The Dreams of Presidents

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Tomorrow is President’s Day, isn’t it?

When I was growing up we had a board game: The Presidents Game. And my brother and I loved it.

We learned all sorts of presidential trivia: Tippacanoe and Tyler Too, 54 -40 or fight!

We learned about which presidents were assassinated:Garfield could have survived if there had been a better understanding of sanitation. He died of infection.

We learned that Rutherford B. Hayes was the first president to win the Electoral College and lose the popular vote to New Yorker, Samuel Tilden.

I remember feeling angry then. It wasn’t fair! Little did I know….

We felt bad that we went to Harding Elementary School after learning about the Tea Pot Dome Scandal.

Does everyone know that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Died on the same day, and it wasn’t any old day July 4, 1876 – exactly 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

I loved the story of Teddy Roosevelt camping in the High Sierras with John Muir.

Our favorite story to share with friends was about William Howard Taft… all 300 plus pounds of him, who got stuck in the White House bathtub.

James Buchanan was the only president who never married, which did seem pretty trivial. It was only as an adult that I learned he had a live-in partner of the male variety. So if anyone ever wonders about whether we will ever have an LGBTQ president, We can say, “We already have!”

But it wasn’t just the trivia I learned. The game enticed me to learn more about our presidents.

What interested me more was the vision of presidents, not just what their policies were what they said on the campaign trail, but to try to discern their hearts. What were their dreams?

What vision compelled them to want to be president?

Jefferson had a dream for America that extended across the continent: The Louisiana Purchase. The Corp of Discovery. Monticello – full of artifacts from all over America.

Lincoln dreamed of a reconciled America. I often wonder what would have been different if he had survived.

Teddy Roosevelt dreamed of a more progressive America. He confronted the Robber Barons. Lifted the condition of the poor and even provided National Parks for all.

Wilson dreamed of the League of Nations.

Johnson of the Great Society.

Jimmy Carter of peace in the Middle East.

There were nightmares too:

James K. Polk dreamed of expansion into Mexico and California. Manifest Destiny.

George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

My brother and I mutually decided that Andrew Johnson was the worst. The only president, at that time to have been impeached.

But it wasn’t only that Johnson was from Tennessee and he didn’t share Lincoln’s dream. He vetoed the Civil Acts Act of 1866 which would have given African Americans equal protection under the law.

He said the act would, “give a perfect equality of white and black races…. this is a country for white men and by God as long as I am president it shall be a government for white men.”

There’s a nightmare for you.

The election of 1828 was about contrasting visions, between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.

John Quincy Adams was a diplomat and an intellectual. He spoke 7 languages and he had a progressive vision to spend money on infrastructure, to create a national university, a central bank, even the first space observatory.

He was envisioning a bold future for America.

Andrew Jackson was a war hero, specifically of the Battle of New Orleans.

A fierce man of the frontier – known for his anger, he was involved in at least 3 duels, one in which he killed a man. He was considered a man of the people, unlike elitist Adams, who argued for states rights – more personal freedom – he was known to slaughter Native Peoples, and was also responsible for the Trail of Tears.

Two dreams for America…. Did we make the right choice?

As one might imagine another part of my exploration into the dreams of presidents is to wonder how they harmonize with the Dreams of God.

I have often talked about the Bible as the Story of God, but it is also the Dream of God. It tells what God has done, but also implicates God’s desire and intent.

That all people are created in the image of God, contrary to what Andrew Johnson said.

That the creation is good, and we have a covenant with the creation too.

That God is about love and grace. And caring for the “least of these.”

The Old Testament text from the lectionary for this Sunday comes from Leviticus. It is about caring for the poor.

Specifically that when owners harvest they should not harvest the whole field but leave the edges and gleanings for the poor. What might those gleanings be today? Food stamps? Healthcare? The Americans with Disabilities Act? Housing for the homeless?

The Gospel reading is well-known and is about non-violence— the exhortation not to retaliate.

But it must be said, that this is not an invitation to be passive. It doesn’t mean turn the other cheek in defeat.

