A Call to Resistance

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I have thought about having a Social Justice Committee or Task Force at Cedar Cross United Methodist Church for a while. Different from a Missions Committee, Social Justice Committees work at political advocacy. For example, to be in a relationship with Faith Action Network, the lobbying group that represents churches in the Puget Sound area; or Earth Ministry, and educational and lobbying group in Seattle. But it could be much more than that involving ourselves as a church in issues that concern us: healthcare, the environment, homelessness. What I feel is that after our election it may be a good time to organize this group.

On Sunday, I felt a lot of grief and fear in the congregation; tears were flowing. I myself have been devastated by the election of Donald Trump. His rhetoric has been mean spirited and threatening. We don’t know what Trump will do as president; he may surprise us and not follow his rhetoric. However, at this time there are many people, people or color, women, our LGBTQI brothers and sisters, who are afraid. I believe that we need to stand by these people in the name of Jesus Christ who loved the “least of these.” As I said on Sunday, I believe we have to testify to the gospel and continue to speak out against racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia and torture. The word that has come to my mind through all my mental gymnastics since the election is resistance.

Do we all remember our membership vows: One of the questions is, Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves? Do we? It seems to me that this is a critical time to do that. This coming Sunday, I will be recruiting – I will be passing around a sign up for anyone interested in exploring being a part of this “committee of resistance”, otherwise known as a Social Justice Task Force. You may also email me and let me know you are interested.
This is not meant to be about partisan politics, but to recognize and embrace our call to care for “the least of these” in the world.

P.Jim

Pastor Jim’s Blog: Faith and Politics

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I know that many upon seeing this title will cringe. Faith and politics should not mix! I think people believe this less for ideological reasons these days than for practical reasons. It will bring conflict and then division; it will hurt our church. For quite some time that has been the practice. At the same time there is a clear biblical mandate to engage the world and that cannot be done without becoming political. As I believe we all know, the federal tax code does not allow us to endorse candidates or party platforms. That doesn’t mean we can’t be political. Taking on an issue is political while not being partisan.

In Adult Sunday School class we have been reading Jim Wallis’ book, On God’s Side. It is unabashedly political. Wallis grew up in an evangelical home where he says he never heard about the Sermon on the Mount. He experienced a conversion and started an alternative community in the poorest section of Washington D.C. – Sojourners. Subsequently he has edited Sojourners Magazine. His goal is to try to understand all sides and direct them to seeing God’s side and to be reconciled. For example, he lifts up both personal responsibility and responsibility for the community, suggesting that God would value both. Finally, he believes that aim is to work for the common good. So, how’s that been workin’ in our current election cycle?

I think we are all tired of this election, for many and diverse reasons. A man from Quebec came to Kenneth’s French class and explained the Canadian political system to the class. Kenneth noted that campaigns usually last one month. Can we imagine how much less stressful our lives would be if we did the same? The pundits wouldn’t like it though. I want to make a few observations about what is happening in American politics today that make it so frustrating.

I have never heard such name calling in politics in my life! The vitriol is unprecedented and alarming. What is exhibits is, at least in part, the radical nature of the division in America. There is no dialogue – no conversation. The tone of the debates is toxic. It’s about making the opponent look bad. In this election the division has become so severe that it is disturbing families, causing people to avoid people. I have one friend who posted on Facebook a request that if they supported a certain politician to please unfriend her. Wallis wants us to seek the common good, how do we do that when there isn’t an inch of common ground. And why is this? How can we as Christians/the Church create an space where we can have a conversation? Even the churches are reflecting this divide; people don’t want to go to church where there are people who would vote for him/her. If we are the church of Open Hearts and Minds, how do we live that out in the current political climate? Wallis would say we need to ask about what God’s Side looks like – can we do that?

The division is exacerbated by social media. Any new technology offers an equal opportunity for good and evil; Facebook allows us to be connected with people, but it also nefariously encourages us to connect with people we agree with. I saw on YouTube recently parallel red and blue posts on Facebook about the same events. It’s like they were talking about different events they were so skewed. Groups of people live in alternate virtual worlds. Twitter also corrals certain people – followers. And by limiting tweets to 140 characters it dumbs down discourse; it becomes verbal abuse. I try not to be political on Facebook – I did once in a moment of anger and I regret it. In the Church we have to encourage better communication – ideally face to face communication.

