Good Shepherds
In my role as chair of the religious studies department at Alaska Pacific University, I would sometimes be asked by our president Glenn Olds to look over the transcript of a prospective student who had been to what was frequently called a “Bible College.” Could any of these courses be given credit towards our degree? Almost all were in service of the theology or church dogma of the issuing institution. They did not begin to meet the rigorous academic standards of an accredited school of higher learning in critical biblical scholarship.
Sadly, I would have to inform the prospective candidate for admissions that, for the purpose of obtaining a bachelor’s degree from a college like ours, he or she had wasted both time and money. No matter how I soft-pedaled it, I could see the disappointment, the discouragement. Sometimes we could accept an English course or something similar to our offerings, but that was it.
Those responsible for providing this student worthwhile academic guidance had failed the person miserably.
Jeremiah knew of such incompetence and corruption.
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord.”[1]
Bad advice by religious authorities may seem a little thing, and in the full scope of what confronts us moderns, might not see that significant. Except to the downcast student in my office.
I would try to encourage them to enroll anyway. They were young with their entire life before them. Not too late to get on a sound academic track. If not our school, go for a community college. Tuition at Anchorage Community College was very reasonable, and scholarship aid was readily available.
Those who fleece the sheep in academia at for-profit institutions are legion. Look at Trump University and dozens of others that will gladly load their marks (that’s what they are) up with tons of student debt while issuing worthless degrees.
Don’t our high schools give any sound guidance to their students? Don’t they give any warnings concerning these bogus scams? Don’t they know the difference between a properly accredited institution and a rip-off college? A good mentor is worth the price of gold, much fine gold. And a few wasted years.
Mentor, that’s how we now designate “shepherds of meaning,” shepherds of encouragement. Or “life coach.”
Our oldest son said that one of the most valuable classes he took at his college in Ohio was farming. For an entire semester he worked at a nearby organic farm. One of the skills he learned was herding sheep. At the end of the semester, he thought he had become reasonably good at it, though he admitted that the sheep dog probably was the one who really knew what was going on with the sheep and did most of the work.
A good and faithful shepherd is priceless. So is a good mentor and life coach.
Our other son working on his PhD dissertation, has a “dissertation coach” he pays. I told him that I would have been willing to kick his butt for free. I guess, that’s not quite the same.
One of the oldest depictions of Christ in the catacombs of Rome, where Christians were forced to worship in secret, is that of the Good Shepherd. As such, Jesus is most frequently portrayed as a comfort and companion in times of death. To carry us through to the other side.
Unfortunately, we have no lack of those in positions of responsibility who would lead us astray – for greed, for power, or just out of sheer orneriness. Never discount free-floating perversity when it comes to human motives. Those who leave us adrift, who would forsake their posts – they are legion.
“As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”
Under the barrage of “alternate facts” and a dumbing down of truth as “fake news,” The American public is adrift in an internet wilderness. Is Rudy Giuliani right? “Truth is NOT Truth?”
I remember once checking a reference on one of my eighth-grade American student’s papers. “How do you know this is real, that it happened?” I asked him. “It’s on the internet,” was the answer. Lord, have mercy!
We have entire “news” channels that pour into American minds a constant stream of corrupt misinformation, lies and innuendo. Some of it straight from Moscow. It is the propaganda that fed the Big Lie — that Trump is really the legitimate president, to be restored on office this coming August. The other guy is a faker and fraud, illegitimate. And it all culminated in the January 6th seditious insurrection at the temple of democracy, the Peoples’ House. Five killed, over one hundred police injured – many seriously.
One hundred forty-seven Republicans swallowed this Big Lie, hook line and sinker, refusing to accept the results of the Electoral College. “These were “good people,” the former president said of the rioters.
Where is that Good Shepherd? Faith leaders who continue to denounce the lies, teachers who continue to teach science, judges who demand proof and facts. Here are our faithful Good Shepherds.
Unfortunately, too many political hirelings have, through their neglect and duplicity, led students and parents astray in beggaring our public education. Most high schools have only one counselor or two for an entire campus of thousands. By diverting public funds to private schools, they have diminished public education to the point that much of the public has lost all confidence. It becomes a vicious downward spiral: as funding is decreased, schools preform even more poorly, and the public becomes fed up and cuts funding even further. The scandal of the past administration is that, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, had never even been in a public school until she took her government post. She, who siphoned millions away from public education into private charter schools. Woe to you, shepherds of greed and grift. Incidentally, her brother, Eric Prince didn’t do too badly either on the dole with his Blackwater renegades in Iraq. Certainly, didn’t lose any money there!
Not that we have a lack of scoundrels in the religion business. I remember flipping through the channels one Sunday morning in Ghana. There on several channels the “Prosperity Gospel” was on full display. Hucksterism of the worst sort. No, sir, Jesus definitely does not want you to have a Mercedes. The prosperity gospel – another wonderful import from America. Where in the Bible does it say that? That you deserve a luxury car while your fellows sink further into poverty? What the gospel of Jesus Christ does command is an admonition to love mercy, do good, and to walk humbly with your God.
Here was this TV preacher, this carny barker, in a fine sharkskin suit that would have cost three or four months of my salary, prancing about the stage yelling and shouting, jumping up and down, imploring us out in TV land, to send in our money right now for a special blessing. And promising that God would reward us threefold, tenfold. Why, there’s no telling what the return on such a donation might be! Folks, you don’t need to go to Ghana to see this side show. It’s home-grown right here.
I didn’t send anything in. I didn’t need a special prayer cloth that morning.
It’s easy to characterize such theatrics as malfeasance, as religion gone bad, to lay such charlatans open to ridicule. But we staid Christians, we “frozen chosen” are not without fault.
