Labor Days

      Martin Luther is why many of us have Monday off.

      Well, it’s not exactly a direct historical line, but there is a logical and philosophical connection between the reformed understanding of vocation and observance of Labor Day.  (I have to disclose that I was a big fan of the British TV series Connections hosted by James Burke who traced components of modern life back to people and events and discoveries in the past.)

       Up until the Reformation teed up by Martin Luther, the Roman Church divided vocation into two main categories: church vocations and everything else.  The priesthood, the diaconate, and orders like monks and nuns were the vocations to which one was called to a special life of set-apart holiness.  One was “called” into church vocations.  All secular occupations were of a lesser sort, not really true vocations even, just occupations.  So other than holy orders, everyone else was just plain folks, even nobility.  Luther, as part of his re-reading of the Bible declared that every occupation under heaven was holy and a calling from God.  Famously he would say that if you were called to be a baker or a brewer, be the best baker or brewer you could be.  Your job is one of the ways you live out your faith.  He broadened “vocation” from church orders to the whole gamut of work.  Mind you, Luther was a monk himself, so this was a big departure from contemporary theology.  Just as the individual dealt with God directly for salvation (instead of going through the church structure only) in the rest of Reformed theology, each individual was called to his or her occupation as a vocation, a full-blown just-as-holy-as-a-priest-vocation.  All work, when done to God’s glory, was sacred work.  From the Roman Church’s perspective, this was awkward because elevating ordinary jobs to vocation status also diminished the superiority of church vocations.  That our modern use of the word for “vocational education” to mean practical job training instead of going to seminary shows how thoroughly the Reformation reoriented our concept.

      Over time, this set the stage for the further democratization of vocation and working in the modern, industrial age (maybe since the 18th century or so) that finally led to the European and U.S. labor movements and unions and workplace safety regulations and such.  It is from that overall social change that the observance of a day celebrating the labor movement came to pass.

      The other current in this topic goes back to the Hebrew concept of Sabbath, the God-given day of rest.  That it is the first commandment shows God takes it very seriously.  In fact, God wants people to take a day of rest because God rested in the first place.  The idea of a week is pretty much invented by the first commandment, since before that and in parts of the world not organized on the Sabbath principle the rhythm of work was more based on seasons and lunar months, with episodic days of rest and celebration like a harvest festival or solstice holy day.  A community would break and have a big party, then go back to working for months until the next festival.  The Hebrew weekly cycle turns out to be pretty productive and wise, that more frequent breaks (every seven days) is good for us.

      So, connect Martin Luther, the international labor movement, and the Ten Commandments, and that is why we get next Monday off.

      But to be honest with you, you first need the holy Sabbath day of spiritual rest… so I remind you to worship the God who calls you into your vocation on Sunday!

                                                                              In Christ,
                                                                           
                                                                                David

Texts for Sunday
      From the Hebrew Bible         Exodus 3:1-15
      From the Epistles                Romans 12:9-21
      From the Gospels               Matthew 16:21-28

Watching and Worrying

         Permit me to import some thoughts in from the Presbyterian side of my life.  I’m involved in the Synod of the Northeast, the regional governance and mission level of the PC(USA) something like a super-conference of the UCC comprising New York, New Jersey, and New England.  We have adopted as one of priorities multiculturalism.  The northeast is the most culturally and racially diverse parts of the country, and we believe we can lead our society when it comes to living together.  A part of that growth was a recent racial-ethnic caucus keynoted by author James Cone.  He has been instrumental in systematic theology growing from the experience of African Americans and the civil rights movement.  His most recent book is The Cross and the Lynching Tree, a remarkable effort doing Christology on violence toward African-Americans for the last centuries.  While many have looked at lynching, Jim Crow laws, racism, institutional and social violence from historical or sociological or psychological perspectives, Cone is the first to apply theology of the Cross and the interpretive key of crucifixion to that dark and continuing era that I know of.  While Cone can be strident and hard to tolerate from conventional white Christian backgrounds, he’s doing work with strong systematic theological process with striking, even painful results.  Powerful stuff; difficult stuff.

         Ferguson, MO has resurfaced the powerful, difficult, scary topic of racism in the United States.  It has resurfaced questions of privilege and power and opportunity and oppression.  Ugly stuff.  What is different now is the ground-level reporting of participants combining with the more established media sources.  Again this causes cognitive dissonance and confusion and anger, but it also confronts us helpfully with actual events and experiences.  The ability of those “in charge” to control the situation and the interpretation of the situation has been shattered.  I will note that this is not totally new, for it has happened in other situations in the U.S. and certainly in Egypt and Gaza and Israel.  There is more immediacy than ever, which may also increase volatility, but it broadens the issues out and removes veils obscuring events.