Another division that has welled up in this election has to do with gender. The election of our first woman president coupled with the revelation of Donald Trump’s treatment of women has exposed our shortcomings has opened up a can of worms. We may think we are doing well regarding gender I this country but what is happening in this election says otherwise. I recently watched a video of Chelsea Clinton and there were tweets running along the margins. The hate speech was so “nasty” that I had to turn it off. I believe that Hillary Clinton has been criticized and attacked for years because she acts like a man and many in our country are still not comfortable with that. In that context she had little choice but to be calculating, secretive, and very determined. The kind of hate speech that was tweeted while Chelsea was speaking was irrational and deep down, I think, misogynistic. There was also published on the internet maps of the electoral vote if only men, women, white people and non-white people voted, respectively. If it was only men Trump would win, if it was only white men he would win in a landslide. If only women voted Clinton would win by a substantial number; if only people of color voted Clinton would win every single state. Also, in all the projections the state of Washington was blue. This illustrates the severe divides that exist in America both ethnically and in terms of gender. We need to wonder about how we can heal these divisions. What role can the church play? What can our Church do?

To state the obvious, money still rules in American politics. Until Citizens United is overturned there will be no fairness in our election process. It isn’t only money it is the economy as well. As I said in a recent sermon, we had three debates and there wasn’t a single question about climate change. Our vision is myopic. We are afraid of many things but forgotten about the one thing; to see things from God’s perspective. It seems to me that it is our duty to raise the larger questions. We don’t question economic growth; we should be talking about how we can slow things down so as to preserve life for future generations and not about expanding energy production. How can we, if we want to be on God’s side, continue what we’ve been doing?

I may be wrong – in fact I’m sure I am sometimes. But I assure you that I attempt to connect my politics to my faith. In this way I think faith and politics belong together. I think we need to be talking with each other about how issues of gender, the use of social media and other technology, how money is involved in our political process, and the use of energy all have to do with who we are as Christians. These are the questions we need to be asking each other. As we move ahead my vision of the church is that we will continually be able to do so. It is a challenge both internally and externally; internally because it is very difficult to align some of our political views with our faith, and externally because we may find ourselves in conflict. There is the promise of transformation if we work at it. And if we don’t try then I’m afraid we are doomed to more name calling, intimidation and meanness. See you in Church.

P.Jim

The Force of Gravity

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Pastor James Clarke’s sermon for Sunday, October 9, 2016. This is the first sermon on Stewardship. You can listen to the sermon here.
I just can’t understand how in the world Issac Newton figured out gravity. I have this image as a child that he went up into a tower, dropped the apple and said…

Hmmm…. Gravity!

It’s not something we feel or see or experience. Unless we get out of gravity and we recognize that something’s there. But generally our “normal” is gravitational.

Consider all the other forces that we do not see.

What do you think would happen if a person from biblical times heard a radio? A cell phone would be over the top, I think.

I remember a movie that was set in French Canada in the 18th century in which this person first wrote down something on a piece of paper and handed it to the other person and they said what it said. And all the natives were amazed. It was a miracle. Can you imagine what they would have done with WiFi?

I have trouble understanding WiFi. I just don’t get it. It’s not natural. And I think Issac Newton would have been blown over too.

You know that Wifi is based on quantum physics which Newton clearly did not understand.

These forces that make up so much of our lives are really remarkable. Think of it just for a moment… how all that information is traveling in the air!

It’s spectacular. And we don’t have to really go back to biblical times or 18th Century French Canada to feel that, because, when I was young these things didn’t exist and if I had known that they were going to exist when I was a teenager, I would have been wiped out.

And then we simply accept that they are our new normal.

At the same time, we are oblivious to other forces that are all around us that are also invisible and not detectable by our senses. Forces that people in biblical times were very aware of. As aware of as gravity.

Spiritual power. Principalities and forces.

We are so Newtonian in how we see the world that our perception simply has not caught up. With quantum mechanics or relativity.

We see the world through the lens of science and Newtonian physics and reason and everything is material and substance and that’s when something is real, material and substance, when actually it is all energy, that is changing all the time.

A book is not simply a book, it’s “booking.” A rock is “rocking.” A tree is “treeing.” We are “we-ing” and the spirit is around us all the time. There are fields of force in our world that are not material and that we cannot learn about through our five senses.

Athletes know well about mojo. I can remember a time when I was playing basketball and I felt like I was connected to the rim. You know that feeling for a while that just every time you throw it up it’s going in.

Momentum is real. I’m not talking just about Newtonian momentum.

When people join the church, as we just did a little while ago, I have to ask them these traditional questions. I make sure and tell them there traditional questions because I’m a little worried that the language of “the spiritual forces of wickedness” is going to scare them to death.

But I believe it.

Not as personalized demons but as fields of force. Hatred is a field of force. The Klu Klux Klan. Racism is a field of force. They’re not just ideas, they are forces in people.

Addiction is a force.

I believe that owning guns influences people. It is true of any object, but it is particularly true of objects that have particular power. Guns exert force. Remember the gun is not just a gun, it is “gunning” all the time.

Simply by owning and touching and using something it can exert power over us and change us. Trump is a field of force. It is not about him as much as he would like to be about him.