When we fail to lay open the full implications of the gospel in our daily life, in our political life we do the gospel a disservice. We commit malpractice. Jesus was fearless in confronting the powers and authorities of his time. Pulled no punch.
When we preachers fail to draw out the implications for our common life together, we fail our people just as badly as those rapacious shepherds of whom Jeremiah speaks – the hucksters on TV.
Those preaching a brand of Christian Dominionism are a “real and present danger” to our democracy. This perverted theology maintains that the “right-believing” Christians are destined to take over and rule the world by taking “dominion” over the political process and reinstituting biblical law. Levitical law, heaven forbid? Enter Pat Robertson stage right: “We don’t want everyone voting.”
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not meant as entertainment. It is not meant as a warm blanket to snuggle in and doze off to sleep. It’s meant as a goad to clean up our act, as a plumb line by which to evaluate our lives. It is meant for encouragement to the distressed and mournful. It’s meant as an affliction to the comfortable. A call to “necessary trouble.”
Blessed is the nation whose leader is grounded in a faith tradition of generous spirit, whose leader is guided by a strong moral compass, guided by a heart for the left out and locked out. Not that such presidents are perfect, but that they have often been leaders who by word and deed brought forth our “better angels.” Leaders who gave direction. Leaders who served the common interest.
Through such faithful elected officials, God has led us besides still waters, comforted us in the presence of the shadow of death, anointed our heads with the oil of goodness. God has set a table in the presence of enemies. Our cup has run to brim-full and overflowing.
Look around for these leaders? WE are the leaders we have been waiting for.
Through those of us who weekly sit in these pews, Sunday in and Sunday out, through those who have been faithful to this same Gospel, God has been a true and trustworthy shepherd. Mercy daily follows our steps, and we dwell in the House of Abundance and Everlasting Life. This outpouring of God’s goodness that takes place in village and hamlet, big city and suburb — each week all across America. Every week, the church of Monday is the action of that community which gathered on Sunday. It’s about humility, not dominion.
This week, God has provided us all with Good Shepherds aplenty. As dozens of raging infernos race through these western states in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho: fire crews, faithful to their duty, have been on the lines for unimaginable hours.
The pay is mediocre, the hours are beyond human endurance. Fire season is now year-round. Add in drought conditions and some of these massive fires are doubling in just a matter of hours as wind whips them from one hilltop to the next. The crews that fight these fires to the point of exhaustion each day — are our present-day Good Shepherds.
Faithful pastors and lay leaders, who have through Zoom, kept their congregations together, who have comforted families that have lost loved ones to COVID-19 — these are God’s Good Shepherds in our midst. Those faithful who have checked on friends to see that they are okay. “Do you need anything?” often being the first question. These common, every-day parishioners who make sure there are funds to pay the light bill and the skeleton staff who are the weekly face of Christ.
Our bishops –John and Diane, and Mike in West Virginia – they have faithfully preserved the unity of the Body of Christ through these fraught days of deepest distress. Bishop John’s parting word each week to our deanery clergy Zoom meeting, is always, “Call me if you need me” – and he means it. These are our faithful and Good Shepherds who lead us beside cool waters, providing reassurance that we, together, will get through these dark days — that we, together, will raise an Alleluia on the other side.
They are our Light. Good Shepherds, all.
This past week, some of our House of Hope team spoke with Senator Manchin’s staff concerning potential state and federal funding for addiction recovery. If you read the news, you know this senator is plumb in the center many critical political issues these days. Regardless of your opinion of Senator Manchin, his staff is doing an incredible job balancing federal priorities with the local state issues of West Virginia. Every day they faithfully show up at the office by Zoom or otherwise. They remain cheerful and keep on top of innumerable demands. They, we – all of us know someone lost to addiction. They get it. These, too, are the Holy Spirit incarnate, Good Shepherds through an epidemic of addiction and political dysfunction.
Within the hearts of all Shepherds of meaning and duty, the Life-giving Spirit of God’s Abundance fortifies courage and commitment. The one and same Spirit, moving through our weak and frail humanity, gives to each of us “those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask.” And for those who will again rouse themselves from sleep to do it all over again this day, Good Shepherds every one, we say THANKS BE TO GOD. Amen.
[1] Jeremiah 23:1-6, New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (New York: National Council of Churches, 1989).
St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach
Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Pentecost 8, July 18, 2021
“Good Shepherds”
Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23;
Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Plumb-Line Theology
This past week Donald Rumsfield passed. Not many of us in the peace action community will be shedding any tears. Andrew Bacevich, formal colonel of the Vietnam War who now realizes the folly of that endeavor, believes our military adventures into Afghanistan and Iraq were the two major blunders ever of American foreign policy.
With his promotion of torture as an instrument of this policy, Rumsfield deeply stained any reservoir of international goodwill that had accumulated after 9/11. I’m certainly not going to take issue with the headline announcing his demise, “War Criminal Found Dead at 88.”
Amos gives us true and sure guidance in judging the policies of nations as well the authors of such policies – the Plumb Line.
I have always found in my work as a general contractor that the plumb line never lies. Back in my days when a college student my parents built a new home in Signal Hill. We had rented an apartment building just down the hill form the site of what would be our new home. Every afternoon, after my father returned from work, he would hike up the hill to inspect the efforts of the framers.
One afternoon I had gone up with him. I was wandering around on the first floor when I heard him call out, “John, come up here.” There on the second floor by what would be my parents’ bedroom I saw what had so alarmed him. The framed in wall of two by fours had to be easily five to ten degrees out of plumb. Scattered around the floor was the cause. Apparently, the plumb line the builders had used that day was brewed by Budweiser – a good number of empties lay scattered around the floor by the tilting wall.
