernard Rosenberg, “From Silence.”
“For there was a time when silence was a crime. We think particularly of one night of silence, nearly eighty-four years ago. Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, the 9th of November 1938. Then, all the synagogues in Germany rose up in flame and smoke to the skies. The churches next to them stood in darkness, and in silence. The broken shop windows of the Jewish community littered the streets. Neighbors walked upon the crunching splinters and were silent. A few prayed. Some courageously expressed their grief. But a dark cloud of silence filled the world, a silence still present in too many places today even as images of new horrors confront us daily.”
“When will that silence end? When will we speak out on behalf of suffering neighbors, populations, nations”
“Not until we affirm that we are all God’s children…” When will we speak out? Not until we affirm in word and deed that we truly are all God’s children. That is our divine destiny. That must be our Emmaus Road vow — Our Emmaus road of destiny to a land where we can all live together. Amen.
April 23, 2023, Easter 3
“Destiny or Fate — Your Highway?”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney, St. Francis Episcopal Mission
Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17;
1 Peter 1:17-23; Gospel: Luke 24:13-35
Night Watch
When I worked for NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness, I was sent to, among several places, Seattle, to look at some of the most effective programming being done to address the homeless mentally ill.
Much of this work centered around re-purposed churches and congregations that had become alert to a new calling. While some still held their traditional Sunday morning services, during midweek these places were alive with a buzz of activity.
One program held at a Lutheran Church was “Night Watch.” About six o’clock in the evening, the doors opened and a vast assortment of folks begin to stream in. Volunteers of all sorts as well as neighborhood folks from the surrounding houses and high rises.
Soon this normally empty church was ringing with laughter and conversation. Off in the corner one fellow strummed a guitar singing old songs out of the sixties. In a back room nurse volunteers checked feet for diabetic sores and took blood pressure. If any medical help was needed they passed out flyers for the nearby free clinic.
Piles of fresh fruit were available along with sack lunches for people to take. Numerous students from the nearby social work program at the university volunteered as student interns – to get to know the folks who came in the door and to just to be companions for the evening. Small groups were gathered around various board games. I sat in on a chess match.
I asked one older fellow — alright, he was about my age – what brought him out at nights for this event — my generation would have called it a “happening.” He said that he lived alone in one of the high rises, and this was his one chance to be with people. He came most every night the doors were open. Some of the younger participants who lived on the street found a meal here and met with friends.
For the elderly congregation that hosted “Night Watch,” this was RESURRECTION. Their Lutheran faith tradition had discovered vibrant, new life. You could see it in the faces of these people.
Rummaging around through Christian Century’s “Preaching the Word,” I came across a most marvelous Episcopal priest, Heidi Haverkamp. This woman is my sort of priest. I knew it when I read of her award-winning article, “How I learned to love the doctrine of total depravity.” Total depravity is always a draw for the imagination. Heidi comes from Chicago, where she received her Masters of Divinity, and has served parishes in the surrounding Illinois area.
Here’s her take on where we are as communities of faith at the beginning of this new century in America.
We all know the church is in decline across the country. And not just the mainline expressions of the faith. Evangelicals, even Mormons, have experienced a falling away of attendance. At St. Francis the Sunday School has been darkened for years, hardly anyone remembers an infant – or any – baptism.
Without such an acknowledgement of this decline any Easter message of New Life would sound a bit hollow. As our society becomes increasingly secular, communities of faith are facing the problem of finding new wineskins for new wine. Where might we be of service to a world that perceives no need for what we offer? Or at least for the packaging?
Mary’s lingering by the tomb clues us to the potential of an Easter morn. Don’t cling to the past. This is where we pick up John’s telling of the Easter events — as the night watch gloom lifts to a brilliant dawn of an early morning watch.
Heidi suggests that the key words of the Risen Christ here are, “do not cling to me.” He is yet to ascend to God. She suggests that, in these moments of demise, perhaps the church clings to old forms and ways of being, and is not open to what may be ascending to the Glory of God.