It’s about the power and the feelings and the griefs and the aspirations of all those people who are following him. Not ideas. They don’t even talk much about ideas. It’s a field of force.

Love also is a field of force.

I remember the time in seminary when I was reading Romans. I took a class in Romans and the professor was telling us that the thesis for Romans is in the first chapter 16th and 17th verses and it says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God. For salvation to everyone who has faith…

Did you hear it? It’s not the idea, it’s the power of God. Real power.

In the book we are getting this material from is a book called Defying Gravity by Tom Berlin. He talks about financial gravity and when he’s doing this he’s talking about money as a force, not just as material stuff but as a reality that exerts power in the world.

Just like with guns, when you handle money, it’s going to influence you.

For Berlin, money exerts power in our life and it’s an invisible power. And it is there when you go shopping when we invest and we look at our checkbook and we go into debt and he says:

The problem with financial gravity occurs when you feel it with such intensity that it changes the way you live your life. You sense it at certain moments, such as when you examine your bank account, noting the balance is lower than you had hoped for, or when you see that your credit card bill is higher than you would like. You feel it when you open up the Internet browser and see ads posted for items that are magically in the styles and colors you like. When you walk down the street of the local town center, with its eclectic mix of retail stores, specialty shops, cinemas, and restaurants, you can almost reach out and touch the force I am describing. Enter a shopping mall, and it is palpable. There is something attempting to pull you inside each store as you pass.

I feel that force every time I go into the mall, and it gives me the “willies.”

Most of the time we think of money, we believe that we have the power because we can decide what to do with it. It’s all ours, and that’s the way it should be. But we rarely think about money having power or exerting power over us.

In I Timothy, he says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. He’s talking about money as a force.

For the love of money that is allowing ourselves to moved by the power of money to the point where we see the price of everything but we don’t know the value of anything.

Maybe we should consider the credit card as a “spiritual force of wickedness.”

I think about that. We introduced the credit card in the 1980s and look what happened to us.

It became a force in our lives. That changed our lives.

Berlin also talks about two kingdoms. He calls it the kingdom of the self and the Kingdom of God.

He says the story in Matthew about a young man who could not sell all he owned was a good person. He was trying his best to live a good life. But, he felt financial gravity exert its pull in a way that suddenly was palpable. His emotional response in that moment is a testimony to the confusion and disorientation he felt.

The young man was torn between two worlds. Haven’t we all been torn between two worlds?

I read an editorial in the Seattle Times this week by David Brooks. He’s the conservative commentator on PBS each week. And he’s with The New York Times.

And he contrasts the difference between a taxpayer and a citizen. A taxpayer focuses on the individual, the goal is to pay as little tax as possible, obeying the law and looking out for oneself. A citizen, on the other hand, on the other hand considers more than him/herself. There is a sense of civic duty to paying taxes. So that the goal is to determine one’s fair share and pay that.

A healthy nation isn’t just an atomized mass of individual economic and legal units. A nation is a web of giving and getting. You give to your job, and your employer gives to you. You give to your government, and your government gives to you.

If you orient everything around individual self-interest, you end up ripping the web of giving and receiving. Neighbors can’t trust neighbors. Individuals can’t trust their institutions, and they certainly can’t trust their government. Everything that is not explicitly prohibited is permissible. Everybody winds up suspicious, defensive and competitive.

This is the Kingdom of Self.

And just like the rich man in the Gospel we also live between these two worlds: financial gravity and the gravity of God.

Tom Berlin talks about wealth as if it is the planet Jupiter. The largest planet in our solar system. Exerting massive gravity on all of us.

Having wealth, simply having it, changes us. It has a great deal of power over us. And frankly, confessionally, I have trouble trusting people who have extreme wealth, because I know the power it exerts.

In the same way that wealth is like Jupiter, then I would say that generosity is like Saturn. It too exerts influences on us.

That giving is not just a decision we make in our brains. It’s not just for tax purposes.

It is a spiritual discipline.

Spiritual because it changes our hearts, in the same way the accumulation of wealth shapes us, so does giving. Giving defies gravity and transforms our hearts.

There are all sorts of forces all around us. It’s not that everything is physical. Reality is different than we thought it is. It’s more like energy. And everything has energy.

Have you ever had resentment take over your life? Resentment can be a force.

Patriotism is a force for good and not so good at different times. Did you see how people responded to Kapernick?

Xenophobia and homophobia are forces in the world that defy reason.

Did anyone see the story about the mother in Tennessee who pulled her child from the school because her child was learning about Islam?

Macho locker room talk is a force. And I confess, I have participated in that force… when I was 13, and even then I felt guilty!

School loyalty is a force, most of the time it’s a good one! Beaver Nation is a force. It’s one of the weaker forces!

