Reading the Magnificat in Aberdeen

I asked our Bible study group if it was ok if I blogged some of our discussion and they were enthusiastic about sharing our conversations. “We want people to know what we are doing!” So, for those of you who want to know what one of our Bible studies look like, this is last Sunday:

Every Sunday, we meet for Bible study. There are usually 10-12 of us, people from many different backgrounds and experiences, most of us poor, some of us homeless. We always begin with sharing who we are and lighting candles around the table with our prayers for hope and healing and peace. We read our text and the table is open for discussion.

Until Advent, we are reading various texts in the Bible that address poverty and discussing what these texts mean for us.

Yesterday, we read Mary’s song in Luke 1:46-55, commonly called the Magnificat in liturgical churches. We ask two questions in our Bible studies. The first is simple: What strikes you in this passage? What jumps out at you?

·         Mary must have really had a hard time. As an unwed mother, she would have been frowned on. But look at her—she is praising God!

·         Mary is from Nazareth, a little town in Galilee. And people said of Nazareth—“Can any good come from Nazareth?” It was a town with a bad rap.

·         God chose Mary because she was humble and because she was poor.

·         These promises are for all generations and for all peoples.

·         All of these promises haven’t happened yet—the powerful are still on their thrones and the poor are still poor.

After we read the text for a second time, we ask a second question: What does this passage mean for us, here and now, in Aberdeen in 2014?

·         God brings the rich down to earth—God rejects arrogance. God wants us to be humble. We talked about how its so easy to be arrogant.

·         Sometimes rich people think they have special blessing and we are taught that God blesses people with wealth. If that is true, then poor people have done something wrong and are being punished. But, in this passage, God cares about the poor and blesses the poor.

·         God loves everyone. But God has special care for people who are poor.

·         Some of us shared our experiences of poverty. Poor people realize that their riches are in heaven.

·         Its hard to get through the eye of a needle.

·         In this town, the poor are of no importance. It seems like city leaders don’t care about us. That we are just a nuisance in the way of redevelopment.

·         I pointed out that most people in Aberdeen are actually poor. More and more, people are becoming poor, all over the country. We talked about how this is a growing reality for all of us.

·         If these promises are for all people, how can we address the things that divide us, that divide Spanish and English speakers in this community, for example?

·         Its still hard for single mothers in our community. But, in this text, God chooses a single mom to bring Jesus in the world. God doesn’t judge like we judge.

 

·         We talked about the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We talked about female images of God in the Bible.

 

We closed our time together with Eucharist, naming our hope of living in a world where the poor were valued and no longer exploited, where all were fed and none went hungry.

Sermon: "See How They Love Each Other!"

Texts: Matthew 22:34-46, 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

 

People often ask me, when I tell them about my work, about my ministry—“Aren’t you afraid?”

And I always have the same answer—“No, I am not afraid. I feel tremendously privileged to get to know the brave men and women who are struggling to survive here in the county. I’m honored to know the people I call friends.”

And every word of that is true.

But the truth is, I am also afraid.

Every day, I am afraid.

I am afraid that the three little babies who came to the church door the other day with their parents—I am afraid that they do not have a safe place to stay tonight or enough to eat.

I am afraid that the old man who looks like my grandpa and who is sleeping out in the cold—that he will not get the care he deserves and that he will die alone—and no one should die alone.

I am afraid that the young woman who is carrying a child—that, as hard as she is trying to do the right thing, that she will not be able to find a stable, safe place to raise her baby, a place that even has running water and electricity.

I am afraid that the talented kids I meet—the artists and the musicians and the writers—that they won’t be able to grace this community with their talents because they are struggling too hard to survive or they end up spending too much of their time in jail.

I am afraid that the kid who is hanging on by a thread to hope—that he will give up and overdose just to escape the pain.

I am afraid that people living in the apartments buildings of downtown Aberdeen will go without heat this winter as they pay most of their paycheck toward rent for buildings that are never maintained.

I am afraid that the gal with chronic health issues will die before she gets the help she needs.

The worst thing in the world is to watch those you love die.

I am afraid, my brothers and sisters, I am afraid. Every day.

I’m afraid that this violence of poverty, this violence of houselessness, this violence of want—will continue. I’m afraid of the realities that divide us.

Those of us with homes and those of us without homes—those of us who have jobs and those of us who can’t find work—those of us who are English speakers and those of us who are Spanish speakers—those of us from “good” families and those of us from “bad” families.

I am afraid most of all that we won’t learn how to love each other in time. That we won’t remember Jesus’s commandments—

“Love God with all your heart, mind and soul. And love your neighbor as yourself”

I am afraid, my brothers and sisters, I am afraid.

 

In our second reading, Paul is also afraid. Paul is known to us as perhaps the founder of Christianity. The man who traveled throughout what is now Turkey and Italy, building the Jesus Movement. He’s a complicated guy, Paul is, but he also a person of great passion.

