Hope at a Trike-A-Thon

Yesterday was one of those days that years from now we will look back and ask, “Do you remember where you were when…”  The history of our lives are filled with those days.  Do you remember where you were when the Challenger exploded?  Do you remember where you were when you heard about the Oklahoma City Bombing? 9/11?  Sandy Hook?  And now, yet another – the Boston Marathon bombing.

It never ceases to amaze me how un-noteable the medium for which we learn life changing news.  Somehow it feels like the way we learn of such powerful moments in our nations history should be equally powerful, and yet isn’t.  I found out about Sandy Hook through a phone call at church.  Yesterday I learned about Boston through a story on my Facebook news feed.  An action that couldn’t seem more normal carried news that the world was tossed upside down.

There are no good words at a time like this.   There are no cute phrases or short sentences that can soothe the ache of a nation who is shocked by pain and unnecessary violence.  In years to come we will look back at this moment and still feel haunted by it’s memory and the impact it made in our world.  We will always remember where we were when.

But this is not the end of the story.  I read a beautiful article in the Huffington Post proclaiming how God has the last word in moments like this and that last word is love.  I was moved by the truth in that article, and I will be forever grateful for such a strong word of hope in a time of great uncertainty.

God’s love is what prevents this moment from being the end of the story.  There can be a hesitancy for us to want to avoid gathering together, celebrating the achievements of a our neighbors and friends when running a marathon, from gathering in historically significant places on historically significant days.  But that hesitancy is not the end of our story.  Instead, how we choose to move forward empowered by God’s love will lead our story on a path that we cannot imagine.

This upcoming Friday, my five-year old niece will be in a trike-a-thon to raise money for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.  I can see her in my mind’s eye riding around the gym on her tricycle, her hair blowing behind her while her little legs peddle as hard as they can.  I don’t want her to be afraid of doing a good thing for someone because of an evil person evoking terror at another marathon at another place.  I want her to remember that her actions and choice to ride in that trike-a-thon are an example of how God’s love is greater than death, greater than illness, greater than people evoking terror in what should should be a safe and joyous occasion.  Most importantly, I want her to remember that she in her actions help to show that God’s love is real, it is constant, and it is something we can embody with every action that we take.

I will never forget where I was when I learned about the Boston Marathon bombing.  I just hope I never forget where I was when my niece tells me how she showed God’s love to sick children at a trike-a-thon when she herself was just a little girl.

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Challenging Conversations

All yesterday and this morning my news feed has been filled with updates from the United Methodist Church’s General Assembly where, in addition to other topics, they discussed the inclusion of LGBTQ people.  I was reminded of how similar those feeds read to updates from Presbyterian Church USA, and again within my own denomination of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America over the past few years.

These conversations are emotional, earth-shifting, and exhausting.  No matter which side of the aisle you stand on, it takes bravery and courage to represent your understanding of the gospel in order to help enlighten the decision making process of your denomination.  I am very clear on where I stand.  I believe that God is inclusive to all people, and that everything about our human nature is sinful because we are children of a fallen humanity.  I believe that it is God’s grace that turns our sinful nature into beautiful actions, and it is because of God’s grace that carnal lust can be transformed into a healthy, loving expression of how two people connect with one another.  I believe this is the case for heterosexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgendered people.  I believe that sex, or any action, without God’s grace is sin.  In light of God’s grace, sex or any action can be a gift that we give one another to express affection and our faith to God.  What determines that transition is if we approach our relationships in light of our faith.

Furthermore, I believe that I can support my position through scripture, confessional heritage, and testimonies of people I personally know.  However, I know that people who stand on the opposite side of the aisle also feel that they also have as much evidence of their convictions.  This is what makes having hard conversations so challenging.

But what is important is that we have such conversations.  It wasn’t until I began working for a United Church of Christ congregation that I ever had to put my theological principals into practice.  Being a representative of the church, when engaged in conversations about the LGBTQ communities, I was forced to be more thoughtful about explaining where I stand.  In that thoughtfulness, I was challenged by other people whose understanding of the gospel was different than mine.  In that challenge, I discovered that being born into a fallen humanity, a humanity entrenched in sin, that just about everything about my life would be sinful without the grace of God.  This includes my heterosexual sex-life, but not limited to my sex-life.  In those revelations I was able to embrace the freedom that comes from having been freed from my sin through the power of my baptism.  It is in that freedom that I now experience a richness in my relationship with God that I never had before.

That would not have happened had I not been challenged.  That would not have happened had I not been open to exploring the platform of the other side of the aisle.  I would not be as sure in my convictions if I hadn’t engaged in challenging conversations with people who think and act differently then me.

Do I wish that things would have been more peaceful for the UMC as they gathered this past week?  You bet.  I also wish for the ELCA that we can continue to find peace within the challenging adjustments of our 2009 sexuality statement.  I work for a periodical produced by three ELCA seminaries, and I am astounded by the number of people who discontinue their subscription because they can’t reconcile with the 2009 statement and are disconnecting themselves from anything that is ELCA related.  I see other Lutheran traditions ceasing their work with the ELCA to fight malaria and AIDS because of the 2009 statement.  Such actions are not peaceful but challenging.   I can wish and pray that as we continue to strive for equality and justice that those conversations will be peace-filled, or at least find a way to work together despite our differences, but I recognize the likelihood that we can’t always meet eye to eye even when we should.

That challenge shouldn’t stop us from trying.

Struggling with having the hard conversations is a part of what makes us human.  It is only when we accept that our nature leads us to struggle that we can see that God’s grace is patiently with us, equipping us with tools to keep moving forward.