In my later days I often used a level. But I eventually hung a plumb line from the top plate just to make sure. There was the true measure: no lies, no B.S.
The duplicity of “weapons of mass destruction” that was used to sell this war to a hyperventilating public bent on revenge was no Plumb Line. The torture authorized by G. W. Bush, Rice, Rumsfield and a compliant CIA that jiggered the evidence was no Plumb Line of truth. These stats had been bought and sold, traded like junk bonds on Wall Street. The gullible public that never questioned anything? Well, you get the picture. There was enough deception and complicity to go around.
In the folly of these forever wars, our government delivered up our troops like Herod did the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Just to satisfy his own ego and please the desires of a lascivious crowd of revelers. “Mission Accomplished.”
The reason that much of the psalmist’s writings appeal to me is due to the inherent wisdom they contain. They draw from the same wisdom tradition as the book of proverbs. To paraphrase President G. W Bush, “Actions have consequences,” just like elections.
Psalm 1 is my favorite from this tradition: “Blessed is the man (woman) who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scoffers, but his/her delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law s/he meditates day and night. S/he is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season….”
One reason I gravitated to it was that it was an assignment in Hebrew class – to memorize it in Hebrew. As I have such a bad memory for poetry and the rest, that I can still remember the first lines…well I feel like that boy who stuck his thumb in the pie and pulled out a plum.
But I digress. The theology behind this wisdom tradition in the psalms is also that of Amos’s Plumb Line. Truth is truth. Actions have consequences. And Count Otto von Bismarck, known for his quip, “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America” – we shouldn’t put God to the test. We ought not to count on God being a magic fairy godmother rescuing us from folly. God’s judgment is a Plumb Line. Not a helicopter mom to preserve us Americans from self-inflicted wounds.
The list of our unforced errors would seem endless, as of late.
The theology behind the wisdom tradition of the Psalms, Proverbs, Job – is that we have agency. We can choose for good or ill. That is God’s primal gift to our humanity. It doesn’t depend on the Snake. “Thoughts and prayers” are not magic charms.
In Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling clearly speaks to moral choice. Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, advises his dejected young student, “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”[1] Plumb Line theology straight out of Amos.
It’s timely to mention our disastrous response to COVID-19. Perhaps that German count is right about Americans standing in special need of divine providence. We have about the worst record of any nation on God’s green earth in our handling of this health catastrophe. Six hundred thousand dead and counting. More than the combined American casualties of both WWI and WWII.
However, don’t get me started on past malfeasance. I want us to move forward. I want us to consider our choices in the days and weeks ahead as we must now cope with a new variant of the disease, variant delta.
It’s more contagious and more lethal. One doctor on the news this week said that of all his patients in the hospital, 99 percent of them have one thing in common. They didn’t take the vaccine. This past week alone, somewhere around ten thousand Americans died from COVID-19. Most all of them needn’t have done so. Had they acted with prudence and got the shot.
Those who counsel hesitancy do so out of ignorance or fear. Do not heed their advice. Turn off Fox News. Turn off that ignorant neighbor. Is he an epidemiologist? A student of virology? Unlikely.
Science is God’s Plumb Line here. Its acceptance is the separation between the foolish sitting in the scoffer’s seat and the righteous woman planted by an ever-flowing Stream of Life. She will still be alive most likely. Not so that one who refused the shot, coughing up his lungs, whose heart is compromised and his shrunken brain is addled. This disease is an equal opportunity scourge. It attacks all organ systems including the tendency to shrink one’s brain.
Tell your friends to get their shot. Drive them to Walgreens or wherever. Get your family vaccinated. As the psalmist, as a former president would say, “Don’t do stupid [stuff].” Get the jab. We need all our grey matter.
“I will listen to what the Lord God is saying, for he is speaking peace to this faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to him.” God sends guides along the way as bearers of this word of salvation. Listen to them. Listen to those to whom God has given knowledge. Listen to Dr. Fauci, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Dr. Nahid Bhadelia. They are today’s messengers of Gracious Providence. Tell your friends to listen that they might “live long and prosper.”
This from a frontline medic, Dr. Zijian Chen: “Hundreds of patients, most of them women, showed up soon after the center’s doors opened. To the doctors’ surprise, however, many of them had experienced only mild cases of Covid-19. They hadn’t been hospitalized. They were relatively young and otherwise in good health, without the underlying conditions like obesity and diabetes that are known to make Covid-19 worse. And yet, months after their bodies had seemingly fought off the coronavirus, they still felt quite ill.”[2]
These patients had been felled with what professionals now call “long covid” or “Covid long-haulers.” They struggle with a “hodgepodge of symptoms, including fatigue, pain, shortness of breath, light sensitivity, exercise intolerance, insomnia, hearts that race inexplicably, diarrhea and cramping, memory problems and a debilitating “brain fog” that can at times make it hard to put a cogent sentence together.”[3] These are some of the consequences likely to follow survivors all their remaining days.
It is indeed tragic that many, through no fault of their own, bear the burden of our unpreparedness — though wearing masks and social distancing would have made a difference. But now with an effective vaccine at hand, there is no excuse. Science is our Plumb Line, not fear and ignorance. Plumb Line theology is Light and Life. Literally!
When we lose a righteous one to the foolishness or wanton depravity of others, I find it especially tragic. The juxtaposition of such evil acts with righteous makes it all the more painful.
This week, also in the news, was the story of such a righteous man, José Mejía, an immigrant from San Salvador fleeing a brutal civil war. José was only 17 when he began his trip through Mexico.[4] There, he told of ending up “assaulted, robbed and left … with nothing.” He was reduced to sleeping on a bench in a park until someone came along and offered him a job on a construction site.
