Tag: Protest

Questions for America: Part One

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This week and next, I am preaching a short sermon series. Returning from vacation this last week, coming home to America in time for the celebrations of July 4, I have had some mixed feelings. (Who doesn’t have mixed feelings coming back from vacation?) But these feelings are specific, and to me troubling. As a kid, I loved the fourth of July, the fireworks, the hotdogs, flying the flag. As an adult, especially this year, I feel the weight of responsibility that comes with citizenship in our republic. This year, more than most, I’ve marched. I’ve written letters. I’ve called my representatives and senators, and I don’t see many immediate results. Honestly, I’m a little frustrated with the state of our nation. So today and next week, the Sundays surrounding July 4, I have a series of questions for America.

Before we get to the questions, let’s take a look at the Bible. We have spent the last few weeks in church hearing stories of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, the matriarchs and patriarch of our faith traditions. We’ve been reading the “founding stories.” The beauty found in these stories is stunning. God takes Abraham out under a cloudless night and says to Abraham “look at the sky. Your descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the heavens.” Sarah laughs, when she hears God’s plan that she will conceive in her old age. She’s 90. Laughter is appropriate, holy. Sarah laughs, and at long last Abraham and Sarah have a son, and they name him Isaac, laughter. The stories are beautiful, and, if we’re honest, the stories are problematic.

Last week we heard the story of Hagar, Abraham’s mistress who bore his first son Ishmael. Sarah and Hagar are rivals, and their sons grow rivalrous as well. After seeing Ishmael taunt Isaac, Sarah wants “the other woman” and her child out. Hagar and Ishmael are left out in the desert to die.  The story is painful, ugly. How could we believe in a God who would allow such inhumane treatment? Well, these texts are problematic, and there’s a great deal going on behind the scenes. Still I am struck by these stories, because just when I think: “I can’t believe in a God who would bless such behavior,” the text turns. God shows up for the characters who were cast out.

All this backstory is recalled ever so briefly in in today’s lesson. Speaking to Abraham, God calls Isaac, “your only son.” Now God should know better. As we heard last week, God saved Ishmael in the end. Ishmael will also found a dynasty. Abraham will be the father of many nations. The founding story is beautiful and problematic. Today’s text is frightening, and a pattern for salvation. We’ll get deeper into the Bible in a bit.

As I thought about the beauty and the problems of these founding stories of our faith, I found myself also thinking about the beauty and difficulty built into our national stories. When I lived in Washington DC, I used to love to visit the monuments on the National Mall at night. If you’re traveling to Washington, I can’t recommend a nightime visit to Jefferson and Lincoln more highly. You’ll often have the whole place to yourself, and the way the park service lights the marble at night is magic. Standing in his psuedo-Greek Temples, looking out over the Tidal Basin, I loved re-reading Jefferson’s words, lit up against the dark sky. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” The monument does its job. You can’t help but contemplate beauty of our founding story.

The United States were built on the bedrock of equality. And yet, there in the text we can hear the problematic element of our founding story as well: “All men.” As Angelica Schuyler sings in the musical Hamilton: “When I meet Thomas Jefferson, Imma compel him to include women in the sequel.” Knowing what we do about Jefferson also begs the question, ”How could the architects of freedom also perpetuate the enslavement of Africans?” Our founding stories are both beautiful and problematic.

Like Isaac and Ishmael, like Sarah and Hagar, our founding stories set up rivalries. In America, often those rivalries are based in racial identity. Toni Morrision has said “Race” is the fundamental metaphor neccessary to understand the “construction of Americanness.” “American” has been defined as “white.” This was literally true at the time of our founding. Enslaved African Americans were only counted as 3/5 of a person by our constitution. And they only counted in order to give their owners more power and representation. Latinx, Asian, and Native American communities have also had their personhood legislated. We have set up racial rivalries across American History.

I entitled this sermon series: “Questions for America.” My first question is this:

“To whom does America belong?”