It is about non-violent resistance. For Romans, one slapped an inferior with the back of his hand. If he used the palm of his hand it meant that person was equal.

To turn the other cheek was to claim equality. If was non-violent defiance.

The same is true of the extra cloak and mile. If one gave a second coat to the Roman soldier one was naked – thus embarrassing the soldier.

Roman soldiers were allowed to request people to carry their things one mile, but only one mile. If one carried it two miles the soldier would get in trouble.

Non-violent resistance to those in power is part of the Dream of God.

This text is from the Sermon on the Mount, which includes the Beatitudes.

The call to be salt of the earth. The admonition to love our enemies. To give alms. And not too worry. Not to judge others.

This is all about the Dream of God.

Amongst the presidents, who would we imagine shared the Dream of God?

I think Abraham Lincoln’s ripening conviction about the emancipation of slaves mirrored God’s dream. John Quincy Adams had a vision that included equality. Have we all seen the movie Amistad?

And frankly the president who may have been most guided by his faith is Jimmy Carter.

So what of our new president?

I am not confident that President Trump is guided by God’s dream.

His talks about “America First.” But he isn’t even the first person to use it. That honor goes to Pat Buchanan.

Sadly, I feel as though the dreams of Donald Trump are an extension of the dreams of himself.

The nightmare I am worried about comes from Steve Bannon. What is the ideology behind “America First?”

Bannon has a thought out, organized and theological vision. And it centers on what he calls “enlightened capitalism.” And the Judeo-Christian Tradition.

He believes that these specifically carry forth the will of God. That is to say that capitalism and European Christians are special. That for him…. They carry God’s dream.

Bannon believes in what he calls the 4 turnings in American history. It’s a lot to explain. Suffice it to say, that he believes that we are at the beginning of a 4th turning, and in that turning war is inevitable, in this case, with Islam.

It is an apocalyptic vision in which violence is expected. No turning the other cheek for Bannon. It’s hit ‘em in the gut!

Before Trump was a candidate he called in to Bannon’s radio show on Breitbart news and they were talking about immigration. Trump was advocating vetting immigrants even back then.

Bannon’s response was, why talk about vetting? Why let anyone in at all?

Bannon has problems not only with illegal immigration, but legal immigration as well.

He worries about too many CEOs of companies in Silicon Valley being Indian.

Bannon expects war with China in over China’s expansion into the South China Sea.

He believes that Islam is a religion of war.

He shares a belief with Trump that some people have better genes and Trump has been successful because of that.

He believes that America is a Christian nation for white people.

He even believes that only property owners should be allowed to vote.

That would leave me out – In spite of being white!

I recently viewed an Hispanic journalist interviewing a “Trump supporter” who kept using the words “our people.” By which he meant white Americans, saying that America belonged to “his people.”

Are we not all American people?

Bannon talks a lot of Judeo-Christian Tradition, but the problem is he forgot about Jesus!

I know another person who had a dream for America, and it is far closer to God’s dream.

Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; One day, right there in Alabama little black girls and black boys will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.   

This is God’s Dream.

Not Steve Bannon’s, who, by the way, before he jumped on Trump’s wagon wanted Jeff Sessions to be president.

There is an anniversary that needs to be observed today. It was 75 years ago today that President Franklin D. Roosevelt Instituted Executive Order 9066. Do we all know what that was? It was the removal of Americans of Japanese ancestry from coastal areas on the Pacific coast.

In retrospect, I think we all believe that this was an injustice.

But here we are, with proposals to register Muslims.

I have no doubt that if Bannon were senior advisor to President Roosevelt, he would have advised sending them all back to Japan.

And now Steve Bannon has been made a permanent member of the National Security Council – are you serious?! In place of the head of the joint chiefs of staff?

To make matters worse, President Trump now says he signed the order without knowing it!

Steve Bannon’s dream is not God’s dream. It is rather a nightmare!

(And this is where I miss George Brown…..)

Blessed are the meek and the pure of heart.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Blessed are those who hunger for justice rather than prosperity.

(Billionaires’ genes are not better than anyone else’s!)

Blessed are the poor.