Yes, we dearly love and adore our venerable traditions. Some would say we cling. You know the joke: how many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb? There are two answers. First: “We don’t believe in change.” Second: “It takes eight. One to climb the ladder and unscrew the bulb and put in its replacement, and seven to form a society to commemorate how wonderful the old bulb was.”
Mary Magdalene, faithfully remains at the empty tomb, agonized at the loss of her Lord. The others, Peter and another disciple, have left. Martha has left. Mary alone remains in her sorrow – a sacred pause – an opening to God.
“Mary’s lingering and grieving over the loss of her teacher and friend—and surely also her uncertainty about her future—is met by the presence of Christ. However, she doesn’t recognize him at first. Christ’s presence among us might not always be obvious. Christ’s invitation to new life is almost always unfamiliar and surprising, even disconcerting. We may overlook or miss Christ among us altogether.” [1]
“But then Jesus calls her by name: “Mary!” And she knows him right away.”[2]
This Easter morn, we so long to hold on to memories of grandeur past – large vested choirs, full Sunday school classrooms, magnificent music (in some venues with full orchestra joining in the hymn “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”) splendidly attired clergy and acolytes, and all the Episcopal hoo-ha we know so well how to put on. Oh, don’t forget the incense!
But that tomb is mostly empty, only a discarded chasuble and a tattered Book of Common Prayer or two laying on the ground. Empty, like too many of our congregations. Let us linger, keep the lights on and the doors open, trusting that the world will at some point rediscover its need of Resurrection Communities.
This early morning, if we are to listen very carefully, if we are to be attentive to nuance and whisper, we just might hear our Lord call out our name. And like that foretelling of this glorious morning — Lazarus’s call back to life — we might blink our eyes in astonishment to perceive our Lord beckoning us to Resurrection in forms we barely recognize.
He calls out our names – in times of quiet and in times of chaos; in times of stress and in moments of prayer. Listen for yours in this Easter season of Resurrection.
The overall purpose of John’s gospel is to invite its readers into a Love relationship – with God in Christ, with one another, and, most importantly, with the world. It’s all about a “for-God-so-Loved-the-World” story.
He beckons to new possibility, new life, new growth.
What paths of holy service is God opening up for you and your community of faith this Eastertide? Remember that great nineteenth century preacher Philips Brooks’ dictum?
“We never become truly spiritual by sitting down and wishing to become so. You must undertake something so great that you cannot accomplish it unaided.”
And…this is not a “eat your spinach” (or whatever it is you detest) project. Here’s the Rev. Brooks’ other piece of advice on attitude: “Distrust your religion unless it is cheerful, unless it turns every act and deed to music and exults in attempts to catch the harmony of the new life.”
You’ve seen that iconic picture of John Lewis, and the ranks of civil rights marchers at the Edmund Pettis Bridge facing fire hoses and snarling police dogs on Bloody Sunday in 1965. Though John Lewis was beaten half to death, barely surviving, he held no hate. If any march ever looked like a journey into the Gates of Hell, this did. Death and destruction. The racism of that day was putrefying as any tomb of decay.
Mary Magdalene may not have been there to witness the new birth of democracy in that moment. She may not have been present to witness to the stone-cold tomb of racial hatred. She might not have been there lingering, BUT the TV cameras were. And through them America got a whiff of the sulphureous odor of Hell. Through them we saw the death of the old order.
And within days, an entire Resurrection army of the Righteous was headed down South, and headed North as well, to say to the perpetrators of violence, to those Night Riders of Skokie and Tulsa and San Bernardino – this is not the America we want for ourselves and our children. Unacceptable!
We can be, must be, better than this. Bus after bus of Resurrection followers of the Way of nonviolence headed south. Along with others — not of Jesus’ flock: Jews, Buddhists, atheists, none-of-the-above. All Spirit-inspired; all Spirit-powered. God’s own.
And in jail cell after jail cell, no mourning. Freedom songs, gospel songs break out — the infectious melodies and words of purpose and solidarity.
Many, many years later, some of the notables present at that first march, and present-day civil rights advocates commemorate that day in solemnity. This time, a police escort instead of batons and snarling dogs. Freedom songs to lift a spirit of solidarity. Joy in the morning!