This morning we heard Jesus’ words about Welcome. Welcome the little ones. Christians believe in fundamental welcome. We hear that this is a nation with Judeo Christian values, but how often do we welcome the way Jesus would have us? How often do we see Americans as Americans? How often are Asian Americans and Latin Americans asked, “Where are you from?” and then “no, really, where are your people from?” How often are black citizens denied basic protections for liberty and the pursuit of happiness, even life?

Did you hear the story of Aaron Bailey, another unarmed black man shot by police officers, this time in Indianapolis, last week? Yes, Aaron had a criminal record. But wasn’t he more than his record? Did you know that Aaron was a volunteer at Christ Church Cathedral in the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis? Did you know he was a regular guest at their Sunday breakfast? Who counts as American? Whose lives matter? To whom does America belong?

There is a fundamental problem in our national story. Racism has been called “America’s original sin.” I believe it is important to name it as such. But this story also has beauty, and the beauty has the capacity to overcome sin. Over our 241 years (I think I got that math right), over our 241 years of history, women and people of color have asserted their rights to citizenship.

Historically we have believed in equality, in freedom, and in their expansion. As a nation, we do not believe freedom is a finite resource. You don’t need walls to protect freedom. Walls fence us in. Freedom grows when more people are free. The more free our neighbors are, the more free we are. Freedom grows exponentially. But if we start policing hard lines of belonging. If we say: “you are American, and you are not,” it leads to some of the darkest moments in our history.

My question about who counts sends me back to our story this morning of the binding of Isaac. Historically the Jewish and Christian people have seen this scripture as a story of salvation. God spares Isaac. In the end God does not demand the sacrifice. (The irony for Christians is strong. In the end God does not require the sacrifice of an only child, and yet when God’s only Son came to us, we killed him. We demanded blood. But that’s another sermon). We’ve read this story as salvific historically, but for readers today it still seems barbaric.

I’ve never been able to fully embrace this story, and as I read it in preparation for today’s sermon it was the silence that stood out to me. Where is Abraham’s protest? Why does he just quietly prepare to heed God’s command to kill his son? For that matter, where is Sarah? She fiercely defended Isaac in last weeks story, where is she now? Where is her protest?

Traditionally, even in the New Testament, Abraham and Sarah’s silence is intepreted as a sign of their faith. “By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac” the book of Hebrews tells us. I’m not sure I buy this story. I want to know where the missing verses are. Where is Abraham’s argument with God? Where is Sarah’s persistence?

This is my second question, it’s for our text today and for America:

“Can protest be prayer?”

For this question (as I’m sure you can tell for most of my questions in this series) I have a strong opinion. Yes, I believe, protest can be prayer. As the ACLU bumper stickers proclaim “Dissent is patriotic.” Full disclosure, I borrowed the phrasing of my question from another preacher.

Over our vacation these past two weeks, we had the opportunity to worship on a Sunday morning at the Riverside Church in New York City. Riverside is the tallest steeple in America, built to be “an interdenominational, interracial, international, open, welcoming, and affirming church and congregation.” It’s a huge cathedral of a place. We went for the architecture, and to see a big successful diverse church. But we went especially to hear one of my homiletical heroes, the Rev. Dr. Amy Butler, give a sermon. She’s an incredible preacher.

I borrowed my question: “Can protest be prayer?” from Dr. Butler. In a sermon she preached the day after the Women’s March (she marched in Washington DC), Dr. Butler talked about what she realized as she joined the gathered crowd of pink hats on that January day:

Almost immediately after I emerged from the Metro station onto the sidewalk in downtown D.C., in that mass of people stretching as far as I could see, I began to feel something I haven’t felt in some time: hope.

I didn’t feel so alone or despairing anymore.  I didn’t feel that our community was in the minority in our calls for the church to speak up.  And I started to believe again that change might actually be a possibility, and that pushing back the darkness becomes a reality when all of us hold up our lights and raise our voices.  Together.