Eventually, he made it to Los Angeles and was able to let his family know that he was still alive. He found a job at as a janitor at a Toyota dealership. He was able to send enough money back home to El Salvador that his family was able to move into a new home.
José eventually found a position as janitor at Park La Brea apartment complex in Torrance. There, as a janitor, he became a familiar face, “…known and trusted by tenants and admired by coworkers…where he made $17 an hour. He spent lunch breaks helping negotiate a new contract for himself and fellow workers. When a car drove into a crowd of people during an immigrant rights rally in Orange County, Mejia jumped on the hood in an attempt to stop it.”
He saw the realization of a long-held dream. At fifty, he bought his very own first house.
He put in decades with his union, “paying it forward.” “He was walking the walk on the change he wanted to see in the world and put a lot of his life into helping others,” reported the secretary treasurer of the SEIU, Alejandra Valles.
Those who knew him never expected that his life would be tragically ended on the fifth floor of that building by a knife-wielding assailant no older than he had been when he fled El Salvador.
That morning José had told his wife Molina to take the bus to the market and he would pick her up after work and drive her home. At 4:00 p.m. she headed to the store. There she waited for him.
“’Where are you?’ she texted him. ‘Why aren’t you answering?’”[5]
“When Mejía’s cousin called and told her he would pick her up, she left the market sobbing. She thought Mejia had been in an accident.”
“’I never thought it’d be something like this,” Molina said. ‘He didn’t deserve this.’”
Mejía was God’s Plumb Line – a life lived with integrity; a life lived for others. He was the Gospel in flesh and blood. These many, many “essential workers” like Mejía, who toil anonymously are what make our country work.
Living decent lives of integrity, they are the soul of this nation. Mejía and his family — those who clean our office buildings after we have gone home, those who work eight, ten hours a day, bent over picking our food. Those who stock the shelves and pick up the garbage. Orderlies walking the hallways of our hospitals – they have a place in the Heart of God. A Plumb Line straight and true. These are the “little Christs” in our midst. And woe to those fancy, too self-important politicians who forget this. You are not what this country is about. It’s about Mejía and his compadres. Amen.
[1] J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Cincinnati, OH: Scholastic Books, 1999), 333.
[2] Moises Velasquez-Manoff, “What if you Never Get Better,” The New York Times, January 21, 2021, updated January 26.
2 Ibid.
[4] Brittny Mejía, “A Legend Who Became a Janitor Meets a Tragic End,”: Los Angeles Times, July 3, 2021.
[5] Ibid.
St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach
Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Pentecost 7, July 11
“Plumb-Line Theology”
Amos 7:7-15; Psalm 85:8-13;
Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29
We Are Family
In a moment, as time goes, our nation came under a new form of government and new management upon the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America.
When Benjamin Franklin was returning from the last meeting of the Continental Congress after the drafting of the Constitution, a passing woman called out, “Mr. Franklin, what sort of a government have you given us?” “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”
If you can keep it. Of my American family, I’m having some serious doubts lately.
“We are Family,” the lyrics go. “We are Family” — but how far dysfunctional? How far gone down the rabbit hole have we Americans gone? To the point where we just might catch the rabbit.
Alice and Wonderland seems less and less like a tale and more and more a sick American joke. On us.
“We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing”[1]
I seem to be having a little trouble of late getting it out. Seems like all the red stripes have badly faded and not a few stars are missing from that field of blue. It’s a bit tattered — both flag and my American family. Don’t you think?
To shift the metaphor — as I sit transfixed by the enormity of the pile of rubble which used to be a Florida condominium, I have serious doubts as to whether we can keep the bequest of those men who gathered at Independence Hall on July 4, 1776.
My neighbor just put out his flag in honor of the upcoming holiday. I’m not so sure. Living through the headlines this week, I’m not in much of a celebratory mood. That huge pile of rubble in Florida seems emblematic of where we are as a country.
The Corona virus continues to ravage and stress us beyond endurance. Months of lockdown have taken a terrible toll on us all. This past week Los Angeles authorities detained a woman after her three dead children were discovered at their home.
Riverside County supervisors are launching a task force to uncover the roots of a rise in fentanyl fatalities, the cause of 41% of all drug overdose deaths in that county. A dear friend recently lost his granddaughter to street drugs laced with fentanyl. America, we’re coming apart at the seams.
In the midst of this calamity, some deride, some flout the science. We are so divided that we now have two political parties living in two different universes. Polls apart. One tribe believes in the precautions science recommends. The other intentionally refuses to heed any advice for caution.
One of our stellar congresswomen tweets that the problems of COVID-19 will simply disappear if we just “turn off CNN and vote Republican.” [2] Another congress critter willfully disobeys protocol and refuses to wear a mask for his flight back to Texas.[3]
Oh, and this week it was 121 degrees Fahrenheit in Canada. Canada, of all places! The ground temperature this past week was 118 degrees above the Arctic Circle in Siberia! Portland, Oregon clocked in at 115 degrees. Talk about a “Tropical Heat Wave!” Where is Peggy Lee? Time for another verse of “Fever.”
To top it off, our Tuesday bike group can’t take the usual route to our favorite breakfast place in Upland. One of our finer citizens recently torched the wooden bridge spanning the flood control channel several miles from our starting point.
So, I’m not sure about the flag, but I am about to head to the store to buy some chicken and brauts. Going to get the fixings for our famous Forney potato salad. The beer’s getting cold in the fridge. And we have a new bag of charcoal ready for the grill.
We are not left without guidance and comfort – though one friend’s tee shirt reads, “My excuse is that I was left without supervision.” But comfort and guidance, yes, indeed.