Do not harvest it all.

(Take it all! Accumulate it all!)

But care for the poor.

Do not retaliate, but resist – non-violently.

Blessed are the merciful, the compassionate….

These sayings of Jesus are not simply descriptions of how things are, they are imperatives of how we are to live in God’s Dream.

And who’s going to say so? Is this really a time to be wishy-washy?

How can we not speak out?

There comes a time when we have to stop pussy footing around and preach the gospel again!

To claim God’s Dream.

To say NO to nightmares like Steve Bannon’s.

If there is some sort of historical turning going on as Bannon believes, let it not be to “Make America White Again!”

Not Andrew Johnson’s dream, but Abraham Lincoln’s dream.

Not Andrew Jackson’s dream – a trail of tears, but John Quincy Adams dream.

Not the robber barons dream, but the dream of Teddy Roosevelt.

Not the dream of America First, but God’s inclusive, loving vision where people are not judged for the color of their skin, but for the content of their character.

And all the people said….

Amen.

Evangelism

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Pastor James Clarke’s sermon for Sunday, November 13, 2016, just after the presidential election. Listen to the sermon here.

The first thing I want to say is that the thinking and planning for this sermon came before the election on Tuesday… I wrote all but the very end of this on Tuesday morning.

The second thing I want to say is that the lectionary text from the gospel for this Sunday is a lectionary text. That is, I didn’t choose it!

The third thing I want to say is that the system IS rigged, as Donald Trump has said, again and again, but not in the way he has meant it.

It is rigged by many things but mostly because of money.

It is rigged by gerrymandering. By mixing politics with business which affects the media so that they prioritize ratings over investigating the facts. The media has been politicized It is rigged by prioritizing winning over governing.

By obstructionism.

By name calling.

By launching attacks rather than seeking dialogue.

The only people who can win are those who have money or who kowtow to money.

Plato had misgivings about democracy: He gives an allegory of a boat and its captain who is a little feeble. And in order to stay at the helm, will do whatever the crew wants even if it is to navigate to destruction.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a French aristocrat who toured America, to learn about democracy, Also had a warning about democracy. In his 1835 classic, Democracy in America that is if the masses are not educated It would result in the tyranny of the majority. I would say that it is less that democracy in America is rigged and more that it is simply broken.

Are the masses “educated” in America? Do we know enough about history, ethics, religion, government, basic civics to call ourselves adequately prepared to vote and participate in our democracy? Sadly, appealing to the emotions of uneducated people will not save our planet. Our navigational course is now set for destruction.

If anything, I believe we live in a plutocracy today. An indirect plutocracy. That is the rule of the wealthy.

If we were to imagine a symbol of our idealistic democracy a tower or statue, like the Statue of Liberty, and it was cast down.

The Liberty Bell isn’t cracked, it’s broken!

That is somewhat how I feel after two years of campaigning.

That is how the early Christians that Luke was addressing felt… As if everything had fallen apart.

This all centered on the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. The Temple was the symbol and the center of structure and meaning It was the center of the world for Jews. And for early Christians. As democracy is for us, and after the Jewish revolt, the Romans tore it down.

A little historical context: Paul wrote his epistles in the late 50s. Mark wrote his first gospel at the time of the destruction of the Temple. Luke’s gospel wasn’t written until the mid-90s Over 20 years after the event.

And the context is, this world sucks! Or something like that and, where is Jesus to get us out of this?

That had been the hope for years. A hope expressed by Paul and in Mark’s gospel. A hope that was felt to be immanent. But it wasn’t.

In this context, to those Luke was writing to there was a choice: To continue to hope for a fiery and gallant return of Jesus to destroy this mess of a world. Or to live in it.

Luke was interested in evangelizing the Empire, Not escaping it into the heavens. So when he warns in this passage about false prophets, he means those escapists Like the Left Behind authors, Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye.

He said, “Watch out for the doomsday deceivers. Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities claiming, ‘I’m the One,’ or, ‘The end is near.’ Don’t fall for any of that. When you hear of wars and uprisings, keep your head and don’t panic. This is routine history and no sign of the end.”