         I have simply treated racism as a fact all my life, knowing that I will never understand it or experience it from the perspective of the suffering.  It is so pervasive and insidious that I presume I am infected by it without realizing it.  This means, also, that I will simply accept the experience of others without trying to explain, correct, relativize, or trivialize, and I try really hard not to get defensive.  If someone says something is racist, I’ve got to believe that what they are saying is true for them.  I am in a privileged position, and I have to deal with that.  In fact, having spent a few years in Atlanta and in Richmond with conventional “Southern” racism, I find myself more distressed by the subtle, self-superior racism of the north where I come from.  It has an extra coat of paint on it, but it just as ugly, dehumanizing, and deadly.  And I have met it in Elmira, Ithaca, Syracuse, Dryden, Rochester, Geneva.  Not just outside of St. Louis.  Racism is racism is racism.

        One of the tragic by-products of racism and class tensions is the tendency to depersonalize the other.  Again, this is a popular failure.  If you stop seeing people as people and as a mob, then you dehumanize them and make it easier to put them in your gun sights.  Sadly this is also true in Gaza and Iraq and elsewhere.  But one of the ways you can tell something is systemic injustice is that even privileged or the oppressors let themselves be depersonalized.  A man or woman becomes a police officer and not a person and begins to react as a cog in a system, sometimes very contrary to their real personality.  This is why police officers of color can participate in suppression; they dehumanize themselves, too.

        Historically and culturally racism is so pervasive around the globe and so stretches back before recorded history that it almost seems built into human relationships.  There are many who postulate that tribes are the organizing unit for human society and that tribes based on skin color are nearly engrained into the human animal.  So we just have to live with it, says this reading.

        The theological concept of sin comes up here.  That which separates us from God and others is sin, in the broadest definition.  But just because it is sin and kind of inevitable (if you come from the mainstream of Protestantism) doesn’t mean we accept it and refuse to deal with it.  Racism comes from “fallen” human nature (that is after sin has infected creation) which, while engrained, is not the way God wants it, and we should be always trying to tame our bad impulses and work for the good.  And one of the ways we try to ameliorate the effects of sin is the doctrine of “doing justice.”  Justice is doing the right thing for others despite our proclivity to be selfish and sinful.  This is why we do not merely sigh, shrug our shoulders, say “well, what can yah do?” and ignore manifestly unjust cases of systemic or personal violence.  Working to recreate or redeem broken social or political or criminal systems (or even religious systems) is the work of discipleship.  A minimum we try to not be captured by the unjust system or event; further, we try to fix it or recast it or work deeper into the social structures to remove the next level of injustice.  For instance, going beyond seeing Ferguson as a protest over a single police-involved shooting to addressing poverty and powerlessness in a whole community.  I believe that is our Christian calling once the broadcast and social media images calm down.  And I believe that it just as essential in our quiet little upstate NY communities as big cities and nationally.  Peace-making and justice-making are our Christian responses.

            So as you watch the storms across society, try to set aside your reactions, your reactivity and listen to the voices of others, especially the voices you don’t especially like.  That is one way to keep from dehumanizing people.  And redirect outrage and emotion into spiritual and community energy to mitigate suffering and change hearts and structures, and accept the scriptural warnings about how easy it is to dismiss other people and to ignore the all-giving love of Christ.  Take a moment to step away from the screen and reconnect with humanity and love and support and compassion and grace, and look for the ways you can, yourself, expand the embrace of God’s love right here and now where you are.

                                                                              In Christ,
                                                                           
                                                                                David

Texts for Sunday
      From the Hebrew Bible       Exodus 1:8-2:10
      From the Epistles               Romans 12:1-8
      From the Gospels               Matthew 16:13-20

Outside Looking In

            One of the persistent threads running through the tapestry of our Scriptures is God’s concern for the outsider.  Whether the poorer, the minority, the unprotected by social structures, the stranger, the person outside the mainstream is our concern as faithful followers of God.  It is more than mere, passing, “concern,” for in many places scholars have called it God’s preferential option for the outsider.  Many of the Hebrew laws protect and give a hand up to the least of our neighbors.  The poor are given religious legal protections and special provisions for their survival, like the right of gleaning fields.  Time and again Israel is reminded to take care of the fatherless and the orphan and the widow, a really big deal in patriarchal society.  Jesus continues that prophetic strain that those who are in good conditions are obligated to help and protect those in difficult circumstances.  Similarly, Jesus points to the faith of non-Jews who come to him, like in this week’s Gospel tale.  Jesus was in many ways himself an outsider— not really having a fixed home, a refugee child in infancy, on the outskirts of the religious establishment, working class, hanging around with the rougher corners of society.

            This week seems to me filled with tales of the outsiders.  Religious minorities are fleeing genocide from ISIS.  Persons of color are reacting to systemic racism from police and government and media who tend to see matters from the top instead of from the middle of the problem or from the ground level.  Employees of major corporations are outsiders peering in at the highly paid managers who give them little mind.  Rural communities find their needs and funding missing in the broader political conversation.