Today, I am praying for the UMC, the PCUSA, the UCC, and the ELCA as Christians within our country move forward from the experiences of challenging conversations.  I am not going to condemn or cast blame on what hasn’t happened, or continue to tell the negative tales of what has.  I am going to keep my focus on God’s grace, and ask for guidance on knowing how to faithfully engage in eliminating the aisle.

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Sermon: Forsaken

The following sermon was preached on Good Friday, April 6, 2012 at Divinity Lutheran Church Parma Heights, OH, based on the passage Matthew 27: 45-49.

Forsaken.

That is a word I have been hearing a great deal within my community lately.

I attend seminary at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.  Located in the famous Southside of the city, my community is known for many things – the White Sox, the DuSable Museum, Lake Michigan, jazz.

The Southside also has a name for its relationship with violence.  This relationship makes the odds that you will be connected to gangs and/or homelessness to over 60%, and is why in this city over 17,000 children are labeled as “food insecure”.  These statistics are easily overlooked when glamorizing the “Windy City” with memories of a river turned green or shopping on the Magnificent Mile.  When people speak of the great city of Chicago, Southsiders often feel forsaken by the sensationalized impact of our Downtown and Northside counterparts.  There is a division among the city, and is much broader then the Cubs fans verses Sox fans.

In the wake of the death of Trayvon Martin, a young African American male who was profiled and murdered in Florida a month ago, people within my community have been vocalizing racial injustice issues found in our own backyard.  Three weeks ago, the Chicago Tribune reported that in one week in the Southside, 49 children under the age of 18 were shot, ten of which died.  These ten lives that were lost too young were a fraction of over 300 children who were killed since 2008 from gun related incidents in the Southside of Chicago alone.  Over 300 children in four years, and we aren’t even halfway through this year yet.

There is a division in my community.  Right now, on any given Sunday at any given church in the Southside, the words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” are not strange to voices raised in prayer.  I am sure our survivors and families grieving from the Chardon School shooting last month are also feeling the weight of those words, also feeling a division between their experience and the experience of their neighbor.  As we read this passage of Jesus’ words on this most holy of days, we know all too intimately what it means to feel forsaken.

For some of us, we feel forsaken by our communities in a time of violence and racial injustice.  For others, we feel forsaken by our friends who fade into the background as we wade through the murky waters of divorce.   We feel forsaken as we spend hour after hour interviewing for jobs that never quite pan out.  We may say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” as we see the red in our check books, or as we sit in through yet another round of chemotherapy.  We may feel that we are forsaken every time we risk our sobriety and are tempted to resort back to our favorite drug of choice.

There is division among us, and its anthem cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

I don’t know about you, but I am made incredibly uncomfortable by this passage from Matthew, specifically with the word “forsaken.”  I was so uncomfortable, in fact, I double checked to make sure this wasn’t some faulty literary translation.  I double checked the Greek source of this passage because I hoped that this was one of those times, maybe providing us some sort of theological wiggle room where “forsaken” perhaps could mean something else.

I peered over the text, digging into the Greek word καταλείπω (kat-al-i’-po), and what I found was not much better.  Kαταλείπω can also mean to leave behind, to desert, to abandon.

I even went so far as to check the corresponding passage in the Gospel of Mark.  There it was again – καταλείπω.  Forsaken.  Just as there is no avoiding the moments when our lives are filled with pain, when we feel that we are utterly alone, we cannot avoid that Jesus on the cross cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

This moment on the cross puts a bad taste in our mouths, equally as bitter as the vinegar that was given to Jesus upon the sponge.  We can get lost in our feelings of division, and when we hear Jesus cry out those words, it is easy to miss the good news in this message.

The good news of this message is that while these words are Christ’s, they were first ours.  Jesus does not create this anthem on the cross, but echoes this anthem from our ancestors.  He is repeating the words of the psalmist, the songs of his community.

The psalms were written after the Exodus, after the Israelites had left Egypt and had settled into what they thought would be the end of their problems, their promised land.  These were people like the many who thought they were finding refuge in the great city of Chicago only to discover the poverty and violence of the Southside.  These were people like the many who now doubt if their hometown of Chardon is as safe as they once thought.  The psalmist wrote the turmoil of the people who thought they had found safety but instead found division and despair.

Voicing the people’s pain and doubt, the psalms served as anthems voicing the troubling thoughts of the community.  When Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” he is voicing the anthem of the people who felt forsaken and ignored.  Jesus does not shy away from sharing words that are as familiar to the ears of his community as the hymns we are singing together today in our community.

The lyrics from one song, Psalm 22, go like this:

¹ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
² O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.

³ Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
⁴ In you our ancestors trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
⁵ To you they cried, and were saved;
in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.

⁶ But I am a worm, and not human;
scorned by others, and despised by the people.
⁷ All who see me mock at me;
they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;
⁸ ‘Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—
let him rescue the one in whom he delights!’

There is a division among us, and when Jesus cries out our anthem, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?,”  we should stand fast in recognizing that it is a cry of solidarity.  The psalmist tells us to commit our cause to the Lord, and upon the cross Christ is telling us that his commitment is to our cause.

Jesus cries out not because he is forsaken but because he knows that we feel forsaken.  Jesus cries out not in recognition of his own pain but in relationship with ours.  Even in the midst of extreme agony and torture, he is crying out for for our worries, placing our needs before his own.  He is reassuring us that we will not be abandoned, left behind or deserted.

Through Christ, the word “forsaken” is transformed from a symbol of despair to radical good news.  It is such good news that it is hard to grasp, one that is easier for us to taint with the vinegar that is our skepticism.