There is other breaking news. Words as old as ancient scripture and as timely as the latest headlines. “You have heard that it was said…” With this simple introduction, Jesus lays out the way beyond daily distress. “But I say to you…” There is a path forward. A path that leads to wholeness, renewal and abundance.
From a modern translation, The Message, here is a contemporary rendition of these familiar words from Matthew.[4]
“You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and it’s unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the supple moves of prayer, for then you are working out your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. God gives the best – the sun to warm and the rain to nourish – to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that”
“In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now act like it.”
Pretty hard to do. But there it is, folks. A new way of walking. This is an ethic that tastes of eternity.
As Dr. King reminds us in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail, “There was a time when the church was powerful. It was during that period that the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was the thermostat that transformed the mores of society…They went on with the conviction that they were ‘a colony of heaven…’
In a word, they lived out the new ethic of the Jesus Movement. They were the message in deed and action. They were a tribe of all sorts attracting those fleeing from the dissolution of the day. And day by day, God added to their numbers. These were not perfect people. Not by a long shot. But they remembered their roots as sojourners who had come out of enslavement and captivity to the standards of the world. They remembered their heritage. Their Morning Star was the One who “executes justice for the fatherless, the motherless, and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”
We’re invited to a community of care. Care for one another, the stranger, and for this beautiful earth, our “island home,” drifting through the vast sea of stars and galaxies.
In light of these Gospel Words, I do take heart. There are those in our midst who in this banal culture of deceit and duplicity live them out. They are, in fact the Gospel. In them I find inspiration.
George Packer, in his new book, Last Best Hope (Get it. Read it.)[5] He tells the last day of work, before resignation, of Nurse Ashley Bartholomew, coming off shift in the COVID intensive care unit.
She entered the room of a patient watching the TV coverage of the critical need of morgue trailers in El Paso, Texas. “Fake news,” the patient said. “I don’t think COVID is really more than a flu.”
“’Now you think differently, though?’ Bartholomew asked, unsure what he meant.”
“’No, the same,’ the patient said. ‘I should just take vitamins for my immune system. They’re making it a big deal.’”
“The nurse didn’t know that to say. She was wrapped in protective gear. The ICU was overflowing. All around her were the sick and dying. At the end of her shift she was going to resign her job out of sheer exhaustion. Ordinarily she never spoke about other patients to one in her care, but now something made her do it.”
“’To be honest, this is my last shift,’ the nurse said. ‘you’re the only patient of twenty-five that has been able to speak to me today, or is even aware I’m here.’”
“’Really?’ The patient remained skeptical. He asked if many of her patients had died. She told him that she’d given CPR to more of them in the past two weeks than throughout her ten years as a nurse.”
“The man’s tone changed, and he said he was sorry. The nurse began to cry. Tears ran down under her glasses, her mask, her respirator, and her face shield, onto her gown. She apologized for losing her composure.
“As she brought the man out of the ICU to a unit with a lower level of care, they passed some of the patients she’d told him about. Later, while they were waiting for another nurse, the man said, ‘Thank you for telling me what you told me. I saw a lot of the other ones when you were wheeling me out of the iCU. It’s much more than a flu. I was mistaken.’”
“Bartholomew thanked him and hoped for his total recovery.
“’I will tell everyone who denies how bad this is about my experiences,’ he said.”
“One mind changed – but this patient in intensive care had to hear the truth from a devastated nurse who summoned the will to make him think about others”
Remember you were strangers in the land of COVID. Remember those who continue to bear witness. Remember the stout hearted “critical” workers of great patience and care who summon up the courage to bear witness to what they daily endure. They are the true blessing of this nation. They hold the promise of the Fourth of July. Nurses like Ashley Bartholomew. She gets the ethic of the Jesus Movement.
I lift up another Fourth of July hero, author Bill McKibben. Though temperatures climb to 115, 120 degrees, he gives witness to the truth of climate science. In his piece, “A Very Hot Year,” Bill, is unsparing in his warning.[6]
“We now know that government and university labs were not the only ones predicting the climatic future: over the last five years, great investigative reporting…unearthed the large-scale investigations carried out in the 1980s by oil companies. Exxon, for instance, got the problem right: one of the graphs their researchers produced predicted with uncanny accuracy what the temperature and carbon dioxide concentrations would be in 2019. That this knowledge did not stop the industry from its all-out decades-long war to prevent change is a fact…”[7]
Hey, Exxon man, just how hot is too hot? Dust bowl hot? California and New Mexico firestorm hot? Whata you think? Should we go for 140 degrees next year? Or is it better business to just pay off your political puppets to ignore the melting highways? Cheaper, for sure.
Thank God for Bill McKibben and those who early on sounded the warning like James Hansen.[8] Nurse Ashley Bartholomew – all these I joyfully claim. Jesus says I have a bit of work to do with some of the others.
These are the sort I claim as part of my American Family – those putting Gospel Live into our common life. This is the heritage I can celebrate and give thanks for this coming Fourth. We are family.
Break out the potato salad and toss back a brewski. Fire up the grill. I’ll see if I can find my flag. Amen.
[1] Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, Atlantic Records, April, 1978.
[2] Lee Moran, “GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert Ridiculous Way To Tackle Delta COVID-19 Variant,” Huffpost, July 1, 2021.
[3] Michael Biesecker, “GOP congressman flouts mask rules on airline flight to Texas,” Associated Press, July 1, 2021.
[4] Eugene Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, CO: Nav Press, 1993), 1099-1100.
[5] George Packer, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), 30-31.
[6] Bill McKibben, “A Very Hot Year,” New York Review of Books, March 12, 2020.