Instead, Luke asks the people to endure Telling them that it’s going to get bad. You’re going to be persecuted. Families will be broken up for following Jesus. For saying Jesus is Lord and not Caesar. You must… again from the Message Stay with it, that’s what’s required. Stay with it all the way to the end.

Then Luke adds something that is less explanation than imperative. He says that all of this persecution, brokenness and chaos is a time for testimony. An opportunity to testify.

Are you kidding me?! Sitting in prison is a chance to testify To witness to others? Who made this deal?

As Donald Trump would say, we need new deals. Better deals. Really good deals. Like… getting out of all of this, right?

When we are laid low… feeling depressed about the world in a tight spot or when we are being criticized, it’s not the time we want to evangelize, is it?!

In our world, when the statue of democracy has fallen, in the midst of the depressing, gerrymandered political landscape I just described, we’re supposed to evangelize?!

Wouldn’t it be enough just to endure and survive? Hide and lick our wounds?

In our Wednesday class, we are reading Brian McLaren’s book Generous Orthodoxy, and he makes a distinction between Evangelical and evangelical.

For him, Evangelical means those who identify with a demographic. Who believe they are called to share their truth with others and thereby change their minds. Evangelical is about “telling” others. Just like politicians

Evangelical and evangelism with a lower case ‘e’ is different.

Here we don’t engage others from a position of strength or power as if we own the truth, we approach others from a position of weakness in full acceptance of our suffering and brokenness.

Instead of saying to people, “this is how you need to see it,” we say, “I don’t get it… the world is so confusing.

It is sharing from our vulnerability… It’s about being in relationships – focusing on relationships more than on beliefs. It’s about asking about each other’s stories and sharing experiences.

And here’s the thing…. We can do that in prison. We can share with other’s from the context of our life stories. From the depth of our pain and confusion. In the midst of struggle and pain…And that’s the kind of testimony that was asked of the Early Christians – and is asked of us too.

I have mentioned NY Times columnist David Brooks before during this Election cycle.

As I said before, he is the conservative representative on PBS Newshour on Fridays when they recap the week. I think Donald Trump has really unsettled David Brooks. He believes in conservative politics but can’t abide Trump.

In the midst of this confusion on November 2nd he wrote a column about Jewish theologian Martin Buber. And I just about went into shock.

Buber was one of my father’s favorite theologians. I read his book, I and Thou in high school. In my office there is a portrait of Buber that used to hang In my father’s office. From my perspective, David Brooks would not be the person to write about Martin Buber. It really is wonderful to be surprised.

Brooks starts his column with: If America were a marriage we’d need therapy.

For Martin Buber, there are two kinds of relationships: I-It and I-Thou.

I-It relationships are utilitarian… a relationship with a coach is an I-It relationship, or with a broker or fellow preschool parent when we have play dates.

Most relationships are I-It relationships.

I-Thou relationships are, to use Brooks’ words:

Personal, direct, dialogical- nothing is held back… Deep calls to deep. Offering up themselves and embracing the other in some total unselfconscious way.

It is rooted in sharing from our vulnerability, our weakness and mutual struggle. Not from our power.

Brooks is advocating that we seek these relationships and that if we do so might help heal our nation:

Today, American is certainly awash in distrust. So many people tell stories of betrayal. So many leaders (Trump) model combativeness, isolation and distrust. But the only way we get beyond depressing years like this one is at the level of intimacy: if Americans reconnect with the living center of the national story and they rebuild Thous at every level. 

This is evangelism, with a small case ‘e’. This is the testimony we need.

Not the big E Testimony of Evangelicalism – telling others that they better get on the boat or they will be “Left Behind.”

But the shared stories, I-Thou evangelism that invites people into community rather than telling them what to believe. In this chaotic time, our nation needs our testimony. All this and much more not by telling people, but by entering into relationships with people.

Postscript, that is, post election…

I truly and firmly believe in evangelism and testifying with open hearts in relationships and out of our vulnerability.

But then Trump won… And now I am flooded with other feelings.