It was such radical good news that even the bystanders gathering at the cross couldn’t process it.  It was easier for them upon hearing those words to sneer, “This man is calling for his Elijah.” It was easier for them to mock then to accept that they could be supported so intimately.  It was easier for them to assume that Jesus was thinking of himself then to accept that his love for us is above his own needs and transformative.  It was easier because radical solidarity is not of this world.  When Jesus makes our anthem his own, we are forced to have faith that we will never be forsaken again, and that faith is a holy thing that is given to us as a gift from the Holy Spirit.

Christ is with the family of Trayvon Martin and the parent grieving around the world as they cope with the loss of their children. He will not forsake them.

Christ is with the students of Chardon every day as they courageously return to their studies.  He will not forsake them.

Christ is with us interview after interview, helping us reassess our budgets so we can turn our red balances into black.  We are not forsaken.

Christ is with us as our bodies are ravaged apart by chemotherapy, as we struggle with our addictions, as we suffer from food insecurity, as we search to find affordable healthcare, as we mourn the loss of our marriage, or even when we just feel blue.  We are not forsaken.

Christ is in solidarity with us, has been to the point of suffering on the cross for our sin.  This is radical good news!  This solidarity comes from a love that is beyond our understanding, and completely despite of ourselves.  Just as Christ made our anthem his, we too can make his solidarity ours.

As Christ’s representatives in this world, we need to stand strong with those who feel forsaken and build bridges in places of division.

We show solidarity with prayer, by gathering at the font, communing together with bread and with wine. We show solidarity by not shying away from telling the hard stories of our community but by uplifting the poor, whether they are poor financially or poor in spirit. We show the solidarity of Christ every time we ask someone how they are feeling when we see pain etched in their faces.  We show the solidarity of Christ when we go to Redeemer Crisis Center or help out at the Cleveland Food Bank to fill the stomach and cupboards of people labeled as being “food insecure.”

When in despair our neighbors cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” we help them remember that Christ reframed that anthem as he died upon the cross.  And in helping them remember that the bridge of our division is found in Jesus, we allow ourselves the space to remember that the word “forsaken” has a new meaning now.  In Christ, “forsaken” is radical good news.

Amen.

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Sermon: Re-Member

The following sermon was preached on Maundy Thursday, April 5, 2012 at Divinity Lutheran Church Parma Heights, OH, on the passage 1 Corinthians 11:23-32.

On January 26, I was standing on the beach at Pacific Ocean in El Salvador.  I had come to Central America on an academic delegation, and after spending a week meeting various political and religious leaders, conversing with families who had survived a horrific civil war of genocide, and learning about the roles the US government and spiritual leaders played to both perpetuate and prevent the armed conflict, I was now at the farewell worship service.

On my right stood my Salvadorian guide, Ceasar, whose father, a priest, had been assassinated because he was preaching a message of Christian non-violence during a violent time.  On my left stood a fellow seminarian, Dominic, who left the battlegrounds of Liberia to study theology in the United States.  One day Dominic will return to his wife, daughter, and mother in Africa and share the good news of Jesus Christ to a war-torn people.

I was sandwiched between two brave men who had seen the blood of their loved ones shed upon the ground, and now we were about to accept the means of grace that is the blood of Jesus Christ through Holy Communion.

I was reminded of my friend Stephanie, who when working with ELCA Young Adult in Global Mission spent a year in South Africa where she worked with people who have AIDS.  She told me that it was really powerful sharing Christ’s blood while standing beside AIDS patients, knowing that while the blood coursing through their bodies will eventually kill them, the blood that they drink together will save them.  She said that each and every time she shared the cup in South Africa she was scared because there was no escaping the sin of her humanity or the love that sets us free.

There are few times in my life where coming to the table has been a scary step.  I couldn’t help but in that moment in El Salvador to remember my first communion, here in this very sanctuary.  Like our brothers and sisters who are about to celebrate their first communion tonight, I had the loving support of my family and church behind me.  That support system watched as I took into my own hands the promises my parents made at my baptism.

I have lots of safe memories communing at the table.  I can scarcely kneel at a rail without feeling the phantom of my father, Dale, at my back.  My family always sat in the same pew, and my father always sat at the end of the isle.  Week after week, my dad would wait until my siblings, mother and I would exit the pew before he would get in line himself, so that he was the last of our family to come to the table.  I have many memories of my dad rubbing my shoulders in in a supportive way as we approached the rail, lovingly encouraging my faith each time we communed as a family.

In January, standing underneath the night sky, hearing the ocean roar as water lapped at my feet, remembering all that I had learned about the Salvadorian people, Holy Communion seemed different to me than it ever had been before.  I didn’t have my dad behind me, or the comfort of a familiar hymn ringing in the air.  Even the bread was different – a tortilla – honoring our Lutheran tradition of the body being found in the staple food of the culture.  This was a table unlike any I had ever seen, and I was really nervous.

Then my professor, a pastor, said the words found in today’s reading from Paul, “This cup is a new covenant in my blood.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

I may be going out on a limb here, but I’d be willing to bet there are some of us here today who are nervous about coming to the table and participating in this means of grace.  I’m not even thinking only about our first communion students who have dutifully studied what makes communion a sacrament and the differences between common cup and individual cups.

I bet there are those of us here today who are nervous about remembering the sin of our own humanity.  As we begin the three days which contain the death and resurrection of Christ, we cannot avoid the fact that Jesus died because we are sinners.