[7]Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from
Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010).
[8] James Hansen, Storms of my Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity (New York: Bloomsbury).
St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach
Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Fourth of July, 2021
“We Are Family”
Deuteronomy 10:17-21; Psalm 145;
Letter from a Birmingham Jail by M.L. King; Matthew 5:43-48
Who is This That Darkens Counsel?
A few days ago, I was speaking to a friend about the previous Sunday’s sermon. When he had heard that I was still serving a parish — yes, at my advanced years, somehow funked retirement, I did – he had requested that I send him one of my efforts.
You know me. It was chock-a-block full of the straight. The social gospel, because the movement of God’s people and all the rest is a group effort. I had spoken to our responsibility to live sustainably. I had spoken to our political indifference to the misuse of our wealth, and voter suppression.
After listening for a while, he said, “You’re almost there, but it didn’t speak to me personally.” As if he were the only one who mattered.
These days there’s an awful lot that has hit the fan. And as a corollary to Murphy’s Law states, “Everything that hits the fan is not equally distributed.”
And when things don’t go according to our liking, our first response is often to moan and groan. Dissemble. Shift the blame, or like the FBI director testifying before Congress this week about their dereliction of duty on January 6th, refuse to answer the question.
We become so consumed by grievance, we think the whole universe revolves around our pity party. As Jesus said somewhere, “Get over yourself.” Consider the lilies of the field.
I recently read of a new program to compensate black farmers for the discrimination by the Department of Agriculture in various loan and crop subsidy programs. Inequities, often stemming from the inception of some of these programs, disadvantaged Black farmers. This systemic racism led to the loss of farms and the impoverishment of share croppers for generations. This, from the so called enlightened New Deal of Roosevelt.
The point being, the descendants of these farmers should have been compensated for way they were cheated. It’s the only moral and patriotic thing to do. I salute President Biden and his administration for righting this historical wrong – too many years in the waiting.
The next days, white farmers are up in arms about this redress. Where’s our handout? Huh? What about us? The program’s now on hold. My salute was aspirational, I guess.
“Who is this that darkens counsel without knowledge?” God must be demanding from the heavens. Gird up your loins like honest men and women. I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.”[1]
Where were you at the inception of these agricultural programs when it was decided that some were worthy and some were not? All based on skin color? Tell me if you know. Declare it to me, God demands. Let’s have a little honesty about your feigned grievance, your pity party.
‘
Let me switch the metaphor to Mark’s passage of Jesus disciples in their frail bark tossed about in a vast sea. Surely another apt metaphor for our time.
As I told my friend, the personal touch is good. I’ve been noted to recount such stories: the recovery story of Bo Cox, the transformation story from prison to upstanding community member of Albert Woodfox. That is what I so appreciate in the novels of Louise Erdrich, stories out of the native reservation lives from the Dakotas and Montana.
But the mission of Jesus is not just about “me.” It’s about “us.” The whole of humanity. I’m sorry my friend couldn’t see beyond his own situation to the broader whole. Not one will be saved if not the entire company takes hold of the promise of hope and fellowship with our Creator.
Throughout our history there have been individual actors, but those who were successful were always grounded in larger movements, in institutions.
The Ship of State we know as America presently is floundering on high seas. Monstrous populist waves threaten to capsize us all. We share the same terror as those disciples tossed about in pitch dark. We are truly all in one boat. The pandemic wave of COVID-19 threatens to flood our storm-tossed boat. Climate catastrophe, homelessness, families barely making it paycheck to paycheck.
And while many have done their duty, have gotten their vaccinations, worn their masks and kept their distance from the other passengers, there are those who wantonly put the entire passage at risk by refusing even the simplest communal obligations.
This last week a grocery store clerk was gunned down and a police officer shot, simply because some customer took umbrage at being asked to wear a mask. Imagine, wear a mask, for God’s sake.[2] Who is this who darkens counsel without knowledge and shoots up the rest of us in the boat? Such presumption!
My friend Susan Russell’s response to such assertion of individual rights. “If we’re all in the same boat, yes, you have your rights, but you don’t have the right to shoot holes in the bottom of the boat.”
To my friend who desires the personal, I will insist on the communal. We’re all in the same boat.
Election laws that disenfranchise voters in Georgia and Alabama rob us all of our democracy. Even in California. The crazy autocracy of Number 45 to toss out the results of the 2020 election is a virus infecting the entire ship of state.
The other night, A.B. Stoddard of Real Clear Politics sounded the alarm, loud as a claxon going off. The 2020 election could well be the last free and fair election of this republic. It’s bad enough to suppress the votes. It’s a completely different order of magnitude to rig how they are counted.
Joseph Stalin got it right, “It doesn’t matter who votes. What matters is who counts the votes.” And he would win reelection time and again with over 98 percent of the vote. Autocracy works quite well, thank you.
By Trump’s party passing suppression laws in state after state, many giving local legislators the ability to overturn vote tallies after the votes have been cast, we become no more than one of those S…hole countries The Donald derides.
More holes in the Ship of State while rowers and bailers frantically struggle to keep it afloat and moving towards safe harbor.
Our boat is now storm-tossed as never before since the Civil War and the end of Reconstruction. Crazies have been let loose with entire arsenals, automatic weapons at the ready. We, like those twelve rowers whom Jesus approached on the high seas, fear for our lives, for our nation.
He comes to us with the same word he gave to those men: Shalom. Peace. Better translated as, “Get a grip!”
Your caterwauling will get you nothing. Come to your senses. Take a deep breath, and think on the things I have taught you. The Holy One, at your birth, has given you everything necessary. Put it to work.