Money is a force too. Financial gravity. There are principalities and powers in the world, and spiritual forces of wickedness. Can we not feel it?

There are all sorts of forces in the world and the question that we have to be asking is not what do you believe, but which force are you going to give your life to? What forces are you going to allow to move you?

Amen.

Reflecting on priorities in our vision of reality

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In the Cedar Crossings, I wrote about how we have stories before beliefs. Then, in my sermon on September 18, I shared about how we are lost before we are sinners. After that service someone asked if the sermons were printed so she could remember what precedes what. So here they are:

Story precedes Belief: Since I already wrote about this last week I won’t repeat myself – only to remind that people’s beliefs connect to the lives they have lived, and if we want to understand why they believe the way they do it is imperative to learn more about the stories of their lives.

Lost-ness precedes Sinfulness: This also is repetitive since I was preaching about it. The focus in the theology of most Protestant churches is that we are saved from our sin – Jesus died for our sins – and this is understood as moral failure. I believe that there are many ways that God in Christ can transform us – healing our waywardness is one of those ways, but it isn’t the only way. Long ago I read a book by Paul Tillich entitled The Courage to Be about the various kinds of anxiety we experience. One of those is the anxiety of condemnation – this is the need to be reconciled with God because of sin. There are other anxieties: death, isolation, meaninglessness. The idea is that we all feel separated from in different ways, expressed in different anxieties. The anxiety of isolation is, for example, a common one in today’s world. Many young people, particularly boys feel that they are all alone – that God doesn’t love them. They don’t necessarily feel that they’ve done anything wrong and to tell hem that Jesus died for their sins would not be helpful. They need to know that they are loved and can be connected – they need community. Each of these anxieties represents a way of being lost. Being a sinner is one way to be lost but lost-ness precedes sinfulness.

Theology precedes Morality: This comes from one of my Old Testament professors, James Sanders. It means that when we read the Bible we need to ask first, what is this saying about God before we try to extract any moral message. Those who wrote the Bible for mostly trying to say something about God; any moral meaning is secondary and must be read in the context of what is said about God. This is a refutation of the belief that the Bible is a playbook for life. Too often we emphasize moral precedence over the overall character of God. And too often that can lead to judgment of others.

Biology/Ecology precedes Economy: I didn’t mention this one on Sunday, but it bears mentioning. It is a reminder that when God created the first thing created was the economy. The biology, geology, ecology of the creation is more basic to reality that economics. Yet, our lives and our politics are consumed by economic issues. And often these issues stand in conflict with the needs of the earth. I can easily see an Old Testament prophet telling us that to choose economic growth at the expense of the environment is folly. To frame it in the context of our current adult study, it would be to choose one’s own needs rather than the common good. And just as eventually the people of Israel paid for their folly, so will we if we do not understand that ecology is more fundamental than the economy.

Justice precedes Peace: There was at the time of Jesus something called Pax Romana – the Peace of Rome. It was the peace that Roman hegemony brought to the world. There were no more wars, aside from Rome continuing its conquest of Germania and elsewhere. But the Peace of Rome was bought at a price – domination. Sure, there were fewer wars but not less violence – it came in the form of persecution. Jesus was a victim of that persecution; Jesus was a martyr to the Peace of Rome. Any real peace must be preceded by justice for all people. Any nation or corporate entity in the world that has real power must keep this in mind – and we must keep it in mind when we vote. Does this person have the vision of Justice for all – or some variation of Pax Romana?

Generally this has to do with how we see the world – what is more important, more fundamental? We need to reflect on our priorities, not only personal priorities but priorities in our vision of reality. See you in worship.

P.Jim

We have stories before we have beliefs

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We have stories before we have beliefs. Often people think that church is a place where we are united by beliefs that we share; we are united in a person, Jesus Christ, who has a story too. To be a follower of Jesus is not to believe things about him but to live in his story. When the image of a church is a place that requires certain beliefs it becomes very difficult to invite or encourage people to join us. Many times I have spoken to people who say they are not sure if they believe in God, or that they probably don’t believe all they things they think they are supposed to. My response to such comments can be to ask them about the God they are not sure they believe in, or to tell them that I’m sure the people in the church aren’t sure they believe all they are supposed to. That is, the people in the church struggle with beliefs too. I prefer an image of the church of people struggling together to live in the story of Jesus. What if we went into the world with this image rather than thinking we need to share what we believe?

Not only do we have stories before beliefs, our stories are never created in isolation. In our culture there is an idea that we make up our own lives be ourselves but this is wholly impossible. We are always in relationship with others and are formed in and through those relationships. Reality itself is interdependent and we are dependent upon all who have come before us, and are who we are as we are connected to others. The church is a place of connections; it is an environment in which as we relate to each other we form each other and become a part of each other’s stories, and together a part of the Story of God.