Sometimes being nasty is the same as being holy, and protest can be prayer.

I can’t believe God required Abraham and Sarah’s faithful silence. I think God answer’s the question “Can protest be prayer?” with a loud yes! God wants dialogue. God wants people to stand for justice. Faith isn’t always quiet and polite. Faith can be nasty. Protest can be prayer.

Tell Abraham and Sarah. Tell your neighbors. Tell your friends and cousins, and the people on social media. Are you feeling distressed? Stand up. Pray. Get out there on the streets. Ask yourself, am I praying for this country with my silence? Could I be praying with my feet?

On Tuesday I dare you, celebrate. Remember the beauty of our founding stories. Remember the promise. All people are created equal. Then ask yourself: “To whom does America belong?” Ask yourself: “Can protest be prayer?” Then, let’s ask those questions together of our country. This fourth of July, let’s ask some Questions of America.

Where do you locate hope?

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Where do you locate hope?

I know this is a dangerous Sunday to talk about hope. As soon as I ask that question, some folks here will say “I place my hope in Tom Brady.” Others will say “Matt Ryan.” And most everyone will say, “I’m just hoping Mike keeps this sermon short.” Well…there’s always hope right?

But I’ve found myself returning to this question again and again over the past weeks. Where do you locate hope?

I’ve been thinking about hope as I’ve listened to my more liberal/progressive friends try and gauge their reactions to the last few weeks. “Don’t worry, this new president won’t last very long.” “Impeach him now!” These statements are sometimes serious, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, but in the spread between sincerity and sarcasm, I hear a sort of testing: “How long?” How long do we have to keep up the resistance? How long until we can stop showing up at protests. When can we stop all this writing and calling our legislators? How long? What moment, what change, will indicate that we’re done? A resignation? The rescinding of an executive order? What exactly are we looking for? Where do we locate hope?

My more conservative friends are asking a similar set of questions: How long are these liberals going to keep this up? Why can’t they get over it? What will be the sign that we were right? What will stop them? These are also questions about the location of hope.

Now, my job is to take a look at Scripture with you this morning, to open up our tradition in the church. I’m afraid our lessons this morning do not point to quick resolutions. There aren’t easy answers. For the Bible, hope is not a short-term project. For followers of Jesus, hope can be built on nothing less than Jesus’ dream. Our hope rests on the kingdom of God.

Isaiah’s people find themselves in a state of grumbling. They have returned from exile, but their cities are in ruin. It seems that God is not hearing their prayers. In the theology of the time, the proper response to God’s silence was fasting. So all through Judea they put on sack cloth. They rolled around in ashes, and still, still, God did not hear their plea. Isaiah gives them a shocking reply:

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Isaiah’s people want a quick resolution. They want God to hear their plea, to honor their fast. “It doesn’t work that way,” Isaiah says. You have forgotten your own kin. The people are suffering because the structures of society are unjust. If want God to hear your cry, if you want to “make Judea great again,” tend to the hungry, the homeless, the suffering. Remember the poor. You get a sense of the tradition Jesus develops in these chapters of Isaiah. For Jesus, as for Isaiah, God is especially attentive to the treatment of those who are lost, least, and left out.

So it is no surprise that the Gospel also complicates matters. “Be salty” Jesus tells his followers. “Let your light shine.” These passages are a meditation on the quality of discipleship. What does it mean to follow Jesus? Don’t lose your flavor. Don’t hide your light. The kingdom is coming, he tells them, but it’s not coming quickly. Steel yourselves. Be Salty. Shine.