Resurrection is always coming – every Sunday, we celebrate it. Joy in the morning! You can’t hold it back.
Yes, much remains to be done. When votes are denied through gerrymandering and voter suppression laws, we need to be out there in force – joyfully peaceful. It’s to be a family event. Black and white together as the song says.
When workers are denied the right to workplace representation, when wage slaves are ground to dust, we rise to sing another chorus of “Solidarity Forever.” Another round of “Which Side Are You On?” Resurrection in the union hall.
When recovering addicts join hands around a circle, we join in prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Resurrection at the 12-step meeting.
When our election workers are threatened with death and the civic forums are trashed by MAGA mobs, give me another chorus of “My Country Tis of Thee.” And for those of us out of the sixties — “This Land is Your Land.” – “From the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters,” let it ring. Resurrection at the polling booth.
When women are assaulted and discriminated against in the workplace, let’s have another round of “Bread and Roses,” to commemorate the loss of so many women at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in flames and smoke over112 years ago when 146 women lost their lives. All due to the greed of the owners who had locked all the exits on the upper floors. Yes, “give us bread, but give us roses too.” And the vote! Resurrection for our sisters!
You can’t hold them down – whether in the halls of Congress or in the city council – or at the women’s health care clinic! Resurrection!
Since my time, there’s been a definite restoration of our democracy. And miles still to go. Face it: it’s like housework – never done.
All these, they are moments of national Resurrection. Death, destruction, privation banished by a Resurrection People with Easter visions in their eyes. Don’t hold on too tight, “the Spirit blows where it will” – making space. Look at what happened in Wisconsin this week! — the death knell of their gerrymandered voting maps. Democracy restored! Next stop – Tennessee!
During Covid a quiet has shrouded our night watch in sorrow – but with the dawn, has come a Holy Wind that freshens the morning watch with Possibility. Calling out your name.
This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our sight. This Easter we give testimony to what we have seen and what we know.
Yes, listen very, very carefully; you might just hear your name called out, your summons by the Risen Christ.
As he came to Mary Magdalene in the garden on that Resurrection Morning, he comes to us. Albert Schweitzer gets the last word on this promise.
“He Comes to Us.”
“He comes to us as one unknown without a name/Without a name, without a name as of old by the lakeside He came to those who knew Him not. He speaks to us, He speaks to us the same word: Follow me, Follow me! And sets us to the task which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands and to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts and the sufferings. They shall pass through in His fellowship, As an ineffable mystery they shall learn in their own experience who He is.”[3]
Happy Easter. Amen.
[1] Heidi Haverkamp, “Don’t Hold On,” Christian Century, for April 9, 2023.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Jim Strathdee, Albert Schweitzer, “He Comes to Us,” There’s Still Time, Desert Flower Music, 1977. Altered.
April 9, 2023, Easter Day
“Night Watch”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney, St. Francis Episcopal Mission
Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24;
Colossians 3:1-4; Gospel: John 20:1-18
A New Commandment
A New Commandment I give you: “Love one Another.” Actually, this is an old, old commandment – stretching all the way back to the ethical teachings of Torah.
This week, however, Christians will celebrate the new context for this teaching as we reenact the rituals of Maundy Thursday. The Eucharist is the sacrament of a self-emptying God, “Love Divine, All Love Excelling” poured out for the rebirth of the world. We will reenact that ancient ritual of foot-washing, the sacrament of servanthood, as we would be brothers and sisters to all.
In the context of these rituals, the Love Commandment takes on fresh meaning and urgency. The outward and visible signs of the unity we seek are needed more than ever in our divided world.
Every time I head off to West Virginia, I have the opportunity to put all this in practice. You see, my cousin Lindsay is a Trumper from the word go. And of course, he probably thinks I’m some misguided socialist who would give all our money away to the undeserving and the slackers. But there’s some mystical bond arising from our two faith expressions that allows us both to put those differences aside.
What we can agree on, and do most fervently affirm, is that the addicted need help, and it is a Christian’s obligation to provide it. Lindsay and his pastor, C.J., have had our House of Hope team speak before their evangelical, non-denominational congregation — a whole fifteen minutes right at the beginning of each service! Through their audio/sound system we screened our PowerPoint with “Amazing Grace” playing in the background, the whole enchilada.