When this season comes around, probably more than any other, with children going back to school and summer vacations over and we gear up for the fall, I feel the need to share with the world what a wonderful gift the church is. I see a lot of lonely people in the world – people who are cynical and feel defeated – people who feel that they have to do everything by themselves and depend on no one; people who see the church as a closed community of people who believe the same thing, who do not know the transformative power of living in community. And I want to share this different image of the church and of faith. We do not invite people into our community because we want them to believe like we do, we invite them into our lives, as persons and as a community. And our first question to visitors is not about belief but about their stories. Where do you come from? Who is your family? How do you spend the time of your life? Who are your communities? One can disagree with someone’s beliefs, but one cannot disagree with another person’s story.

I feel that there are many people who are waiting for us to ask these questions. We have had many visitors and new people will be in the church through the Preschool. Now is a good time to reach out to people and invite them into our lives and community. We have the power to transform the world.

P.Jim

All Lives Matter, Yes, But…

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“If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy – which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog – you will come to an awful realization… The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that the deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. The white American under-class is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whole main products of misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does Oxycontin.“ — Kevin Williamson of the National Review, quoted by Jelani Cobb in The New Yorker.

What galls me about this quote is the judgment and lack of empathy. “They deserve to die?” Really? As a follower of Jesus Christ I want to shout, “These lives matter!” I suspect behind Williamson’s dismissive attitude toward the white under-class is the myth of equal opportunity; underneath that is the Lockean notion that that we are born with a clean slate in life. I’ve said this before, because it is so critical. In fact, we inherit most of who we are, our decisions play a vital role but they do not form us. Some are born with less opportunity than others simply because of when and where they are born, who their parents are, their genetics, and yes, their race and ethnicity too. All of these things play into determining a person’s relative chance at becoming “successful” in life. The idea that a person born in Appalachia has the same opportunity as did Donald Trump is simply ludicrous. What the myth of equal opportunity does is permit us to judge people like under-class whites. “They had their opportunity and they wasted it.” They deserve to be poor and addicted to heroin… although it is an extreme step to also say they deserve to die. From a Christian perspective, all lives matter therefore the goal is not equal opportunity but simply equality. Finally, regarding Kevin Williamson, it is ironic that he complains to the selfishness of the white under-class while exhibiting selfishness himself. If he wasn’t so selfish he might have some empathy for “these people.” Furthermore, it isn’t just the white under-class that is selfish and addicted – the upper-class is also, as the crash of 2008 demonstrated – they are addicted to money, and they can hide their chemical addictions. For me, Kevin Williamson displays something that is critically wrong with America. That we do feel that some lives matter more than others.

To God, all lives matter, of course, but to make that the chant misses the point; it dilutes its meaning. It is far more gut wrenchingly powerful to say the drug addict in eastern Kentucky – that his /her life matters. It is with this perspective that I think we need to hear that Black Lives Matter. I heard someone on NPR say not long ago that we shouldn’t say “All Lives Matter” unless we are able to first say, “Black Lives Matter.” To say the latter invites empathy; “All Lives Matter,” while true doesn’t do that. What concerns me is the speed at which we move to judgment rather than empathy – as Kevin Williamson’s words demonstrate. I believe that our response as followers of Jesus must be compassion and empathy, even if it feels like it doesn’t make sense. Empathy, for black men who are shot – trusting that their experience of maltreatment is real.

On the Daily Show Trevor Noah says with annoyance, ‘Why can’t we be for the black men who were shot and for the police? Well, partly because we are judging rather than empathizing. It is a part of what we have inherited as Americans; competition, winning and losing, getting ahead and being critical of others in order to do so. The change that needs to be made is a spiritual one: from judgment to empathy as our primary response to any tragic event that happens. I have great empathy for police officers. Their job is difficult and dangerous. And I have empathy for the spouses of officers – is it really that hard to simply imagine what it is like to consider than your spouse may face a violent event any day? Likewise, is it that hard to imagine what it is like driving as a black man, knowing he could be stopped at anytime? Taking sides is not the Way of Jesus. As President Obama has said: “We can do better.”

P.Jim

A Response to Orlando

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I welcome this opportunity to respond to the tragic shooting in Orlando, Florida from our perspective as a Reconciling Congregation in our denomination, the United Methodist Church. As a Reconciling Congregation, we stand in opposition to our denomination’s statement that, “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” As a global and connectional denomination, we have less latitude for regional autonomy. What we have is this means to say that we as a local church believe in the full participation of LGBTQI people in the life of the church.

