Walking the Minefields: Lent 1

Text: Mark 1:9-15
St Columba's Kent, WA

I just returned from a trip to Palestine. While I was there, we visited the Jordan river and reaffirmed our baptismal vows in the muddy waters of the Jordan. The area was under Israeli control and as we walked back the land on either side of us was littered with minefields. Barbed wire fences marked “Danger! Mines!” surrounded us. It was a reminder of the war and the destruction experienced in that land. It was a reminder of the giant concrete wall that ran through that land, imprisoning a whole people under occupation.

 

 

At the river, we said:

“We will continue in the apostles teaching, the breaking of the bread, and prayers.”

At the river, we said:

“We will respect the dignity of every human being”

We reaffirmed our baptismal covenant.

And then we walked past a minefield to bear witness to tremendous suffering and oppression.

When Jesus was baptized in that same river 2,000 years ago, he was also living under military occupation. He was living in a land suffering from deep poverty, suffering the humiliation and the danger of living under a military occupation.

He was baptized in that land.

And, after his baptism, after his wilderness experience, he sets off to Galilee, the place he grew up, to proclaim this message:

"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

I always imagine what a message this must have been in Galilee. The place where over half of what people grew to eat was taxed and so children went hungry. The place where, at times, the roads were lined with crosses as the Roman governor executed rebellious people. The place where I imagine people were so tempted to give into despair. To give up hope.

The kingdom of God has come near.

Turn around. Turn away from despair. Turn away from hopelessness. Turn away from the messages of empire. And build a new kingdom.

And turn toward the kingdom of God, which is here, which is coming. Believe that this good news is possible. Trust and hope that it is possible.

The kingdom of God comes, and Jesus preaches it, as he walks into the minefields with his people. As he walks the way of the death with his people—he points to the coming kingdom of God. He teaches his people to live the kingdom of God in the face of empire.

In Acts, as Jesus’ followers take up his mission, they design a community where all are fed and no one goes hungry. They design a community where all are given dignity and are able to live in dignity.

As a few of you might know, I work in Grays Harbor County, in Aberdeen and Westport, both rural towns, and I run a ministry called Chaplains on the Harbor.

Our mission is to work alongside people living on the streets and in poverty. We struggle deeply with poverty in my county. 50% of people live under 200% of the poverty line. Hundreds of my brothers, my sisters live on the street and hundreds more, esp young people, couch surf. In Aberdeen, we die of treatable diseases and often live in homes and tent cities without running water, heat, or electricity.

And people have so often given into despair. 1/3 of our high schoolers struggle with severe depression. Most of the people I talk to wonder if hope is possible.

People who visit Grays Harbor or Aberdeen say; “I’ve never seen so many people, I’ve never seen so many young people who look so defeated.”

In this place, in this context, Jesus’ message is profound.

“Turn around. Repent. The kingdom of God is coming. Hope is possible. Each of you, every one of us, is a child of God and deserves dignity and life and a future.”

This Lent, in our Bible study, we are asking about our hopes and dreams for Aberdeen. People who are experiencing dire poverty are asking—how can we raise awareness of poverty in our city? How can we address the powers that be? How can we fight for better housing and a better life? How can, and people get really excited about this, how can we build a movement to end poverty in our county?

How can, in other words, how can we struggle for the kingdom of God?

What we see in Aberdeen and in Westport, is the same thing that people all over the US are experiencing. Its not only Aberdeen. In the United States, 1% of our population, 3.5 million people, are homeless in any given year. In the United States, 50% of our national population is either poor or low income, and a growing number of those people are in small towns and suburbs. Poverty is a national crisis. It is our minefield. I know you see similar realities here in Kent, in south King county, with increasing suburban poverty and homelessness.

Part of the reason I was invited to come here and speak with you is that you are hosting a men’s shelter for the month of March. First, I want to say, thank you so much for being willing to do this. The number of people who are finding themselves houseless is growing in this country. What a great Lenten practice, to live out the gospel in this way, to offer shelter to Jesus wandering on the road, to give rest to Jesus as he walks the way of the cross.

Today, it is an invitation to our baptismal covenant.

So often, in our society we frame this work as “helping others.” As “doing a Christian duty of charity.” Feeding the hungry, housing the houseless.

Our baptismal covenant frames it differently. It frames our calling, our vow to continue in the apostles teaching—those practices of living together in a world where all are fed and none are hungry, where we give up greed for wealth and power and distribute as each has need.

It frames our calling, our vow to respect the dignity of every human being. We live in a world, in a society that blames the poor for their poverty. People who have nowhere to go carry a tremendous burden of shame. A tremendous burden under a message of worthlessness and hopelessness. In my ministry, nothing has been more important than affirming people’s dignity and worth as children of God, all the beloved children proclaimed at Jesus’ baptism. The people who will come into your doors next month are people with gifts and wisdom to offer the church, perhaps more than you could ever imagine. Never forget, you will not serve them; you invite them to serve and share with you.