We set aside — pour out — our petty differences for the sake of the gospel message, God is Love – in our pledge to join as one in supporting recovery. For families devastated by drugs and alcohol, such love doesn’t get any more real than that. God is Love. And this community gathered in Christ is the sacramental pledge of that reality.
The style of worship of Lindsay’s faith community is not my preference. I’d prefer any day a good strong verse of “A Mighty Fortress” to their rock band and mega amplified music. But our work to promote recovery transcends these minor differences. Yes, when it comes to putting our shoulders to the wheel of recovery, “We are One in the Spirit.”
When I asked Pastor C.J. how might they support House of Hope – Ohio Valley, he said that they usually don’t promote organizations – BUT if we had a client who is destitute, who can’t afford the program, “our congregation will cover those costs for the duration.” And these people know the pain of addiction. Their pastor’s son has been in and out of rehab programs. The last I heard, he’s now going to his meetings and has found a new group of friends in the recovery community to replace his old druggie associates. One day at a time! It works if you work the program – and are surrounded by a community of encouragement, accountability and prayer.
Their commitment to recovery IS Love emptied out for the sake of Love.
There’s an African proverb that says if the journey needs to be fast, go alone. If the journey is far, go together. The journey of recovery is always far, together is the only way to make it — no matter the number of days one is left allotted.
I thank God that we have had many, many — both in San Bernardino and in the Ohio Valley — who have been companions on our journey to getting House of Hope funded, up and running. My sense is that we are on the cusp of fullness of time, the fitting season, when the parts all fall into place.
What sustains is that we’re all traveling this highway of Love together. And in the Fullness of Time, the Love of the Risen Christ will accomplish through us what we could not possibly do on our own. “Love one another as I have loved you,” is the Message. This Love is the New Commandment we act out this Thursday. Amen.
April 6, 2023, Maundy Thursday
“A New Commandment”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney, St. Francis Episcopal Mission
Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14; Psalm 116:1, 10-17;
Colossians 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Gospel: John 13:1-17, 31b-35
A Raggedy Band
Some years ago, my friend Jim Manley wrote a song celebrating that original procession into Jerusalem with palms and shouts of joy. Thinking of the motley crew that Jesus’ followers were, he titled it, “Raggedy Band.”
“The Raggedy Band is marching along/Folks keepin’ rhythm to the beat of the song/That a little boy’s playing on a dime kazoo/Holes in his hands match the holes in his shoes/Leadin’ down the alley with the Raggedy Band/Stretchin’ all the way to the Promised Land.
“BOOM ticka ticka ticka BOOM ticka ticka ticka BOOM ticka ticka…”
This ad hoc parade was a rather haphazard event of misfits and rabble assembled together at a moment’s notice. The message of Jim’s song is that the very same band now stretches through all time down to our day.
All one organic stream with that original procession – our varied selves and motives, our assorted backgrounds and races – a motley crew of the weak, the distracted, the resolute, the corrupted, the holy, the polluters, the dedicated — all part of that original procession streaming towards the Holy City. All drawn by the Irresistible Power of Longing – like a cloud of iron filings inexorably drawn to a magnet.
“BOOM ticka ticka ticka BOOM ticka ticka…”
Those of the original procession were little knowing of the tragic events to follow later that week. And like that original crowd, just as fickle. One moment shouting hosannah, the next, utter betrayal.
We need to bring this joyous occasion back down to reality, to dispense with much of the “irrational exuberance.” Keepin’ it real.
You’d think Jesus could have chosen a better class of followers, a more reliable group of comrades, but this parade — our parade — is a very mixed bag. We’re what he has to work with.
And down through the centuries, some have been exemplary in their drive to live out that radical ethic of contagious Love. And, many will provide succor along the journey for the halt, the disinterested and the uninspired. They will move heaven and earth to make sure as many as possible reach the destination as possible.
For these folks — some might call them saints — the faith journey is not an isolated, singular event. It’s a “we” project, God drawing all creation to its consummation – all. That is the divine will – that we leave no one outside Love’s embrace.