My first response is to say that our perspective on events like this changes when they become more personal. I have family in France and specifically a nephew who is a music aficionado who frequented the Bataclan Theater in Paris; one can imagine how I felt hearing about the mass shooting there. Likewise, at least two people in our congregation made similar calls on Sunday morning. Knowing the life story of persons gives perspective; ultimately ideas cannot and should not be separated from the lives of people. This is true of anyone, the gay man, a Muslim, person’s who suffer from various disabilities including mental disabilities. It is rash and usually insensitive to speak generally about a group of people, especially when we don’t know a person who is a part of that group. And, as much as the Internet and social media provide an opportunity to reach out to people who are different than we are, they also allow us to hide in our lifestyle enclaves where our opinions are cemented rather than challenged and transformed.

The second thing I would like to point out is that the reasons for any tragedy like this are complex. It is a temptation to identify a cause; it helps us feel like we have more control of the situation. However, it isn’t that simple. Any of these mass shootings is connected to ideology, hate, mental illness, the experience of boys and young men in our culture and, yes, guns too (this list isn’t complete either). To identify a single cause or to deny any other contributor is narrow minded and usually self serving. Likewise, vitriolic blaming simply foments more hate.

In regard specifically to the relationship of this incident to our views on homosexuality, I will say that I see this event more as a hate crime than a terrorist attack. I believe that Omar Meteen was influenced by his background and could have felt sympathy for ISIS, but it wasn’t ISIS that initiated the attack. The story is still unfolding, now we hear that Metten had been at the Pulse numerous times; was he merely scouting out the place or was he dealing with his own sexual identity? How many times does one need to go to a place to know the floor plan? I don’t want for focus on ISIS to deflect the fact that this was an act of hate that lives well within our own culture. It is too easy to point the finger offshore at ISIS than to reflect on our own culture. And in spite of the progress we have made our culture is still wrestling with homophobia.

I was very proud of our bishop in the Los Angeles area, Bishop Minerva Carcano who in response to this tragedy wrote this: “Is it possible that we United Methodists with such a negative attitude and position against LGBTQI persons contribute to such a crime? When we say that those who are of a homosexual gender identity are living lives that are incompatible with Christian teaching, that they are not to be included in our ordained leadership, and that they are not important enough for us to invest resources of the Church in advocating for their well-being, in essence when we say that our LGBTQI brothers and sisters are not worthy of the fullness of life that Christ offers us all, are we not contributing to the kind of thinking that promotes doing harm to these our brothers and sisters, our children, the sacred children of God? It is harder to look at ourselves than it is to blame others; harder but more potentially transformative.” And the answer to Bishop Carcano’s question, in my mind is yes. And to anyone who speaks ill of LGBTQI persons, who disparages and dehumanizes them, or anyone, we are part of the problem.

Somebody will be reading this, I am quite sure and say, “But what about the Bible?!” I assure you we take the Bible very seriously, but not literally. I will also say that I feel the way I do not in spite of the Bible, but because of it. I would remind also that the Word of God is not the Bible; it is Jesus Christ who is the Word of God, and that’s biblical. I would ask us all, who would Jesus be with now? How would Jesus view this kind of hate? We view this as our challenge and we offer it to all.

P. Jim

Pastor’s Blog: Are We Entertained?

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Summer’s here! At least it feels like it. 93 degrees in June? This past week I took a little time off and it really felt like summer vacation. And, accordingly I took some time for summer reading… accordingly for me. Whenever I get some time one of the things I do is read books. I watch movies too, but I believe that each medium carries its own meaning and power. These days we are inundated with pictures – movies, TV shows, YouTube, etc. And you all know how much I love photography – it is a vital means to express oneself. But printed words and reading have a value too; one I fear we may be losing.

One of the books I read recently was a novel by Alix Christie entitled Gutenberg’s Apprentice. Johannes Gutenberg is attributed with the invention of the moveable type printing press in the 1450s; prior to that all books were copied by hand. A scene in the book I found humorous and interesting is when the “apprentice” secretly showed the press and printed pages to his intended and her response was shock! Not just that, she believed that it must be of the Devil and she broke up with him. For her it must have seemed like magic. Imagine someone from a century ago (or less) coming into our world with our cell phones; visiting our home in which we have Amazon’s Echo, a voice activated computer named Alexa with whom one can talk… well, not have a conversation but one can ask Alex just about anything from the best way to cook squid to the capital of Bulgaria (do we know this?) Imagine us walking into the house and saying, “Alexa, could you please turn down the temperature to 66.” Knowing no one else is home how would that person from the past respond? Possibly by thinking Alexa’s a ghost? I think so. New technologies, particularly communication technologies not only change how we communicate but how we think and live. One thing that the invention of the printing press did is to focus attention on words, rather than on liturgy and ritual, for example. And the result of that was an increase in critical thinking. Both the Reformation and the Enlightenment have Gutenberg to thank. I enjoy all the images we now have in our world, but I fear that if we are not reading we may not be thinking.