Last week, as I listened to our hymns, as we read scripture together, it sort of dawned on me again how much of our Christian tradition is built for resistance. Our faith was made for times like these. Christianity was forged in opposition to an empire. When Roman citizens chanted: “Caesar is Lord” Christians responded, “Jesus is Lord.” The great moments of Christian history tend to be moments when Jesus’ movement inspired resistance, from the early martyrs to Francis of Assisi’s stand for the poor, from Martin Luther to Martin Luther King, to Oscar Romero and Dorothy Day, Christianity is built for resistance.

There’s a reason so many Christian hymns found resonance on the underground railroad, and during the Civil Rights era. The best Christian music is written and sung by people who are able to name their present reality, to say: “this injustice is not what God dreams for us.” Jesus teaches about the kingdom, the coming reign of God, the world as it should be.

I said this realization dawned on me last week, that so much of our scripture, so many of our songs, were written for resistance. I knew that resistance was there. I’ve read Howard Thurman. My favorite theologians tend to be liberationists from Latin America. But over the past eight years, I wonder if my sense of resistance grew more diffuse. I’ve spent a lot of time and energy on the new president lately. I want to take a moment to think about the previous president, the role of the church over the last eight years.

I confess, when President Obama was inaugurated, I remember worrying a bit about all of the fuss. I worried that we were letting ourselves off the hook because we’d gotten such a man elected. There were celebratory posters and ice sculptures all over DC that January. The DC Metro (Washington’s Subway) even made a Metro-card with the President-elect’s face on it. When we inaugurated the president, it was with great fanfare, huge celebration. At the time, it was easy to see the celebration as a natural embrace from the highest majority black city in America of the first black president. Still, I remember some disquiet in my heart, some of which was there because the president-elect was saying “what’s the fuss about?”

I worried a bit more after the inauguration when the new president was pleading with his supporters to keep up the movement, to call their senators and congress-people. The president asked people to show up, to participate in the democratic process. Somehow it seemed the energy that got him elected dissipated soon after he was in office. I worry that for many of us, at least subconsciously, the election of President Obama served as a sign that we had “arrived” in the world for which we had hoped. Did we get complacent? Eight years ago, did we elect a president, or a savior?

That question may seem unfair, but it gets to my question about the location of hope. I am wondering if some of the hand wringing these past weeks since President Trump’s coming into office has come from displaced hope. It was easy to rest a great deal of hope in President Obama, even if he asked us not to trust his ability to bring change, but to hope in our ability. Still, it was one of my favorite artists Shepard Fairey who created THE poster of Obama’s campaign. The image simply featured Obama’s face, and the word “Hope.” As Christians, is there another way? Could we work with a politician while still locating our hope in an agenda far beyond that of any political party?

I’ve shared with you before the story of the friendship between Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Nelson Mandela, that nation’s first democratically elected president. Both men separately received the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in ending apartheid and forging a new inclusive nation. For decades under the apartheid government, Bishop Tutu advocated for the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. And in 1990 Mandela spent his first night of freedom in the home of the Archbishop.

It came as a surprise for Mandela when Tutu refused to join his political party, the African National Congress. But Tutu felt that he could not, as a church official, publicly identify with any party, even Mandela’s. For Tutu, the only loyalty he could profess was to God’s kingdom. Until the kingdom of this world became the kingdom of our God, no one party, no one movement, no one issue could define the hope of the Church.

Bishop Tutu’s faith was forged in resistance. He grew up unable to swim in the ocean at “whites only” beaches, unable to study in “whites only” schools. Tutu developed a suspicion of government, even a government run by one of his close friends, a member of his own tribe. When I try to conceive of what Jesus means when he tells his followers they are the “salt of the earth,” I can’t come up with a better image than Bishop Tutu explaining to President Mandela that he plans to keep an independent voice, in case he needs to stand up to the new government for the sake of the Gospel. That’s pretty salty.

So I return to my initial question: where do you locate hope? In the coming weeks, months, and years can we be wary of easy answers? When it comes to hope, can we play the long game? Can we persist against the desire for this all to be over? Can we overcome complacency? Can we build our hope on nothing less than Jesus’ faith and righteousness?