I believe further still that there are times when we come to the table hoping for an answer to some sort of question, only to return to our seats feeling as if nothing has changed.

While I felt grateful for the support of my family when I celebrated my first communion, it did not quite live up the hype I had in my head.  I thought I would have one of those cloud-opening moments where as soon as I swallowed the last drop of wine I would feel different and changed forever.

I can’t speak for others but for me, on my first communion, that did not happen.  Those moments have happened since, like on the beach in El Salvador, but there have been plenty of Sundays where I when I have ate, drank, and returned to my seat while the pressures that came from sinning still felt like pressure.  On those days, I recognize that something big just happened here, but I can’t quite figure it out.

I wonder if those many nights ago, as they broke bread together and Jesus washed their feet, if the disciples really understood what was happening.  I’m sure some of them knew something big just happened, but did they experience that cloud-opening moment of clarity?

I didn’t feel the cloud-opening moment at my first communion, but there have been many times since when the memory of that day has come back and enhanced things for me.  In the middle of my confirmation, right when I was reciting the Apostles Creed, I remember thinking about two other big days of faith: the day I received my first Bible and the day I first came to the table.

I remembered my first communion the day my nephew was baptized.  As I stood holding him at the font, I realized for the first time that at Divinity we keep our baptismal font at the foot of our communion rail, symbolizing how the grace of baptism and grace of communion anchor one another in our salvation.

I remembered my first communion again the first time I preached, realizing that I had to both pass a symbol of my baptism – the font – and a symbol of communion – the rail – to even make it up to the pulpit.

Memories are a powerful thing.  Memories can transform a moment that meant one thing when you experienced it to mean something totally different when you remember it.  Memories help us tell our story, and today we remember the story of the Last Supper.

But when Paul (and later Luke) tells us that Jesus says, “This cup is a new covenant in my blood.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me,” he is not just speaking to a memory.  How could we remember the Last Supper when we weren’t there?  None of us were there when the bread was initially broken, so what part of that memory is ours?

Spending some time with this passage, I discovered that there is more to the word “remember” then meets the eye.  We sometimes use the word “remember” in place of honor, as if Jesus was saying, “Do this to honor me.”  Other times the word “remember” means to think back upon a memory, or to repeat an action.  While it is important to repeat these steps and honor Christ and remember his sacrifice, we are also being called to do something much greater.

In Greek, the word “remember” comes from the root word ἀναμιμνήσκω (anamimnéskó).  This translates as going through a process of recollection, to be intentional about gathering together again, to literally re-member.

We are Christ’s body in the world.  When Jesus says “do this,” in remembrance of him, he is instructing us celebrate Holy Communion in order to re-member his body.

Presbyterians take this command to re-member the body of Christ quite literally, and as such will not celebrate communion without an assembly of people.  For them, you cannot re-member a body with only one piece of the body.  This means that when Presbyterians celebrate homebound communion, both the distributer and the homebound person take communion together, so that they are doing the work of re-membering Christ’s body.

As Lutherans, we recognize our calling to re-member Christ’s body, and whenever able we come to the table together.  This re-membering is so important to our understanding of the gospel that we open our table to anyone who wishes to be re-membered to Christ.

We also recognize a deeper layer then just assembling persons together to re-member Jesus.  We recognize that when we are joined together as one body, we share in each others stories and histories.  It is not possible for my arm to be in El Salvador while my legs remained in Parma.  All of my essence shared my experience on the beach.  All of my essence has had faith milestones in this sanctuary.  All of my essence listened to my friend Stephanie share about her time in South Africa.

So when we join together and re-member Christ’s body at the table, we are also merging together our essences and our experiences.  My story becomes your story, and your story becomes mine.  When we re-member as the body of Christ through the means of Holy Communion, my story of El Salvador becomes our story of El Salvador, and Stephanie’s memories of South Africa become our memories of South Africa.  We also reconnect to those who have gone before us, and by remembering the histories of the foot washing, the betrayal of Jesus, the death on the cross and the resurrection from the tomb, we join together so that those stories become our stories too.

So it’s okay if there are times when we come to the table praying for some sort of spiritual awakening that doesn’t quite happen, because there are others who are creating life changing memories that will affect the our body of our church.  Think of how our lives are transformed by re-membering with the disciples who ate with Jesus at the Last Supper.  Their experience at that meal continues to shape our faith every time we taste the bread and the wine.

We have been transformed by the disciples’ experience, just as we will go forth and transform another person’s experience.  There will be times when we come to the table and what we encounter will be so powerful that we will feel we have no choice but to share that memory with someone else so that they can encounter the joy of being re-membered as Christ’s body.

We describe Holy Communion as a means of grace because it is a sacred thing to be connected to each other through the sacrifice of Jesus.  It is only because of the grace of God’s love for us that despite our sin we are granted this magnificent blessing.

It was grace that allowed me to be re-membered with Ceasar and Dominic, having their brave histories become a part of my memory.  It was grace that allowed Stephanie to see her own salvation while drinking Christ’s blood with brothers and sisters who are dying from the poison of their own blood.  It is grace that re-members our homebound members to those able to assemble together at Divinity each Sunday.  It is grace that will re-member us with a future generation as our young people celebrate communion for the first time today.  We are not worthy of this gift of re-membering, but God’s love for us is so strong that we are given this gift.

This gift is not something that should be taken lightly.  Paul tells us,

“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.  Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”

Paul urges us to recognize the importance of this re-membering.  He asks us to hold this gift with respect, examining our intentions of why we come to the table.  Are we coming seeking forgiveness?  Are we coming to connect as the body of Christ?  Are we coming, in hopes that this will meal will help enhance our faith?  Or are we coming to the table because we this is just what we do on Maundy Thursday, that this is just an expectation of being a part of the church?