The letter we read this morning was one of the first letters he wrote, to the community of Thessalonica, a Greek trade city. Paul had spent time in the city, building a congregation of people there. He had come to Thessalonica from Philippi, where he’d been beat up pretty bad and spent time in jail. In Thessalonica, he didn’t fare too much better and eventually was run out of town by the city council and some of his followers there were beat up by a mob.

So, now Paul is worried. He is afraid for the community he had grown to love in Thessalonica, so he writes to them, pouring out his heart.

He writes that he didn’t only want to share the gospel with them—the good news that God is with us in Jesus—but he says he wanted to share his very self. He was willing to suffer—to get beat up—eventually even to die as he does years later—for those he loved, for the people he loved.

He knows that the Thessalonian community is facing great struggle. Living under the Roman empire, facing opposition from the religious leaders, and from the city council, he know they were a suffering community. They were grieving people who had died, they were struggling to survive.

And so Paul writes them out of his fear for them, out of his love for them. He writes to tell them of his love. And he writes to encourage them. He tells them in the rest of the letter—the only way you are going to get through this, the only way you are going to win in the end—is to love each other.

To take care of each other. The only way to live and survive under empire was to love each other. This was Jesus’ message—this was Paul’s message.

And the Thessalonian community did suffer.

And they learned to love.

They become one of the significant communities following Jesus in that first century. They became known for their love. Love in the face of violence. Love in the face of suffering.

You want to know my dream for this community, my dream for the harbor?

Its that we will become known for our love. That we will follow Jesus so faithfully in this town, that we will hear the words of Jesus so closely in this town—that we will learn to love each other. That we will be known for our love.

Love in the face of suffering, of violence.

And lets be clear. Love is not some warm, mushy feeling. Love is one of the most courageous things we do. It means that we put our lives on the line for each other. That we look after our children and our young people. That we treat each other as full human beings, with respect, knowing that-in every person is the image of God, no matter who they are or where they came from or what they are dealing with. It means that people get the support they need to become the full children of God that they are. It means that no one goes hungry and no one shivers in unheated apartments. It means we make the commitment to each other and our communities that, to the best of our ability, no one dies alone.

More than anything, my brothers and sisters, it means sharing in joy! Sharing in life together. With love, with true love in action, comes joy. No one in this town is a problem to be fixed. No one in this town is anyone less than a child of God.

When we live like this is true, we find joy, we find prosperity, we find hope.

Is it possible that Aberdeen, WA, that the harbor could be that place? That the world could look at us in these changing and difficult times and say—see how they love each other! Like the ancient Jesus Movement of Paul? Like the Thessalonians?

I see a lot of love in this town, my brothers and sisters. I see it when Mary V talks to high schoolers about their dreams. Or when someone gives their last dollar or turns the other cheek, which is awfully hard to do. I see people encourage each other and love each other every day.

But I see the violence of poverty, the violence of need, the violence of abandonment every day too.

And I dream, my brothers and sisters, I dream. I dream that we can live out our faith in love and joy in this town, this harbor I love so much.

I have to tell you something. Paul talks about his deep love for the community of Thessalonica. As I have continued work here on the harbor, the place I grew up, I have grown to love this place. So. Much.

It is because I love this place I am afraid.

And it is because I love this place that I dream. Let us so transform this town, this harbor—so that all the world might see and might say—“See how they love each other!”

A Confession

It has been said that confession is good for the soul. And, as a pastor in community, I find that I sometimes need to make a public confession. Its not to beat myself up. Or the wallow in some kind of self-pity or guilt. Just a simple statement of fact, an admission of failure, and a resolve to turn around.

I have been deeply moved by the events that have unfolded in Ferguson, MO over the past few months. I am particularly moved by the voices of young black men and women, voicing their despair, their experiences of violence and fear, their wild hope for a better future. Some of their experiences of poverty and violence are similar to the experiences of young women and men all over this country, across racial difference. And, yet, we do not talk to each other.

As a white gal in a majority white town, I can choose to ignore the racial divides among us.

A wake up call for me was a conversation I recently had with a young Latina woman in this community. As I struggled and fumbled with my very rusty Spanish, she told me about her experiences of racism. And she challenged me: she asked me if my work was just for whites or if it was for Latinos too.

I haven’t been able to get that conversation out of my head. I haven’t been able to get away from the realization that it is so easy for me to ignore the experiences of my Latino and Native and Black brothers and sisters in this community. To come up with excuses about how busy I am or how bad my Spanish sounds or how divisive these things are.

The young woman I spoke with was a prophet in this community. She was challenging power and challenging the systems of racism in our society. And I needed to hear her words.

So, this is my confession. And my commitment. To listen. To continue to build relationships with the Native peoples of this community. To intentionally talk about racism in our community and to intentionally listen to my black and Latino brothers and sisters. To prioritize this work.

Because confession is all about repentance, is it not?