In the midst of this procession are those who ensure that all are fed, that all are clothed, that all have a share of the material blessings.
However, among the mix are some dyspeptic souls who only thrive when everyone else is miserable. Sort of like one family relative who would march off to her room whistling a happy tune only after she had started a huge family fight. You know the sort. Like the representative who gave a big fist pump to the January 6th insurrectionists as they were heading in to trash our capitol. Even these, too – all are a part of that raggedy band streaming toward the heart of Christ.
“BOOM ticka ticka ticka BOOM ticka ticka…”
Here, I’d rather focus on some of those who keep me company on the journey, some who’s truth and compassion encourage one step after the next. These are those who share stories of difficulty and privation – stories of outrage at greed – stories of despair over senseless cruelty. They are my contemporaries who give hope, give a prod in the backside, who enlighten with possibility. Keepin’ it real.
I’m drawn to the story of one young girl growing up in the housing projects, an eleven-year-old named Dasani. She was named after a bottle of water thought to be so out of reach of her financially strapped mother, that a name like that must be most exquisite – and so was this newborn daughter.[1]
Dasani’s story is told by a most compassionate writer, Andrea Elliott, first time author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for 2022 for general nonfiction, about that parade of humanity heading for the dream of “better.” Dasani lives in a one-room hovel in a homeless shelter with her mother and stepfather, the entire family, ten to the room. Mold on the walls, the sink leak that keeps some of the children awake at night. No one dares go to the bathroom down the hallway after dark, so there’s a “piss bucket” in a corner. She shares a twin mattress on the floor with a sibling. The room is pretty much wall to wall mattresses. Piles of unwashed clothes everywhere. Chaos, in short.
It’s writers like Andrea Elliott who inspire the journey with such stories that are soaked through and through with the humanity of those most of us will never encounter — the least of us. They’re keepin’ it real.
Yeah, Dasani and our writer Andrea are all a part of that parade drawn to Hope. “BOOM ticka ticka ticka BOOM ticka ticka…”
Bernie Sanders, a magnificent Truth-teller, is one who keeps my feet marching in that parade. More than ever, I’ve been drawn to Bernie Sanders’ insight that there’s indeed enough to go around, enough to feed every single pilgrim in this entourage, enough to educate every child, enough to house and clothe — enough to sustain the journey to a Just Society for each. He lays this out, chapter and verse, in his new book, It’s Okay to be Angry About Capitalism.[2]
Ironically, it takes a Jew to point out to us Christians that there’s enough for all. Just like that other Jew, Jesus.
I join him in his rant of wasteful military spending. On our journey we do NOT need enough firepower to blow up the world a hundred times over.
“Take the military budget. We currently spend more than $775 billion annually on our military, over half of the discretionary budget of the United States government. This is more than the next ten countries combined. Yet, despite the enormous size of its budget, the Pentagon remains the only federal agency not to have successfully completed an independent audit. Nobody doubts that within that budget there is a massive amount of waste, fraud, unneeded weapons systems and outrageous cost overruns. We can cut military spending by tens of billions of dollars a year and use those funds to invest in the social needs of our country…”[3]
Just a fraction of that, spent on making the Child Tax Credit available to qualifying families, pulled some 2.9 million children out of poverty. To extend this would only cost $1.6 trillion, spread out over ten years. A fraction of the military waste over that period. Do we REALLY need enough to blow up the planet tens of times over? I say, let’s consult the head of our palm procession, Drum Major Jesus. What’s his take?
My friend, Jim, reminds me of the quote, “We love guns more than children.” But heaven forfend they see a production with actors in drag!
“Washtub drummer beatin’ four to the line/Chopsticks tickin’ on a bottle of wine…”
“BOOM ticka ticka ticka BOOM ticka ticka ticka BOOM…”
Our president sometimes rises to the occasion of full inclusion of all in this holy pilgrimage to a Land of Freedom and Full Personhood. Catch what he proclaimed this last Friday, March 31st, to our transgender companions.
“BOOM ticka BOOM ticka” – YEAH! In the image of God, you are.