All are invited to the table to experience this grace, and grace will be given to anyone who seeks it.  It is a miraculous thing, and Paul is right to encourage us to recognize the blessing of what Holy Communion means.

Amen.

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This is Why I Occupy

This afternoon I and four other friends from seminary attended an event called Occupy Palm Sunday.  This event, sponsored by four congregations in Logan Square, talked about housing, immigration, healthcare, and food justice from a Christian community perspective.  United together, we sang songs, broke bread, and learned about different ways we can be involved in creating equality within our home.

I’ll be honest, in general I’m not someone who totally get’s the whole “Occupy” movement.  I admire the goal to help bring awareness to the difference between the 99% and the 1%, and my heart simmers with joy at knowing that people are trying to find away to work together.  However, the deepest recesses of my identity recognizes I am a planner.  When I look at the overall “Occupy” movement, I get overwhelmed with knowing how to move from information sharing to the next steps of problem solving.  I see the people camped in tents and want to know their plan, even as I recognize that for some “Occupiers” their main plan is to inform.

This past January when I was in El Salvador, I was granted access into the cathedral in San Salvador which was at the time occupied by a para-military group.  This cathedral is the Catholic Church’s Salvadoran epicenter, the place where the Archbishop of El Salvador resides and works.  This space is also important because the mausoleum of Archbishop Romero is found inside its basement.

The January occupation occurred by people who fought in the civil war.  The war had ended with the signing of the Peace Accords.  20 years later aspects of that agreement had not been upheld by the current government, resulting in ex-soldiers and their families starving to death.  They tried to negotiate change peacefully, but 20 years later were still starving.  So in January, with firepower, they forced the Archbishop out of the space and closed the cathedral off from the community.  The occupation prevented anyone from the community to enter to worship.  The occupation caused pilgrimages hoping to visit Romero to cease.  Yet I, a privileged US citizen, someone whose income would place me in the 1% if I was a Salvadoran, was invited into the cathedral where native citizens could not go.  Granted, there were shotguns pointed at me the entire time I took pictures in of the tomb, and I was unable to leave until I heard the para-military groups demands.  But the fact remains that because I came from a place of privilege I was safe in God’s house when people of the community were not.

Since that day, I look at the word “occupy” quite differently.  I now recognize that at any moment I could slide between the barriers between the 99% and the 1%.  At any moment I could be the oppressed or I could be the oppressor.  I could be the person who needs to be uplifted or I could be the person who steps on others as I rise the top.  That experience also showed me that sometimes the separation between church and state also have barriers that slide back and forth.  It was a para-military group that stopped the Salvadorans from worshiping in their Cathedral, and in the United States the limitations of our laws at times are what stop us from being able to provide care to all who need it.

This afternoon, a speaker mentioned that to live in Chicago, the average person would either need to work 81 hours a week at a minimum-wage job or get paid over $18 an hour at a 40-hour-a-week job to be able to afford housing.  I know I don’t get paid anywhere near $18 an hour at either of my jobs or even work close to 81 hours a week, and I consider myself secure in my middle class status.  Then again, I am fortunate enough to be in school and receiving scholarships, and my home parish helps to cover some of my tuition.  Where would I be if this was three years down the line and I was still at the same jobs at the same rate?  I know where I would be — homeless.

Knowing that the barrier between safety and insecurity can so easily slide back and forth for any of us, noticing that the separation between church and state is not as stable as I once thought, I need to have a plan.  I need to know that there is something secure to set my sights on, something that will stand the test of time and the roller-coaster of our economic system.

That something is the love of Christ, and my plan is never to forget that love.  It is through the love of Christ that I have people helping to support me while I am in seminary.  It is through the love of Christ that my income comes from my employment in serving a Christian parish and serving a Christian periodical.  It is through the love of Christ that I was able to car-pool with fellow students to worship in the square with four very different congregations. It is through the love of Christ that today each person who was able brought a few snacks to share and we not only fed the large crowd but had leftovers.

I “occupy” because the message of the good news of God’s love for us transcends the limitations of our barriers.  This message and sacred love is what gives us the fuel to keep striving for justice, learning how we can work with one another so that we all can feel as fortunate as the 1% of the community. I “occupy” because my God loves me so much that even in my darkest hours I am never alone, and this is a message too good to keep to myself.

This Palm Sunday, my occupation is one of praise and thanksgiving to the one who rode into our midst to transform our lives.

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Work Enrichment

This past week has provided me with two powerful worship experiences.  On Sunday, I was officially installed at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan Square, the parish where I serve as their administrative assistant.  On Monday, I was part of a healing service that I helped plan with my dear friend.

When you spend as much time in chapel as seminarians tend to do, it can be hard to have your spirit feel fed.  I know for myself worship has felt an awful lot like business this semester.  I’m taking a course on worship, and I find myself examining the execution services;  Did the pastor hold her arms out when she greeted the congregation? Is the sermon based on the lectionary?  How does the assembly dispose of the left-over sacramental elements?  Add to these questions that fact that I have spent the last six weeks scouting congregations to complete my field work at next year, and it can be hard to set aside business and just worship.

So imagine my surprise when I was nurtured at the two services that were actually supposed to be work.