If we do, our hearts will be restless. As St. Augustine said, “our hearts are restless, until they rest in God.”

Placing your hope in the Kingdom of God gives you perspective from which to move. Placing your hope in that coming Kingdom where ALL God’s people are welcomed, where ALL God’s people are valued, placing your hope there gives you incentive to keep moving, gives you incentive to stay restless.

Will your restlessness help move you from sorrow to action? Will you stay salty? Will you let your light shine? Will you loose yokes and let the oppressed go free? Will you clothe the naked and house the homeless? Will justice be the fast you choose?

How long do we resist? Well Christians, if we place our hope in God, we resist until the coming of Christ’s kingdom.

We locate our hope in the Kingdom of God.

Holy Week: In a World Shaped by Violence, We Need Protest

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“Did you hear about the riot this weekend?” Our friends Rachel and Matt were in town, visiting from Chicago where Matt works for a labor Union. He was talking about Hockey fans at the University of Minnesota who threw bottles and jumped on top of a moving car. As the police arrived, some of these students laid down in the streets, unmoving, as if they were involved in a political protest.
As we talked about the incident, a theme began to emerge. People need protest. Matt and I have both been involved in organizing demonstrations, actions against the powers that be. For Matt it has largely taken the form of picketing big businesses. I have protested with church-people around issues from homelessness to the war in Iraq. Matt and I agree, the act of protest enriches our spirits. We wondered if these students were rioting partly because they hadn’t been able to meet their need to act out in the street constructively.
 
We talked together about a scene from the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician elected in California. Before he was elected, he was good at losing elections, but in all of the running he had become a public figure in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco, the “gay-borhood.”  The year was 1977, and Anita Bryant had organized Florida’s Dade County voters to overturn a law protecting civil rights for lesbian and gay people.
 

Bishop James Mathes of San Diego kindles the Easter fire at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Bishop James Mathes of San Diego kindles the Easter fire at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

On June 7, the night the protections fell in Florida, the Castro filled with people streaming angrily through the streets.  Harvey Milk saw the rioters and told some of his fellow organizers to get them ready to march, to bring them down to City Hall. Milk ran ahead, leading the group. He then addressed them with a bullhorn. In the movie he says, “I know you’re angry.  I’m angry.” But Milk had taken the riotous energy and transformed it into meaningful public action. Chaos became protest.
 
These images were in the background as I heard the stories from the Gospel on Sunday, Palm Sunday. These last scenes from Jesus’ life are surrounded by crowds filling the streets. “Hosanna!” the crowd first shouts, before they are incited to riot and scream “Crucify him!”  As I listened to the lessons, I thought about the role religion plays in helping us to protest, how liturgy can move us from what the liturgical theologian Aidan Kavanagh called “the edge of chaos” to a place of constructive meaning and purpose. At its best, our worship helps us to move from the violence of the riot to intentionally and peacefully proposing an alternative world, a world shaped by the ethics of Jesus.
 
Holy Week is the summit of the Christian liturgical experience. As we enact the stories of the Passion, we remember where we have come from. The liturgy invites us to consider what is at stake. At its best, religion helps us move from destructive behavior into creatively remaking our lives and our world. We are invited into this world-building by a system of symbols:
  • washing one another’s feet,
  • sharing a meal that mystically ties us to one another and to God in Christ,
  • lamenting the violence of the world enacted upon our savior at his crucifixion,
  • witnessing as light bursts forth in the darkness, and
  • shouting “Alleluia!” and giving ourselves over to hope that life overcomes death.
Participating in the crowd gathered for the liturgy can take us from the chaotic riots of Palm Sunday into the hope that breaks forth from the tomb.
 
In a world shaped by the power of violence, we need to protest. Holy week invites us to stand up for a better world, a world re-created in the images of the stories of Jesus, a world that resembles the Reign of God.
 
Will you be a part of the action?