“To everyone celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility, I want you to know that your president sees you — Jill, Kamala, Doug, our entire administration sees you — for who you are: made an image of God and deserving of dignity, respect and support,” Biden said in a video message name-checking the first lady, vice president and second gentleman.[4]
Another who keeps me plodding along, gazing up at the sky on the alert for weird weather is Bill McKibben — and the writers he inspires on all matters Global Warming. Yes, in the words of Katharine Hayhoe, it’s now “global weirding.”
With the efforts to caution us to the dangers of breathing the air along the way, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway have alerted us to those in our midst who would discredit the messengers of the common danger we face. In their book, Merchants of Doubt, we are alerted to how the basic science, and researchers are discredited and demonized.[5]
I remember sitting in a session of Citizens’ Climate Lobby listening to an Exxon/Mobil spokesman attempting to convince us that they were good environmental citizens, all the while contributing millions to groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council – ALEC – to “greenwash” their business.
Yes, Exxon and their ALEC buddies are also on this journey with us, writing hundreds of articles to encourage climate denial in popular monthlies like Sports Illustrated, Guns and Ammo, Good Housekeeping – all publications that won’t draw too much attention from real scientists to the crap science they are pushing on their readers – folks who tend not to read many science books. All to convince us, “Nothing to see here folks, just keep moving. Move along.” This Exxon guy claimed to have no knowledge of what their company contributed to. All a hoax and left-wing lies.
By the way, did you know ALEC is one of the major originators and perpetrators of laws across the country to restrict voting rights. That’s right – drop boxes, voting by mail, same day registration are all corrupting our elections. And to keep voters standing out in the sun in hours-long queues from getting even water or a sandwich. Compassion may get you jailtime for trying to unduly influence these citizens about to faint in line. Heaven forfend! And all brought to you by Exxon/Mobil and ALEC.
We’re a motley assortment of the hopeful, the timid, the prophetic, the corruptible, the compassionate, the deniers – all having fallen far short of the Glory which we seek. We’re only human – frail vessels for the redemption we seek.
Yet, might there be mercy for even us who drive our polluting autos from freeway to freeway, even for us who refuse to see the Dasanis of our slums. Even for us who support a government that wastes trillions on death and destruction – all the while neglecting the common good? Some small mercy, dear Lord?
Yet we wend our way to a God who would embrace all. A God who would restore and renew. A God of Easter Promise who still holds out the best hope for each one of us.
In the end, I can even imagine that that turncoat Judas would have found welcome had he thrown himself on the mercy of this God.
Welcome for all. That is the destination of this Palm Sunday procession – leading all the way to an Easter Promised Land.
“BOOM ticka ticka ticka BOOM ticka ticka…” Amen.
[1] Andrea Elliott, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City (Random House: New York, 2021).
[2] Bernie Sanders, It’s Okay to be Angry About Capitalism (Crown: New York, 2023).
[3] Op. cit., 172.
[4] White House message on Transgender Day of Visibility, March 30, 2023.
[5] Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (Bloomsbury Press: New York, 2010), Chapter 6, “The Denial of Global Warming.”
April 2, 2023, Palm Sunday
“A Raggedy Band”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney, St. Francis Episcopal Mission
Isaiah 50:4-9; Psalm 31:9-16; 2nd Reading: Philippians 2:5-11;
Gospel: Matthew 26:14-17:66 (Passion Narrative)
Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin
As the clouds of war and the rise of fascism overtook Europe, the existentialist French philosopher and novelist, Albert Camus, wrote a parable of this geopolitical sickness – The Plague.
The story begins with Dr. Rieux leaving his apartment to feel something squishy under his foot. A dead rat. The first victim of the bacillus, Yersinia pestis – the black death – soon to infect much of the town.
The city of Oran, Algiers, the setting of the novel, is soon under quarantine, completely shut off from the rest of the world. As the population sinks into disease, death and despair, a few people rise to the occasion and exhibit remarkable courage and humanity. Dr. Rieux and his helpers do what little they can to bring comfort and assistance to the sick and dying. In others, the plague brings out the worst.