I had never planned a worship service before, and I was more than a little terrified for Monday.  I was fortunate to be working with someone I trust a great deal.  We planned this service with the intention that we would create awareness for sexual and domestic assault survivors.  This is a subject that hits very close to home.  In my own healing and work with survivors I have longed to be a part of service that did not back down from naming the evil that is assault.  I give thanks to my friend who knows that finding a voice for survivors in worship is important to the ministry of our church.  I also give thanks that our preacher on Monday was a pastor who did not try to dress up “sexual assault and domestic violence” with ambiguous and flowery words but to name it as it is.  Because we were able to name the evil, we created a space where people felt safe to come forward and receive healing for all sorts of pain, assault and beyond.  As I and three others sang “Grace Like Rain,” almost every person in the assembly went to prayer stations and were anointed.  I felt my knees buckle at the magnitude of our communities openness to feel God’s love for them.  The Holy Spirit was truly present in that place, and in that moment there was no doubt that the gospel reached our community.  I will carry the feeling of that day in my heart forever.

I will also carry the memory of being installed at St. Luke’s with me forever.  I loved working for Pilgrim UCC, loved how I was stretched and grew within that community.  I learned that God was calling me into pastoral ministry because of Pilgrim, and there will never be a time when I will forget that it was that environment that nurtured the journey I am on today.  But standing up in front of a new body of believers and committing myself to service in them in light of the scriptures and our shared Lutheran confessions solidifies my sense of vocation in a way that I cannot explain.  God has called me to the Lutheran church because God wants me to bear witness to our confessional doctrine that we are justified by grace through faith in Christ without works righteousness.  I can live out that vocation and discover what sort of leader I am being called to be in a Lutheran church in a way that I cannot live out in a different denomination.  It is one thing to say theoretically that I will uphold Lutheran confessional doctrine, but it is something else entirely to make that promise publicly before God and witnesses.  Making such promises makes my position not just a job, but a relationship.  It is humbling to realize that I have been invited into this relationship, and that God will continue to invite me into relationships in future communities.

It is a miraculous thing to be a part of a profession where doing your work enriches your spirit, and I give thanks that I can experience such miracles.

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Standing in Solidarity

Over the past few days in Chicago and on my news-feed there have been a lot of commentaries regarding the tragic  death of Trayvon Martin.  Most of them are crying out at the injustice of this situation.  People are crying out that even though this young man died in February we are just now seeing the shockwaves hit social media sites and blogs. People are crying out that the fight against racism seems to be a never-ending battle.  People are crying out that despite saying that we are counter-cultural, that we are for the innocent, Trayvon’s death still hasn’t been preached about from many pulpits.  There is a great grieving in our nation, and in our grief we can feel alone.

I was struck by this sense of loneliness when one of my best friends and a dear colleague wrote about here fear for her African-American brother as a white woman.  She spoke of how hard it is to be a white person and see the unnecessary persecution her brother experiences solely because of the color of his skin.  I felt her loneliness, because I myself grew up in a multi-racial household.  My brother was black, and often a pretty challenging person to be around.  He was challenging not because he was black, but because he was just a difficult person.  Because of the racism that is so prevalent but we try to ignore, I cannot talk about those challenges without the fear that it will give people an excuse to condemn an entire ethnic group.  I have told the story of my brother leaving my family many times, and more often than I would like to admit people ask me, “How does this affect how you feel about black people?”  I am tempted to counter and say, “You don’t talk to your dad anymore. Does this affect how you see white people?”  It would be futile to ask such questions because the answer is obvious.  The fact that I am asked such questions when they would not consider to ask such questions to themselves shows me how we still need to work on equality.

While I ache for the family of Trayvon Martin, my heart burns with a fever for those who die that are not named, for the unknown victims that live in our own backyards.  Another colleague wrote about her struggle with knowing she is treated different because she is white.  In that same post, she noted that in one week on the Southside of Chicago, the community I call home, 49 people were shot and 10 people were killed.  It burns within my heart that I do not know the names of those people, and that I am only learning of the name of Trayvon now.  I am reminded how weeks after the Chardon school shooting I still only know the names of two of the students who died.  I long for the strength of Archbishop Romero, who at the end of every homily read the names of everyone who was reported to have disappeared or died within his country.

I find it ironic that the story of Trayvon’s death has become a fixture in Chicago news the same weekend that the Hunger Games hit the theaters.  This is a movie based on a book that points out the horror that can befall a society at the hands of the unjust being in power.  I think about the thousands of people, myself included, who watched that movie, thinking of how fortunate I am that I do not live in a world where I am entered into a death lottery every time I prevent myself from starving.  However, when I hopped into my car and drove home from the theater, I passed the homeless people begging for change and didn’t even bat an eye.  I can’t help now but think of the 49 people whose names I do not know, wondering if those people where people I overlooked as I left a $12 movie to drive home in my comfy car.  I further wonder, is it easier for us to know Trayvon’s name instead of those 49 because he was a good kid from a good home?  Would we be marching protests if Trayvon had been begging for change instead of buying skittles?

There are no answers to such questions.  There are no easy answers to why we know the names of some victims and not others, why it is easier for us to be appalled at a movie instead of appalled at our own  inept actions.  I do not regret knowing the name Trayvon Martin, nor do I regret that our community is using our grief over his death to serve as an example to our society that there is still much work to be done.  In times like this, when we feel so alone in our inability to move forward, we need to look at a picture of a sweet boy and write his names on posters and blog articles.  We need to be in solidarity with his family because it forces us to become accountable to one another, to give a face and name to the 49 and thousands of others who are forgotten within our midst.