The first is the admonishment to ‘endure’ carries much more weight. We have to endure. And the call to testify feels more urgent.

Ideally through I-Thou relationships from positions of vulnerability but also firmly… like Gandhi. And Martin Luther King, Jr. Oh how we miss you!

We still have to resist injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. This anxious time that is now before us is an opportunity for testimony .

We need to testify to the harm of incivility in politics the name calling and bullying.

We need to testify to damage of competition in relationships.

We need to testify to the need for education, not training and not just STEM subjects, but arts and sciences, languages and philosophy that teach people about how to be citizens.

We need to testify to impairment of gerrymandering and obstructionism.

We need to testify to the importance of facts over truthiness.

We need to testify by calling on the media to do their job.

We need to testify to the evil of money in politics.

We need to testify to the myopic vision of business and work to save the planet.

We need to testify that it’s not just about ourselves and we need to seek the common good.

We need to testify again that racism is immoral.

We need to testify that misogyny is violent, hurtful and contrary to God’s will.

We need to testify that homophobia is not loving or biblical.

We need to testify that xenophobia is harmful and that the people of God were immigrants.

We need to testify, that we live in God’s creation, and it is morally wrong to unmindfully destroy it.

We need to testify that the wealth distribution in our country is immoral.

We need to testify to the love of God in a world where democracy is broken, and the rich and powerful rule no less than they did in Rome.

And it may hurt to do so.

But we will endure. We must endure. We shall overcome.

The end of the passage from Luke:

You’ll end up on the witness stand, called to testify.

Make up your mind right now not to worry about it.

I’ll give you the words and wisdom that will reduce all your accusers

To stammers and stutters….

You are I my care – nothing of you will be lost.

Staying with it – that’s what is required.

Stay with it to the end

You won’t be sorry, you’ll be saved.

This is the Word of the Lord. Amen.

Belonging

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Pastor James Clarke’s sermon for Sunday, November 6, 2016: All Saints Sunday. Listen to the sermon here.

One of the hardest things to learn in life is that we don’t belong to ourselves….

Owning things is natural for us, so why wouldn’t we own ourselves? As a matter of fact, of all things to own in life. it seems that ourselves should be the first to own. We have been inculcated in our culture to see ourselves as separate objects our inclination is to divide things up to understand them.

We divide the Earth into property; Water into rights; The economy into sectors; People into tribes or ethnic groups which are easier to control or dismiss.

There’s a great movie about water rights called The Milagro Bean Field War.

A local man diverts the culvert to water his bean field, the water rights are owned by developers with ties to state government. The developers and their henchmen are all white. And interested in growth…

The Milagro residents are Hispanic and just interested in survival.

I thought of this when reading about the stand off at the Standing Rock Reservation in the Dakotas.

The stand off is not simply about economics.it’s about history, and the fragmentation of who’s in and who’s out. It’s about ignored treaties. And the fragmentary creation of reservations. And it’s also about water – And the juxtaposition of the value of oil and water.

We live in an oil culture. Native peoples lived in a water culture. It’s hard to mix the two.

Has anyone seen the meme on Facebook where the man pours cups of fracking water for the oil executives to drink? Fracking is fragmentation, it even causes earthquakes. (Are those the earthquakes the scripture is alluding to?)

Traditionally Native peoples did not have a fragmentary way of seeing the world. They didn’t divide the land into property and own it. To own water would have been a sacrilege. Meanwhile the Ogallala aquifer is being depleted.

I’m currently reading a book by physicist, David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order.

In the first chapter he says we live in fragmentation. Our perception of reality – the way we see it and try to understand it starts with division – making things different, which inevitably allows us to own them.

Our fragmentary way of thinking, looking, and acting, evidently has implications in every aspect of human life…. The roots of fragmentation are very deep and pervasive…we try to divide what is one and indivisible… our fragmentary form of thought is leading to such a widespread range of crises, social political, economic, ecological, psychological, etc… which implies unending development of chaotic and meaningless conflict….

We don’t have to look far for an illustration of this fragmentation, do we? “Widespread range of crises… Unending chaos. Meaningless conflict?”