Written during the time when the Nazis had overrun much of Europe, many see it as an allegory of the time of that fascist disease. More generally it is a parable of courage in extremity, inventiveness in occupation, perseverance in the face of unknown and ill-defined horrors.
Our lesson from John is, likewise a descent from illness to death, the death of one whom Jesus loved dearly – one whom Jesus calls back from the tomb.
In the gospel of John, it is this “sign” that will lead to Jesus’ crucifixion.
We are told numerous times, leading up to this “sign” that Lazarus is ill. “Sick unto Death,” Kierkegaard phrased the extremity of utter despair – contrary to the assertion in John 11:4 that such was not necessarily Lazarus’s case.
“Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Martha was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, the one whom you love is ill.’”[1]
Yet the statement that Lazarus was ill is repeated three times prior to Jesus arriving at his tomb. The threefold assertion is to clue us, the reader, that this poor fellow is failing fast. Not long for this world – the fate of all flesh. The despair of each caught between realizing their full potential and the mundane absurdities of life that consume our hours and days. A death of a different sort.
The Jesus this gospel presents, culminating in this dramatic event, is that in him is the same Life as in God. Light and Life he brings to all. And so it is with all who believe in him. Jesus summons us to our full personhood. To be an authentic self in relation to others and to God. He is the True Authority, through power and deed – the raising of Lazarus being the ultimate proof.
For some, for the religious bean-counters, this is intolerable. When told of the happenings in Bethany, they find this deed of Life to be intolerable.
“So, the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, ‘What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.’”
Jesus’ summons to us is like unto that of Lazarus, “the dispersed children of God.” Lazarus, come out.”
Sometimes the idleness of days, the waste of self-indulgence, is the stench of death. Jesus commands that the stone be rolled from our tomb in which we find ourselves.
In the time of illness, in times of extremity, so often the worst of human impulses is expressed – denial, dissembling, obfuscation, and flat-out lies.
Our Quack-in-Chief proposed all sorts of bogus nostrums in his attempt to mitigate public fears over what was quickly becoming a mismanaged national nightmare.
At one presser he proposed a horse dewormer, Ivermectin. Another favorite for a few sessions was an anti-malarial medicine, hydroxychloroquine. When he proposed injecting bleach, the camera cut over to Dr. Birx sitting against the side wall wincing in disbelief. Such quackery, at a moment when real science should have been the order of the day, when what was called for was truth and transparency, not delusional politics.
The same president, postured late one evening on the White House balcony upon his return from hospital care as some sort of banana republic El Caudillo – all the while coughing out his lungs – in a misguided attempt to convince the nation that his illness was not a “sickness unto death.” All a hoax.
Indeed, compounding the tragedy of COVID, another sickness unto death is upon us all as the new fentanyl death toll has grown, continues to mount.
Yet, in the midst of tragedy is the barely audible summons, “Come out.” There is the command to us the living, “Unbind him.” That unbinding is a call to action – and healthcare workers, addiction and recovery professionals have responded. Essential workers remained on the job.
That summons to Life begins with the realization that we indeed have a sickness. We are ill – a national illness.
For months our national government was in denial – just a few cases and it would soon go away. “It’s going to disappear. It’s disappearing” — a prediction given just days after the president’s own recovery from COVID.[2] Truth is the starting point.
Two remarkable women, Laura Martin and Alice Kaplan, share their more recent and true story of surviving another plague – the ongoing global experience of a modern-day pandemic – COVID-19.[3]
Through their scholarship and through Alice’s own experience of having contracted and lived through COVID-19, insight does shine.
Laura writes in chapter 2 — “Rat Eurydice,” a large rat emerged from its hole and stumbled about then headed for Dr. Rieux.
Camus notes how that first dying rat “pirouetting on the doctor’s landing” falling into a pathetic heap, coughing up blood, resembles the actor on live stage who dies while portraying Orpheus returning from the dark pit of Hell “like a plague rat” in Christopher Gluck’s opera, a play performed over and over each night in Oran by an opera company trapped in quarantine.