This Wednesday, March 28, a group of seminarians will be marching from the 11am chapel service of the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago to a prayer vigil in our community.  All who would like to attend are asked to wear hoodies in solidarity of Trayvon, and those with collars are asked to wear collars with their hoodies in solidarity to all of the lives lost within our community.  I would so love to be at that vigil, but I have other work that needs to be done.  I have other responsibilities to help bring justice to my community, and as much as I would love to attend it would do no good for me to fight the battle but forget the war.  But I can be in solidarity even if I can’t be in the trenches.  I will wear my clerics with a hoodie and remember the lives that were lost too young.

Today I stand in solidarity with the loved ones of Trayvon Martin, and I pray for the strength to continue being in solidarity with all of my brothers and sisters who suffer at the hands of racism and homelessness.

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Accumulation of Optimism

This morning I was in a class about Lutheran Confessions, and we began a discussion about original sin – specifically, how in a post-modern world where the majority of people (including myself) accept that evolution exists do we account for “the fall” of Adam and Eve.

Ultimately, the discussion concluded that the proof is not in the fact that we can definitely verify that there was a woman named Eve and a man named Adam.  The proof is that brokenness, sin, is a surrounding presence in the world.  There is no denying that there are flaws in human nature.  There is no denying that  within our daily newspaper we read account after account of people committing wrongs against humanity and nature.  The proof of the fall is not in the story of Adam and Eve.  The proof is the existence of sin in our reality.

As this conversation evolved, my professor noted that at times evolution can often be an optimistic perspective.  Since only the strong survive, then clearly we are improving, right?  Nature continues to improve.  Starting after the healing that happened after Hiroshima, my professor talked about how the world started to become increasingly more optimistic.  Things got better.  For him, 1989 and the peace marches at the Berlin Wall was a moment of time that could be described as the “accumulation of optimism.”  The reality that evolution does not prevent human sin set back in during the Gulf War.

All around my class, I saw heads nodding, agreeing with the wonderful moment that was the Berlin Wall, remembering a moment where the world was at peace. I couldn’t help but remember that in 1989, El Salvador was in the midst of a civil war.  While the United States was celebrating peace in Germany, we were also contributing a million dollars a day to help support the genocide of the Salvadorian people.

I remember growing up hearing about the Berlin Wall.  I was only four when it fell, so my knowledge is solely through the memories of my parents and history books.  If I learned anything in my time in El Salvador, it is that during the armed conflict the United States media intentionally turned a blind eye on Central America and was encouraged to do so by a variety of financial powerhouses.  It is no accident that the World History books I studied in high school spoke of Berlin but not of El Salvador.

With that knowledge, I can’t realistically be upset that when most US citizens think about global politics in 1989 they think of the Berlin Wall rather than the Salvadorian civil war.  I also do not want to be such a pessimist that I cannot recognize the powerful moment in history that was peace in Germany just because another part of the world was suffering.  That would be like never celebrating the birthday of a child born on September 11.  One horror does not negate a tremendously joyful moment in time.

What I’m thinking, rather, is that my experience  in El Salvador calls me to draw attention to the history and present state of Central America.  This also means calling attention to the joys as well as the sorrow El Salvador had a day that represented the “accumulation of optimism.” For that country it was the the day the Peace Accords were signed.  Just as I in a post-modern world can’t point out one specific moment when the fall of Adam and Eve happened, I also can’t point out a moment in time when one form of genocide was worse than another, or one day of peace greater is then another.  It is not my place to rank such joys and travesties, just as it’s not my place to take away the wonderful memory from my colleagues because I have been granted insight into a culture of the world that our media has systematically hid for years.

It is my place to recognize that God was present at both places – battling on the mountainside of El Salvador while holding candles at the Berlin Wall.  It is beautiful to note that even when some of our humanity is in the midst of a fall, God is working to pull other parts up from the rubble.

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Juxtaposing Theologies

“All we say to America is, ‘Be true to what you said on paper.’” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, referring to First Amendment rights in his speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountain”

The spring semester of seminary is in full swing, and today as I sat in my worship class I learned something new about juxtaposition.  My professor explained that in Lutheran liturgy we juxtapose two different things, like the Word and Sacrament or a Hebrew Bible or New Testament lesson, to see an underlying truth.  It is in comparing two things that seem completely unrelated that we are able to recognize a hidden truth that unites them intimately to one another, and ultimately ourselves.

I am not yet a week back from a trip to El Salvador where I was given the unique privilege of juxtaposing the Salvadoran experience to my own U.S. citizen experience.  I can say unequivocally that seeing these two cultures side-by-side in the context of my existence exposed a third and more pure truth.  The entirety of that truth is still unfolding for me, but a component that I cannot deny is that despite all odds, the grace and strength of humanity will ultimately ring true.

This cart pulled the casket of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at his funeral.

This past Monday I began a class on the theology of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  To be honest, I wasn’t entirely jazzed about taking this class.  I registered for it because I needed to fill a requirement and it fit really well within my schedule.  It’s not that I didn’t want to study Dr. King, per say, but in conjunction with my personal history, my overall love of liberation theology, and my past employment history, I felt that I have a strong understanding of the prophetic voice of this amazing American theologian.  I was hoping that I may be able to dig deep into a different American theologian to broaden my horizon, so to speak.  Unfortunately, that option wasn’t available to me at this point at my seminary, so I signed up for the Dr. King course.

I am so grateful things unfolded the way they have and I am now studying his theology at this moment in my life.  The very first day of class, we watched a moving documentary about Dr. King and the civil rights movements.  Coming off the heels of my Salvadoran experience, images I have previously seen and sermons I could quote by heart are now shed in a completely different light.  The juxtaposition of speaking to people who personally knew and worked with Archbishop Romero, a liberation theologist and civil rights advocate of El Salvador, my heart was moved in a way that it had never been before at the work of Dr. King and his contemporaries.