That describes the election!!

Bohm sees fragmentation in our language, grounded in the pattern of “subject-verb-object” because it sets them off against each other. It inevitably leads to competition and violence.

I easily understood this because Japanese will drop the subject and object when they are already understood. One can look outside and simply say, “falling” We both know it’s rain, so there’s no need to say it. In English we say, “It’s raining.” But have we ever wondered what the “it” is?

Japanese tends more to pull things in than to separate them. And it focuses on the verb rather than subject or object when I speak or study Japanese I feel different.

According to Bohm another language that focuses on the verb is Hebrew. The context of the gospel text for this All Saints Sunday is conflict that is division and fragmentation – even competition.

The topic is the resurrection. The subtext is about oppression. The Pharisees believed in resurrection, but the Sadducees did not.

The Sadducees, remember, are the wealthy and powerful. The Sadducees ask Jesus a trick question about the resurrection. If a man marries seven times in life who will be his spouse in heaven?

This was a divisive question meant to stump Jesus so that they could dismiss him.

But Jesus doesn’t answer directly. Rather he describes a totally different way of being suggesting that the Sadducees are living in another world.

He talks about another “age.” Jesus is talking about a different world or dimension he calls, the Kingdom of God. In the Kingdom of God there is no marrying, he says. I would assume there’s no owning either

In this dimension there is no need to buy and sell, own, or marry and divorce

Because everything is One – of a whole.

For David Bohm reality is a wholeness, not a fragmentation. And by the way, David Bohm is not small figure in the world of theoretical physics. His greatest contributions were to quantum physics. He was involved in the Manhattan Project. He was the most respected American physicist until he was accused to being Communist by Joseph McCarthy. (Talk about a figure of fragmentation!)

For Jesus the Kingdom of God is a wholeness not a fragmentation. And I think the question or challenge that Jesus was subtly posing for the Sadducees was:

Belonging. Without subject or object. Just….. Belonging…… like we’re looking out at the rain.

Do we sense “belonging” in America today?

We can belong to many things in life:

  • A career.
  • A relationship.
  • An ideology.
  • Just to name a few

We certainly see that in our current political antics. We are no better than the Pharisees and Sadducees… Where to the candidates experience belonging, do we think?

Does Hillary Clinton belong to power, as so many claim of her? As a United Methodist, we can hope that she has some sense of belonging to God. That this idea has been planted in her soul.

As for Donald Trump, he belongs to himself.

Jesus came to announce that the Kingdom of God is near. Not chronologically far off but available and present, yo see reality differently, not as fragmentation, but as wholeness. Where we do not belong to ourselves, we cannot own ourselves, where we belong to God.

And all our other connections and belongings in life, including marriage, are illuminated by our fundamental identity in God. I don’t belong to myself in this life or the next.

When we celebrate All Saints we recognize and memorialize.those who have passed on, not from the perspective of fragmentation but in the perspective of the kingdom of God. A wholeness in which we remain connected to them.

Eternity is another name for the wholeness we belong to. I believe some time ago I preached about this. In the context of the Gospel of John, eternity is not a chronological word but is about another dimension – a wholeness, one that the Sadducees could not see

One that most of those in power in our world cannot see.

I will be so glad after Tuesday when this election is over. It has done nothing but accentuate our fragmentation. The fragmentation that will lead us to crisis and conflict, and I fear inevitably collapse. How do we live “belonging” in a fragmented world?

That is the question I will leave us with.

One way to do this is to commemorate our saints all those who have come before us to recognize that we remain connected to them in the Kingdom of God. Another is to envision those who will come after us in the wholeness of being and care for them too. That means pay attention to global climate change.

How do we live in belonging with our ancestors and descendents?

How do we live belonging in our families?

How do we live belonging in our communities, schools, work places?

How do we live belonging in our politics?

What about fracking and the pipeline?

How do we live belonging in our church?

How do we live belonging to God?

How do we live belonging in such a fragmented world? Regardless of who wins the election this is our world.

And what are we teaching our children?

Amen.