Another book I read this past week is Life: the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality, by Neal Gabler, published way back in 2001. Gabler chronicles how entertainment has come to supplant rational thinking. We have come to trust our senses rather than our minds. We seek what entertains us rather than what edifies. And we mistake what entertains with truth. In his discussion of celebrities he says that the media instead of reporting what people did report of what people did to get media attention. (Everyone dreams of his/her 15 minutes of fame!)

Can we believe this campaign? What was happening in those debates? Was anything reasonable being said, or were they all simply trying to see who can entertain the best. Gabler calls the president the “Entertainer in Chief.” Gabler even mentions Donald Trump:

The one with the most perspicacity about celebrity and the one most representative of the new celebrity businessman may be Donald Trump… To the media, the brash, bloviating young Trump was the perfect symbol of avarice, rapaciousness and ostentatiousness of new business wealth… Trump understood that in an entertainment-driven society celebrity was among the most effective tools of salesmanship and that consequently a businessman’s job was not only the management of assets but the management of image.

Remember, this was back in 2001! I’d say that Gabler was prescient and prophetic.

Religion doesn’t avoid critique by Gabler either. He says a couple things in its regard. First, that worship services have become more entertaining – actually, more like going to the movies. This I think we are aware of. Just watch the worship service of a mega church on TV. The other thing he says is even more alarming – that for many in our culture entertainment has become its own religion:

Entertainment promulgated a set of values and had even become, arguably, the single most important source of values in late-twentieth century America…. Entertainment is the primary standard of value for virtually everything in modern society. Those things that entertain are, with rare exceptions, the most highly prized. In t he second place, as is becoming increasingly evident, the movies made entertainment the new measure of individual worth as well.

Must the church too become entertaining to be meaningful? Are pastors also to be evaluated based upon their entertainment value? Have we read any good books lately? My challenge to us all is to become knowledgeable and aware, to think critically about what is going on in our church and the world, and to share about it with each other. Don’t let the shallow sweep on all that entertains send us down the current to wreckage and ruin. Watch movies critically. Read books that edify. Take time with each other to question and gain perspective. We are in a dangerous spot here – I think we all know it. And also, enjoy your summer reading. P.Jim

*This phrase comes from one of my favorite movies of all time, “Gladiator.” The “General” who had become a gladiator after killing an opponent against the odds looks to the Emperor as well as the crowd and asks, “Are you entertained?”

P.Jim

General Conference Debacle

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On Pentecost I shared my initial feelings about General Conference; about Rule 44, which would have provided opportunity for delegates to talk about contentious issues outside of parliamentary procedure. As I said, that’s what we Methodists are all about, right? We gather and share – openly. When it was turned down the spirit of the Conference was revealed. We know that politics is a part of any conference in our denomination or any other. But the mood of this Conference mirrored our Congress – going into the Conference people had decided that they wouldn’t budge and would rather not even talk to those on the other side of the homosexuality debate.

I think I have also shared about the changing demographics of the UMC. We have striven to be a global church – which is a laudatory goal. But as a result we are experiencing a conflict of values: the value to be global and the value to invite LGBT people to participate fully in our Church. Both values are rooted in a desire to be open. However, the UMC has grown disproportionately in Africa and the Philippines; typically delegates from these places are less open to full inclusion of LGBT people. This has resulted in more delegates who want to retain the restrictive language in the Discipline. With this dynamic one might expect that the progressives in our Church would suggest that we split, but it was actually the conservative wing that first initiated that discussion. What t hat feels like to me is that they are recognizing that their power will likely grow as more delegates from Africa and the Philippines attend General Conference; they can simply dismiss the progressives.

Another event that alarmed and angered me was learning about the involvement of the Good News movement in the African delegation. Good News is the largest lobbying group for conservatives in the UMC. The African delegation met in Lubumbashi, Congo in January and then again in May in Portland, just prior to General Conference. This is from the UMC website: “Rev. Thomas Lambrecht, vice president and general manager of Good News, the unofficial evangelical caucus, attended the January meeting as an observer, and is handling logistics for the Oregon meeting.” This is a kind of political activity that I have not seen in our Church.

I left Annual Conference more convinced than ever that some sort of separation is necessary. I heard many words about unity and love but they felt hollow to me – when caucuses meet separately and unofficially with a whole delegation and then refuse to speak openly with others in smaller groups? This feels like more than a matter of disagreement – this is a spiritual matter. When people who vote to retain the restrictive language about homosexuality talk about love and unity I want to stand up and shout: you do not love! I’m sure they are sincere, but sincerity doesn’t mean much in the fact of injustice.