We are always called to join the poorest as they struggle for the kingdom. Last week, a guy in our Bible study, a man who has lost everything but his courage and his deep faith, said; “We are people—we might struggle with addiction, we might be homeless, but don’t forget that more and more Americans are just a paycheck away from the same situation. We all deserve dignity and respect.”    

This our baptismal covenant. That we walk together, brothers and sisters, housed and unhoused, the poor of the earth, into death. Into the minefields. As we turn away from the messages of our culture. As we struggle together for hope. As we struggle together for the kingdom. As we struggle together for dignity. As we struggle together to not only address the effects of poverty, but to end it.

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

Text: Mark 9:2-9 
Transfiguration Sunday

The day before I left for my pilgrimage to Palestine, I went to the theater and watched the new movie “Selma.” It tells the story of Martin Luther King Jr and his march on Selma, AL during the civil rights movement. It’s a fascinating film about an important time in our history. I was especially fascinated by the portrayal of King. He is portrayed as a man really deeply struggling with his role in the movement and he has this strong sense that he may not live much longer.

The movie ends with King reiterating his conviction that freedom is coming for his people.

Perhaps the most powerful part of the movie for me was a song performed by John Legend and Common, called “Glory.”

One day when the glory comes
It will be ours, it will be ours
Oh one day when the war is won
We will be sure, we will be sure
Oh glory (Glory, glory)
Oh (Glory, glory)

Welcome to the story we call victory
The comin' of the Lord, my eyes have seen the glory

 

It was this song that kept playing over and over in my head as I read our gospel for today and was thinking about this sermon.

Our text is the story of Jesus revealing his glory. Jesus, the poor wandering rabbi of the gospels, reveals himself to three of his disciples in glory. And he stands with a cloud of witnesses, with Moses, the ancient liberator of his people, and Elijah, the great defender of the poor. And a voice from heaven acknowledges him as the Beloved Son.

Amazing, right? Jesus revealed in glory. In the Holy Land, we visited the Church of the Transfiguration, built on where some scholars believe this happened, on Mt Tabor.

But we usually read this story as if it stands alone in the text. And it doesn’t. In every gospel this story is told, it occurs just after Jesus warns his disciples of his coming death.

Jesus has built a movement. A movement proclaiming a better kingdom, a movement of healing, a movement of liberation for the poor of Galilee. He is not stupid. He knows what happens to Galilean troublemakers. It is not much of a stretch to imagine that Jesus expected to die, expected to be arrested, expected to be executed.

Just a few verses before our text this morning, Jesus turns to his disciples and begins to teach them that he will suffer, that he will be rejected by the religious and political leaders of Jerusalem, and that he will be executed. The disciples, of course, are frightened and upset.

And so Jesus turns to them, and to the crowd around them, and says; “If anyone wants to follow me, he must take up his cross.” Now, lets be really clear. Everyone knows what Jesus means here. He is not talking about bearing burdens—a cross is a method of execution, a method used frequently in ancient Palestine by the Romans to keep people in line. Jesus is saying—in essence—be willing to go to the electric chair, or face lethal injection.

So. Jesus is revealed in glory. Only after he tells them not only is HE going to die, but that if they keep following him, they just might die too.

It’s a fitting text for this last Sunday of Epiphany, as we begin Lent, is it not?

First, Jesus calls his disciples to follow him on the way of the cross.

In Palestine, I got to walk the actual way of the cross, on the stones Jesus probably walked on the way to the cross. That was a powerful time for me.

But what kept coming to me was how many people have walked this way of the cross, walked the way of suffering and death.

Jesus was not the first or the last person crucified. What we have in Jesus is God joining a long line of people who have walked the way of suffering and death. God becomes one of us and dies at the hands of cruelty and evil and empire like one of us.

Like King and so many of the men and women and children that marched with him in Selma. Marched for freedom from empire and cruelty. In Selma, a number of people are killed during the march and its aftermath.

Like so many young black men and women today, in Ferguson or NYC.

In our Bible study in Aberdeen, the group asked me to gather dirt from the Holy Land and bring it back. So I did, and I gathered that dirt as we walked up to Jerusalem, on the way of the cross.

This Lent, on Good Friday, we are planning on walking through Aberdeen, walking our own way of the cross, acknowledging the suffering and death that people experience here and now, today.

All over the world, people still walk the way of the cross.

Here, in our county, we still walk the way of the cross.

And, yet, as soon as Jesus speaks of the cross, of coming death, he takes his most trusted disciples, goes out on a mountain, and reveals his glory.

Because, after the way of the cross comes glory.