Where there is disorder, chaos and insurrection, we have laws and norms. Put them to work. It’s about solidarity and respect.
Put Gospel instruction to work. That’s precisely what one organizer, Opal Lee, did.
When she was ten her family moved into Sycamore Park, a suburb of Fort Worth, Texas. Two years later, when twelve, an angry white mob of over five hundred terrorized her family for days. They threw rocks through the windows and threatened to kill the family.
Meanwhile law enforcement officers stood across the street and did nothing. Finally, the mob drove them out of their home and torched the house.
That was June 19, 1939. No one was arrested. That was a Juneteenth she and her family would never forget.
She could have grown up as a bitter old woman. Many of us would have. I understand that temptation completely.
Opal, known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” put that experience to work for good. She began organizing. Racism may have shot a lot of holes in the frail bark that is our democracy, but she was going to be plugging those she could.
“Experiencing that hate crime pushed Mrs. Lee into a life of teaching, activism and, eventually campaigning. In 2016, at the age of 89, she decided to walk from her home in Fort Worth to Washington, D.C. in an effort to get Juneteenth named a national holiday. She traveled two and a half miles each day to symbolize the two and a half years that Black Texans waited between when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, on January 1, 1863, abolishing slavery, and the day that message arrived in Galveston, where Black people were still enslaved on June 19, 1865.”[3]
This became a march of Black and White together, as Mrs. Opal says, “None of us are free until all of us are free.”
There are still millions more of us who believe in this glorious experiment in self-rule. Millions more working for a greater freedom for all.
We presently stand at an all-hands-on-deck moment. Write that letter, make that call. Summon your elected representatives to Democracy’s Altar. We need voting rights to be secured by national legislation, given that over 400 laws have now been enacted, or are presently proposed, in over 40 states to suppress voting.
Be instruments of blessed trouble, as John Lewis, the patron saint of Necessary Trouble, summons us in this hour of peril. Be disruptors for justice. As Opal still is at 95.
“Why are your afraid? Have you still no faith?” Jesus asks today of us. We have so much to celebrate. It’s Juneteenth this weekend. Let Opal Lee be our drum major.
We have a national anthem, but Rep. James Clyburn will be introducing legislation next week to give America a national hymn. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” would be a most fitting step towards bringing America through our dark night of racial bitterness.
Known as the Black National Anthem, written by James Weldon Johnson, this poem certainly captures the soul of Juneteenth, and the unfulfilled promise of America. As Rep. Clyburn said, it “would be an act of bringing the country together”.
“Lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies;
let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on, till victory is won.”
America has trod a shameful path, but redemption is at hand.
In the words of the second verse, we have come,
“over a way that with tears has been watered;
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
Keep marching on, Opal Lee at our side. The work is not done. Happy Juneteenth! Amen.
[1] Job 1:1 ff. New Revised Version.
[2] Associated Press, “Sheriff: Cashier fatally shot after argument over face masks,” June 14, 2021.
[3] Julia Carmel, “Opal Lee’s Juneteenth Vision Is Becoming Reality,” New York Times, June 18, 2021.
“Who is This That Darkens Counsel?”
Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Fourth Sunday of Pentecost, June 20, 2021
Proper 7
Job 38:1-11; Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32;
2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41
On Not Giving the Snake the Last Word
That bright morning the sun pleasantly warmed the awakening world. Another light in the sky, however, caught the attention of a stegosaurus nonchalantly munching in a grove of ferns. The quickly moving light, flaming bright — or was it the thunderous sonic boom as it raced through the upper atmosphere that caused it to cock its head and stop its chewing.
This cataclysmic event was the rude beginning of what would turn out to be a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day” for our gentle stegosaurus and a whole lot of other creatures on Planet Earth. And for a bunch of plants and fishes, too.
In a flash, a mountainous wave rose up, carrying the now-deceased dinosaur and a mish mash of mud, boulders, fish, trees and animals from the usual temperate climes near the Great Gulf Water. Inland it all rushed, petering out near what we now call Arkansas. And in the next moment, it all went sloshing back again to the Gulf. Reptiles, spiders, plants and all. Along with not a few ichthyosaurs and fishes.
In the days and years to come, thick darkness hung over the planet. Much of the vegetation died and they that dined on it were soon gone, along with those that dined on the diners. All around the world. Welcome to the new world of the cockroaches, opossums and a few birds. And a spider or two. Much of the ocean life had also died as well. But not everything.
Whether coincidence or not, volcanic activity in the newly disturbed planet soon belched enormous clouds of toxic gasses into the darkened skies over the ensuing eons, making the survival of most anything at all highly problematic. The greatly acidified ocean was hell on clams and oysters. Brachiopods, crabs and lobsters.
The greatest natural disaster to befall Planet Earth? No, this had happened before in various configurations. Five or so times previously.
Out of this latest cosmic disaster arose an entirely new fauna and a land teeming with a multitude of mammals and creepy crawlies. And Humankind.
And Humankind, that wonderful humanoid, Alley Oop – or whatever his name was. Next door neighbor to Fred and Wilma Flintstone. There he sat, atop the heap, with a mind to comprehend it all and will to take charge. Planted in this renewed Garden.
The earth slowly settled down. It must have been a wonderful garden. Up sprouted everything these new humans needed for food, clothing and shelter. Seas bountiful with fish. So many fish in the Massachusetts Bay it was claimed that one could walk across that body of water stepping from one codfish to the next.
It must have been a wonderful Garden, indeed. Until men and women began to mess with it. Soon the imperial mammoth and giant sloth were gone. Extinct, never to be seen again. Until dug up millions of years later by us moderns and put in a museum.