If Rule 44 had passed and I was a part of it and we did have small groups I would want to ask people, who is Jesus for you? What does it mean to follow him? In our Adult Sunday school class, reading Robin Meyers book, Saving Jesus from the Church, Meyers believes that belief in substitutionary atonement – that Jesus died for our sins – has allowed many Christians to ignore the character and teachings of Jesus. And, since the Reformation the image of Jesus has not been a source of authority for life and faith. Rather, the focus has been on the Bible. What conservatives will refer to in regard to homosexuality is not Jesus, but the few passages that ostensibly refer to homosexuality in the Bible. This means our split is not just about homosexuality; it is about theology and how we interpret the Bible. One thing that Bishop Elaine Stanovsky (former District Superintendent of the Puget Sound) said in her sermon on the final day that I liked is, “if you believe in the Bible and have not asked a progressive how he/she interprets the Bible you have to get out of that tomb.” I would prefer that the subject be Jesus, but I would love to talk with them about the Bible – I’m ready! But that gets us back to Rule 44 and the apparent unwillingness from the beginning, established at an unofficial preconference meeting that they just aren’t going to talk about it. Dismissed!

So, here’s where things now stand. The General Conference asked for the Council of Bishops to give leadership to the Church; this is actually unprecedented – bishops preside over the Conference but do not propose legislation. Well, at this Conference they did. Their proposal is to create a commission that will look into proposals to either restructure the Church or amicably split. The proposal passed on the second vote – not easily. I listened to one man from Texas speaking against accepting the bishops’ proposal say that we must say what we believe, right here and right now: “Do not be afraid to say what you believe.” It really didn’t make much sense to me other than, let’s vote on this and retain the restrictive language in the Discipline – put the progressives in their place and go on. Fortunately it did pass. The commission will work for two years. During that time no charges will be brought against clergy who come out as LGBT. It’s a breather and a sliver of hope that some change will come.

What I hope for is that the commission will recognize the conflict between the two values of being a global church and accepting LGBT people and that they will see that some sort of give on being global is needed. A united church is the ideal, but it isn’t the reality and we must allow for more regional autonomy. Adam Hamilton said in a talk to seminarians at General Conference that if we do not change the language in the Discipline we will lose a generation in America. I wonder if the Good News folk realize that. Keeping that hope for the next two years, I intend to carry on at Cedar Cross UMC. I intend to speak even louder about the need to change. And I really do believe in the long run, we shall overcome.

P.Jim

Truth or Truthiness?

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I read an op-ed article in The Seattle Times this morning (Monday) by Dick Meyer about “truthiness” (this is the only time I will put quotation marks around the word; according to Meyer the word has been accepted into Webster’s Dictionary). The word originated from Stephen Colbert some years ago reflecting on our attraction to things we want to be true. The definition has two parts: “truth comes from the gut, not books” and “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts of facts known to be true.” This got me to thinking about a number of things including General Conference.

General Conference, you say!? The bastion of United Methodist truth, or are we also victims of truthiness? I have been proud to be a United Methodist; I generally agree with what is in the Social Principles but I also see evasion and truthiness. Most specifically, over the years, with how our denomination has dealt with homosexuality. Remember the definition or truthiness? To believe something is true because we want it to be true, essentially in spite of what we know – at least as a community. (People who deny evolution are living in truthiness.) We know that homosexuality is not a choice, yet many continue to disbelieve this. Why? Simply because they don’t want it to be so? I wish someone would just be truthful and say “because I don’t like it.” They prevaricate with the Bible but this too is a dodge. We also know that the Bible isn’t a rule book for life, that it is complicated, mysterious and multivalent. We also believe that at the center of the story of the Bible is Jesus Christ who witnessed to the love and grace of God – when we forget that then the Bible becomes truthiness rather than truth. How will the General Conference decide on this for this quadrennium? Because of the balance of delegates it will sadly remain the same, I fear. Will we persevere in our witness to the truth of God in Jesus Christ?

In fairness to our Church this isn’t simply our issue and struggle. Dick Meyer’s article was about Donald Trump: No one at his level of politics has ever been so alpha-male certain that his every hunch, gut feeling and off-the-cuff crack is true by definition. No one has lied so promiscuously, blatantly and escaped any and all punishment for it.” Donald Trump’s rise is not just a political event, it is a cultural manifestation of a deeper malady that includes resistance to learning, over-confidence in oneself and individualism in general, a focus on the primacy of money, a social darwinistic belief in competition and winning. (Think of how Trump obsesses with winning – a good part of every speech is an account of his victories.) Self, money and winning all lead to truthiness. Meyers quotes George Costanza: “Just remember, it’s not a lie if you believe it.”

Pentecost is the celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit and in one of our recent lectionary readings from John 14 it says, “This friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you.” A Spirit of Truth, not truthiness. I wish that Donald Trump would actually read “One Corinthians” maybe the thirteenth chapter about love that he might get a clue about truth rather than truthiness. And I pray that our General Conference will moved by this Spirit of Truth. We can only imagine.

P.Jim