Because, life comes out of death.

Because, freedom will come.

Because the Christian story does not end at the cross, but in glory.

Jesus, in our text, is reminding his disciples of this. Even as they look toward the way of cross, even as they face death, they hold on to the hope of triumph and glory. The kingdom of God is coming, no matter what empires do, no matter if we live or die.

Some of you might have heard the news recently that the current pope, Pope Francis, is working to make Oscar Romero, the archbishop of El Salvador, a saint.

Oscar Romero’s story and his writings have had a profound impact on me. He became archbishop in El Salvador during a time of civil war, in the late 70s, during a time when poor communities were being targeted by the government and numerous people were dying.

It was a time when the Roman Church was largely silent and even complicit in the mass suffering of the people of El Salvador. I have a friend who was in El Salvador at the time, and her stories are chilling.

So, Romero did a dangerous thing. He openly stood up to the government. He openly took the side of poor communities. And, in 1980, Romero was shot by a government agent while celebrating the Eucharist during Lent.

A few weeks before he died, he said; “This Lent, which we observe amid blood and sorrow, ought to presage a transfiguration of our people, a resurrection of our nation… Those who have Christian faith and hope know that behind this Calvary of El Salvador lies our Easter, our resurrection.”

Romero knew, even as he walked his own way to the cross with his people, the hope of the transfiguration.

We struggle sometimes to hope. We struggle to hold on the hope of transfiguration, of glory.  

I have people tell me all the time; “Nothing will ever change here. Don’t get your hopes up. Things have been bad for a long time.”

Can the kingdom really ever come?

Jesus, in our text today, points us to the long journey toward freedom, toward the kingdom of God, following Moses, following Elijah, waiting for the glory of the Lord revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.

Remember that last sermon given by King, the night before he died? His hope that his people, that African Americans in the US would find freedom.

“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

"And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”

Like the disciples, King had been to the mountain and seen the glory of the Lord. And he had a rock solid hope that as he walked the way of the cross, quite literally, his people would see that glory too.

So, my brothers and sisters, as we prepare for a Holy Lent, as we prepare to at least symbolically walk the way of the cross with Jesus, lets not forget the Transfiguration. Lets not forget that our eyes have indeed seen the coming of the Lord and that he is coming in glory to give freedom and liberation to his people. To us.

Welcome to the story we call victory
The comin' of the Lord, my eyes have seen the glory.

Remember you are Dust

Ash Wednesday. We say; “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It is a day we tangibly remind ourselves of our mortality.

We all need to remember that, right?

When we imposed ashes under the bridge today, I was struck that everyone who asked for ashes deeply, viscerally understood mortality. It was a day of crisis, as are many days in this work. One woman asked for prayers for her daughter who had just lost housing and was struggling with an eating disorder. Another woman’s granddaughter had just died in a car crash. One guy was healing from a broken back and another was considering a visit to the ER for a growing infection. Death is a specter never far away on the streets and people encounter mortality often.

One woman began to sing her sorrows; “We are dying under the bridge in Aberdeen.” She told of death and sorrow, addiction and pain and her song pleaded for the world to take notice of the forgotten folks on the street. Her hoarse voice, her tears—I only wish I could have recorded what she sung.

We all need to hear the words; “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” But, under the bridge, people already know that.

The people who forget our common mortality—and by extension our common humanity—are usually those of us in positions of power. When I walked past the police station and city hall today, I thought; “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

 

In situations of oppression, when people begin to lose hope, there is hope in words that remind us that no human person or institution lasts forever. That oppression itself cannot last forever.

I thought of the towering wall running through Palestine, the wall that I just witnessed imprisoning a whole people. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

I thought of the great edifices we have built to wealth and greed in this country. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

I thought of all the prisons that dot our country, more numerous that colleges in some places, incarcerating our young people and draining hope from poor communities. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

 

This Ash Wednesday, I am thinking of death and of mortality. But I am also imagining prisons and concrete walls and jails and temples of wealth crumbling into the dust. And imagining the poor of the earth triumphant.

 

Sermon: Holding Hope in the Ashes of Empire

Text: Mark 1:29-39

One of the reasons I was told I should go to the Holy Land is because it makes the text comes alive. And it is true. Its pretty amazing to read the text and have gone to see the synagogue in Capernaum that Jesus spoke in during the first part of his ministry.

You know, Galilee is a beautiful place, especially by the Sea of Galilee where Jesus spent most of his ministry. The gospels always talk about how Jesus goes out, away from the crowds and away from people, to pray. And I did a lot of that by the Sea of Galilee—wandering away to listen to the birds and sit with the trees and ancient stones. It honestly wasn’t a whole lot different than sitting by the lake in Montesano—I always learn that all lands are holy. Even where we live.