How did all this take place? How did the destruction begin? Our story from Genesis says it was the fault of the cleverest of inhabitants lurking in the underbrush – that damned snake.
“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit from the tree, and I ate.”
That’s right, shift the blame. Throw her under the bus. Of course, you had absolutely no responsibility? Right!
However the Fall happened, we presumed to plunder the Garden until much of it was gone – the beginning of another great extinction. We gave no thought for tomorrow. No thought for that delicate web of life of which we are a part.
As my theology professor was wont to note, “Sin is the one theological doctrine for which we have empirical proof.”
We may chuckle at this primitive story. We may dismiss it out of hand as a simplistic myth of our early prehistory. But the truth remains – the God’s honest truth — we’ve really screwed up the garden. Just about stomped it to death and paved it over.
We humans have ushered as many of our fellow critters into extinction as did that meteor and all the attendant volcanos so many eons ago. The “Sixth Extinction,” scientists label this present ecological disaster.[1]
Someone once asked the great theologian Karl Barth if he believed in “original sin.” “Isn’t that how it usually works out?” he responded.
How often it is, we let the snake have the last word. Nothing to see here, folks. Just keep moving.
We now stand on the brink of the next great extinction. Our age is now being labeled the “Anthropocene.” Earth’s destiny, now influenced by humans as the greatest geological factor, will succumb to global warming. Caused by – us. We humans.
“More, more, more,” hisses the snake. In the halls of Congress, in board rooms and in shopping cart lines.
To the extent we remain in its thrall, that cunning, mesmerizing serpent gets the Last Word. BUT NOT QUITE.
There’s another Word, a saving Word – a Word that echoes down the ancient halls of time, through the dusty roads of Palestine.
In the midst of a convoluted theological debate with religious authorities, Jesus has become an embarrassment to his family. In fact, they’ve come to take him away. He’s clearly out of his mind. Maybe demon possessed. When told that some members of his family are outside to take him home, he cuts to the chase.
“Who are my mother and brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
We have agency. We can heed that Word which life and abundance. Yes, we are NOT God. We are but one of the creatures, though a very clever one – often too smart for our own good. And we can choose an alternative to that of the snake…a blessed alternative. We will do just fine living in harmony with the flora and fauna of the Garden. Snake needn’t have the Last Word.
We can choose the life intended by God for ourselves, our neighbors and our planet. Everybody and everything doesn’t have to die. Stop listening to that hissing in the background.
Here what our brother Paul has to tell us. He get’s it
“Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart.”
We do not lose heart. We will come to our senses, our authentic selves, as a part of the great living web of life. We do not lose heart. There’s still time – but not much.
There’s still time for those who cherish this, our Mother Earth. It’s time for our primitive selves to grow up. Time for Alley Oop to put down the club and put on a suit and tie. Time to grow into his full humanity. And listen to God’s restorative Word.
That happened this past week.
In several board rooms some “Mean Greens” took back a little bit of control from Exxon/Mobile and Chevron oil giants this last week
Bill McKibben and others have been warning us for over a decade about the disastrous course on which we have set our planet – that we need to clean up our act, literally, if we are not to shove the planet into climate catastrophe.
Two environmental activists were elected to the Exxon/Mobile board of directors, maybe even four. They’re still counting the votes. Time for Alley Oop to take his seat at the board. Time for Wilma Flintstone to join him.
Chevron also was the target of climate activists who forced management to cut their customers’ carbon footprint. And in the Netherlands, the court ordered Royal Dutch Shell to slash emissions harder and faster than they had been planning for.
Maybe a few of our Alley Oop fellows, Barney and Betty Rubble, are growing into becoming world citizens. Maybe there’s some hope for us all yet. The snake doesn’t get the Last Word.
As my friend George always said, “Keep your eyes on the prize and celebrate the incremental victories along the way.” So, grab a slice of cake.
This doesn’t mean our work is done. President Biden has appointed enough folks from the fossil fuel industries to shut out the Sunrise Movement agenda. We still look to miss by a wide margin the goal of keeping global temperatures under a 1.5 degrees Celsius rise. We still are on the brink of going over the cliff of more irreversible tipping points. Kiss your polar bears goodbye.
Follow the science. Time is running out like the grains of sand in an hourglass.
Whoever does the will of God that we might all thrive, she, he, is our authentic sister and brother. And a true companion on our brief journey through creation.
The saving Word is that in Christ we have the power and the vision. Oh, sure, there will still be some weeds in the garden, some loathsome creatures.
That poor stegosaurus and all the rest? I love visiting them in museums but am thankful they are not out in the front yard munching my nasturtiums and periwinkles.
I am very thankful that more and more of us are learning to live respectfully in the Garden in which we’ve been placed. Who are our true relatives? Brother, Sister Lizard, among others.
On the way to lunch am delighted in seeing my lizard friends out on the walkway sunning themselves, and am happy to greet them. I like it a lot that they are a considerably smaller and much cuter than their dinosaur relatives.
For all things bright and beautiful…for activists willing to raise heaven on the Exxon/Mobile board of directors…for Alley Oop, the Flintstones, and our paleolithic forbearers who survived the dire wolf and saber-toothed tiger to stick around to have offspring…for those willing to head back to the White House and risk arrest again in support of Planet Earth and Bill McKibben’s 350.org movement…for those doing the Will of God – It’s like weeding. The job’s never done. THANKS BE TO GOD for all who lend a hand (and a dollar or two). “It’s a Wonderful Life.” AMEN.
[1] Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (New York, NY: Henry Holt, 2014).
“On Not Giving the Snake the Last Word”
Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Second Sunday of Pentecost, June 6, 2021
Proper 5
Genesis 3:8-15; Psalm 130;
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1; Mark 3:20-35