The body of Archbishop Romero

I watched as hoses were turned on African-Americans as they registered to vote, and I was reminded of monuments to the civilian Salvadorans who have disappeared or been missing for 20 years.  In the movie, I saw African-Americans kneel in prayer as they began the march on Selma, and I was reminded that Salvadorans celebrate a special liturgy at the foot of Archbishop Romero’s body.  I watched Dr. King’s casket being pulled down the street by a horse and buggy, the same buggy I saw in person in Atlanta not more than 5 months ago, and I was reminded of hearing the testimony of Catholic nuns who carried Archbishop Romero’s lifeless body out of the chapel where he had been shot into the bed of a truck.  As I listened to Dr. King tell people that we should hold our local governments accountable to the rights granted to every U.S. citizen in the First Amendment, I was reminded of the apology from President Funes to the Salvadoran people for the government’s role in the massacre of El Mozote.

Perhaps the most striking juxtaposition was watching Dr. King’s work in Chicago, recognizing that many of the same issues of racial injustice that promoted their march here are issues that my community is still facing today, issues that can be found in any major city be it Chicago, San Salvador or in the West Bank.

And while comparing these situations side-by-side may seem like there are more obstacles ahead of us than behind us, the third truth is still revealed.  No matter what our challenges, no matter how much we have suffered, been abused or let down, we still can unite together and make a difference.  The Salvadoran people are working together to try to rebuild their communities in healthy ways 20 years after the signing of the Peace Accords which ended their civil war.  U.S. Citizens still advocate for racial justice 40 plus years after the death of Dr. King.  The third truth is that no matter what the challenge, the strength of the human spirit when supported by other advocates can truly make a change in the world.

The road may be long, the challenges may be mountainous, but the ability to move forward is always before us because our efforts our supported by a God who loves us enough to weep when we weep, celebrate in our triumphs, and who has provided us with the comrades needed to carry on our journey.

There are times when our theologies will be different, when it seems like our plight is one that no one else can understand.  It is then we need to juxtapose those theologies and see the third truth, that truth of strength, which will help us keep on keeping on.

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From El Salvador to the Cook County Morgue

Last night I returned from spending ten days on an academic delegation in El Salvador to learn from a local television station that the nearest morgue of my Chicago home has been piling bodies in a corner for several months, stacking 400 adult and 100 babies like piles of trash.

It is clear to me that my time in Central America has been and will continue to be a transformative time in my life.  I’m sure that the impact of those ten days will continue to roll out feelings, thoughts and insights for many years to come.  I learned a lot about humanity, hope, the impacts of civil war, U.S. foreign policy, violence, peace, faith, healthcare, justice and solidarity from the Salvadoran people.  I am beginning to realize that my former understanding of the complexities of life barely scratch the surface to what those complexities actually are, particularly in a non-first-world country.

But what I cannot understand is how in a first-world county, in the same county as what I consider to be one of the greatest cities of the United States, can the remains of people be treated with such blatant disrespect and disregard.

To make matters worse, the responses I’ve read this morning of the people in charge do not seem to be so disheartened.  I am appalled and horrified that not only something like this has happened, but that the response by Commissioner Fritchey includes the statement, “It’s difficult to find a morgue anywhere that’s going to look like one out of a TV show where everything is shiny and spotless.”  Clearly this issue is bigger then a difference between Hollywood and Main Street.  To attempt to make that parallel almost as disgusting as the conditions of which these bodies are treated.

Medical Examiner Jones has tried to brush this off as a result of the poor of our community not being able to afford proper burials.  Unclaimed bodies of Cook County are typically buried in the pauper’s grave of Homewood, along with the fetuses and babies who died during delivery of families who cannot afford a private burial.  While there is no doubt that $13 million dollars of budget cuts accounts for a challenging process to afford to bury these bodies, news reports have proven that many of the bodies currently in the morgue are family members of people who are trying to find out what happened to their loved ones.  The report I watched last night showed a mother who called every day seeking answers for the whereabouts of her daughter.  She was not notified that the morgue had her daughter’s remains until May, only to discover later that the body had been identified as early as April.

El Salvador taught me a broader understanding of the word “solidarity.”  As I sit here in my comfy apartment in Hyde Park, I am reminded that part of my responsibility as both a human and a Christian is to be in solidarity with those who suffer, whether they are families in Cook County or families near the equator. I will never be able to sort through what I learned in another nation if I am unwilling to do the work and sort through what I am seeing in my own backyard.

Those of us who are fortunate to be born in a first-world country and be born into a place upper societal standing within that world need to not be passive observers of the horrors and frustrations of our surroundings.  I could look at this morgue situation and do what I have always done – pray for the families, follow the news stories, vote for different officials – or I can take this message of solidarity and push harder against the injustices in my surroundings.  I’m not sure yet at this present moment how I can be a voice of change in this situation, but I need to do more than be a passive observer.

I live in a nation where I am free, and have been my entire life, to express my thoughts about what is happening in my government without the fear of being massacred.  This is a luxurious right that far too many inhabitants of this world do not or have not had.  I was fortunate enough to learn about the struggles that unfold from fighting for that right, and it would be an insult to my experience in El Salvador to forget that the moment I first encounter injustice in my own community.

What is happening at the Cook County morgue is an injustice, and it should not be tolerated.  I pray for the courage to devise a way to take action and remind my local authorities the responsibility that comes with the benefits of being a first-world nation.

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