Perhaps what struck me most on this trip, though, was the current reality of people in Palestine. I talked to Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Muslims, who all said just how difficult it was to live under occupation in that land. I saw 25 foot concrete walls dividing the land and keeping people imprisoned. I saw military roads and checkpoints everywhere and people in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, told about how impossible it was to travel because the Israeli government does not allow Palestinians to travel without special permits.

The story that probably touched me most was talking to a man named Bassam Aramin. He told about growing up as a Palestinian in Hebron, one of the oldest cities in the Middle East. He talked about being in school and watching soldiers shoot his friends. He told about how he joined other teens to resist military occupation and how he was arrested and tortured in Israeli jails. And then he told about how he started a peace organization, and not long after, how his 11 year old daughter was shot walking home from school by an Israeli soldier patrolling the town. He now travels the world telling his story, begging the world to recognize what is happening to his people.

 It was not an easy story to hear. Everywhere we went, especially in the West Bank, I felt this palpable sense of despair among the people. “We are in prison on our own land,” everyone would say, “what can we do?”

I could not help thinking through all of this trip: this is the kind of world Jesus began his ministry in. In another time where that region was also under military occupation. Jesus would have heard and experienced all the same stories.

“What can we do?” That was the question.

And then we met people who were doing a whole lot.

There was the dynamic vice president of a Lutheran Palestinian college, Nuha Khouri, in Bethlehem. They are inviting and funding Palestinian young people from all over the region to come to their school and study art and culture and urban design. They encourage these young people to find hope and resistance in art. To write their stories. To design new ways to express themselves as a Palestinian people. Nuha was born in Bethlehem, educated in the US, and had a brilliant career ahead of her. Instead, she came back home, with all of the occupation, unable to even travel to Jerusalem, only a few miles away, and to teach young people behind the wall.

There was Hassan Ashwari, a dynamic Palestinian woman and part of the new Palestinian government who speaks out forcefully for her people and demands justice and a just peace.

There was a woman who hosted us in east Jerusalem who had friends in Gaza, a part of the country so completely cut off from the rest of the world that most people cannot even get past the military blockade. This woman constantly tells her friends’ stories and smuggles in supplies and money.

All of these women, all of these people—I was struck that they were holding hope for their people. That in the middle of despair, in the middle of a bleak future, they were charged with holding hope for their people. For acting as if the kingdom of God is indeed coming, as Jesus promised.

Like Peter’s mother in law, right?

Its easy to miss this woman in the story, isn’t it? Only one little line. Jesus heals her and she gets up and starts serving everyone. It can honestly sound a little stereotypical even, can’t it? A woman just gets up out of her deathbed and decides to start cooking.

But I wonder. You know, this is Mark. And Mark is always in a hurry when he tells the stories of Jesus. (Did you notice that there are three short stories in our text this morning?)

And Mark makes it really clear that the kingdom of God, which is coming, which is here, is not some kind of ethereal thing. Its not spiritual.

Its about real life and real bodies and real food and real healing.

And Peter’s mother in law—we don’t even get her name—Peter’s mother in law gets that. She gets that the kingdom of God is about cooking food, and creating community, and serving each other. Its about repentance—that is it is about turning around. Turning from despair to hope. Turning from the bad news of empire to the good news of God’s kingdom.

She was holding hope for her people in a really tangible way.

Because the kingdom comes when Palestinian young people paint their experiences and when mother in laws make dinner and when healing comes to a people.

Revolution comes, change comes when people write their defiance on the walls that imprison them. When they tell their stories. When they demand justice. The kingdom of God comes with real people and real bodies and real healing and real hope.

Sometimes we think that serving meals or distributing clothes or talking to people or praying for people is some way of doing our duty to society. Or helping people.

But it really isn’t. Or it doesn’t have to be.

Getting a building cleaned out and painted, like we have been doing in Westport. Making a meal, like you all just did today. Sitting down and having a conversation with someone you just met. Dreaming of a future. Studying the bible together. Visiting someone in jail. Teaching kids.

These don’t just have to be a way that we help each other.

They can be a way that we work to realize the kingdom of God together. These are revolutionary acts. They can be the ways we repent, we turn around and embrace hope for our world, our county, our towns. Ways we proclaim we do indeed believe the good news. Ways that we say we will not live as empires tell us to. That we will live a different way, a way that gives dignity and hope to our people. That we will build new communities and new hope out of the ashes of empire.

And it may take a long time. But we will do it. A Palestinian pastor in Bethlehem, Mitri Raheb said this; “When we don’t know what to do, we go out and plant olive trees. We plant olive trees so that our children will have shade to play in. We plant olive trees so that they will have oil to bind up their wounds. And we plant olive trees, so that when peace comes, when the wall comes down, we will have branches to wave to the Prince of Peace.”