Dr. Rieux’s task was quite simple: only to write plainly of what the “indifference of the world has thrown at him.”[4]
“Yet in this pandemic year, the Plague has been tested as a direct chronicle of illness and held its own. We have all, to some extent, become residents within its chapters. Many of the novel’s details feel more realistic than your average allegorical gesture…the understandable hypochondria, the heartlessness of the bureaucracy, the emptiness of shelves.”[5]
Yes, we have been ill – a sickness unto death. The death of millions.
Instead of bluster and denial, in the midst of this illness, the real work of Love would go on, often unacknowledged — unacknowledged as those unnamed volunteers continuing through it all, offering solace to the dying
In the midst of death, the heroic selfless care of those tending the sick and the addicted overdosed is not only Resurrection Hope, but Resurrection Reality.
As fentanyl and meth fill our hospital wards and mental health clinics, along with the victims of this COVID pandemic, the strain on those working sometimes two shifts a day, interminable hours, is intolerable. Yet they carry on through the physical and emotional exhaustion.
No pretense here. No glory.
It is only Love, expressed through letters of gratitude that sustains. The same sacramental Love as incarnated in Jesus, that enables perseverance. Especially the gratitude expressed by families, who also bear the burden.
This is Resurrection Love, a foretaste of Love Divine, which flows from God to Jesus and to us – the very same.
That’s what the community which produced the Gospel of John wants us to know of Jesus and appropriate. With Jesus it’s always a “for-God-so-loved-the-world” story. It is Life Eternal…NOW. That’s our faith.
The raising of Lazarus is a foretaste of Easter Resurrection, as well as the critical incident leading to Jesus’ death. So is Gratitude a foretaste.
Appreciation of those who have laid their lives on the line for the rest of us is a hallmark of New Life –“an attitude of gratitude” for these orderlies, doctors and nurses. That is Life itself — Spirit inspired Life. These workers are the visible agents of God’s sacramental love.
In the midst of such tragedy, Love does suffice. Here is some of that Love shown by those who know best the sacrifice of our healthcare workers – their families. In this Love, we glimpse the Glory of God.
We now catch a foretaste of the glorious Easter morn for which we long — like the touching letters of gratitude from all across the country – letters thanking the nurses, doctors and other hospital staff who have put their lives at risk to care for the ill. Who drop into bed night after night, dead tired from days of ordeal and mounting death.
One letter from a daughter read, “I am so grateful for the few hours out of the week we were able to be huddled together as the core of the family — all you did to console my fears and assure me that we’re going to get through this. Thank you for being the amazing mother and nurse that you are. I love you, your daughter, Tina.”
And another letter to a doctor. “These shields were made with love and appreciation by myself and my children, ages 10 and 8. We cannot express our care and concern enough for you. Keeping you in our hearts and prayers.”
These messages, and so many more, are the truth of our Easter longing in these dark days of national sickness. Can’t you feel a glowing warmth on your face? Expressions of thanks to our nurses, doctors, grocery store clerks, sanitation workers – all who are the incarnation of God’s message of hope. They get me through these Lenten days.
Indeed, a sickness unto death was upon us all as this new drug death toll has mounted, continues to mount. Yet, in the midst is the barely audible summons, “Come out” — the command to us the living, “Unbind him.”
That unbinding begins with Truth and “an attitude of gratitude.” Gratitude to those who unbind, who call forth our better selves from tombs of stench, distraction and death. That’s the story John’s gospel wants to know about Jesus. Though we be ill, very ill – It’s ever a “for-God-so-loved-the-world” story leading past the gates of Hell to a brilliant Easter morn. Amen.
[1] John 11:1-4. NRSV.
[2] Daniel Wolf, Daniel Day, “’It’s going to Disappear’: A Timeline of Trump’s claims that Covid-19 will vanish,” CNN, October 31, 2020.
[3] Laura Marris, Alice Kaplan, States of Plague: Reading Albert Camus in a Pandemic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022).
[4] Ibid, 37.
[5] Op. cit.
March 26, 2023, Lent 5
“Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney, St. Francis Episcopal Mission
1st Reading: Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130;
2nd Reading: Romans 8:6-11; Gospel: John 11:1-45