            And the death this week of Robin Williams has resurfaced the perspective and pain of those living with mental illness and brain disorders and emotional problems.  I am saddened by the death of someone whose performances and comedy meant so much to me.  I am somewhat reassured that much of the reaction to Williams’ death has been a humane and thoughtful discussion of the hard work involved in coping with depression (and other conditions).  I am, of course, troubled by the heartless, stupid, hurtful, uncaring, misguided, and damaging things written and posted and said.

            Even some things meant as supportive are unhelpful and hurtful.  Way too many are said by good-hearted religious people who don’t necessarily have a clue or treat depression and suicidality (in William’s case) as merely spiritual or volitional or evidence of less faith.  Well-meaning people trying to reassure others that God “forgives” people who die of suicide actually miss the mental health point by mislabeling it as sin, even if “forgiven.”  Makes me sad, actually.

            Those living with any of the complex mental health conditions and those living with them generally feel like outsiders and outcasts.  The secondary stigma is often worse than the psychological or physical problems, and it is that which leads people to feel like outsiders.  If not actually being marginalized by too many of us who are uncomfortable with what they live with.

            Reading so much in the last week about the shooting in Ferguson, the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, the violence in Syria and Iraq, the civil war in Ukraine is painful.  The posts supporting those dealing with mental illness are both heart-breaking and heart-warming, for the online world can provide a safe place for those who feel outside to be supported and included.

            Mercifully, our theology gives us a way to work our way back from platitudes to being true neighbors and helpers.  The familiar UCC concept of “welcome” is an antidote to treating others as outsiders.  It is how we can bring someone in from outside (not just from outdoors but from spiritual and psychological and social exile) inside, into the “us” which is Christ’s church.  It takes work, certainly, for us to learn how to recognize people who feel they are outsiders, and it take work learning the right words and gentle approach to extend a welcoming (non-threatening) hand, and it takes work to be patient enough to hold that hand outstretched for the sometimes long time needed to develop trust, and it takes work to learn enough about our selves and our neighbors.  Yet it is worth doing for the sake of our sisters and brothers (and because some of those who feel themselves outsiders are, in truth, our sisters and brothers and parents and children and relatives and neighbors and coworkers and friend and dear ones).

            We are called to be the friends and advocates of the outsiders, the victims of gun violence, of racism casual or systemic, the addicted, the abused, the abuser, the persons in conflicts within their own minds, the different, the outsider.  We are called to treat everyone like Jesus loved everyone.  It’s as easy and as hard as that.

            Please, O loving savior, grant that we will walk out from our comfortable places to stand with the outsider long and kindly enough that they will feel safe coming inside to live in your love.

                                                                              In Christ,
                                                                           
                                                                                David

Texts for Sunday
      From the Hebrew Bible        Genesis 45:1-15
      From the Epistles                Romans 11:1-2, 29-32
      From the Gospels                Matthew 15:10-28

Work Ahead

      How many seasons are there in upstate New York? Four.  Winter, still winter, more still winter, and road construction.

      Some weeks during the summer I can commute through between four and eight construction areas.  Some are just small sections with a few workers trimming trees or working on a driveway, yet others are substantial delays or miles long strings of traffic cones and machines and workers.

      Most of the time we mutter under our breath but understand that when you gotta get work done you gotta get work done, and the results are worth it.

      We don’t have orange cones around the church these days, but there is a work crew busy digging away: our pastor search committee.  They are busy building what the UCC calls the Local Church Profile.  And, like so many construction sites, it can be kind of hard to tell what people are working on as you glance at it on your way by.

      Like any good project, it starts with figuring out what you’ve got to work with and what your final objective is.  That’s sort of the phase the committee is at right now.  They are still sorting out the prep work needed.  They are taking the data from our all-congregation sessions and the Congregational Life survey and, in essence, working out the engineering for the search process.  While it doesn’t look like much on the outside, it is a critical time in the work, for if your foundations are not right, the structure can fail.  And, getting the foundations thought out correctly is the most crucial part of the critical part!  The committee is working very hard at articulating the vision of this congregation moving into God’s future, understanding its behavior and participation patterns, and, most difficult of all, the interactions of all the components in leadership. 

      And all of this happens before anybody appears on the other side of the construction signs; it is all hidden in the offices long before a shovel touches the earth.  Some of the larger projects around here probably took years more planning and preparing than actual active work.  (I might exempt the Commons from that… it seems to be taking years in the doing, too!)  Just because you don’t see much going on with our pastoral search doesn’t mean there is not a lot going on behind the scenes.

      Shortly, the committee will be asking for some more specific help from you.  They will be circulating a questionnaire.  Before you mutter, “Didn’t we do that already,” this is a different one, so be nice and do it, OK?  The Search Committee is also setting up some informal ways for you to interact with them around a couple of topics they are working on.  Those ways will also give you a chance to share your thoughts and questions with them if you have anything you feel moved to share.  At minimum, I hope you will offer a word of support to them in addition to your ideas.  Sometimes the highway workers need a cool drink of water, too!

       The Romans scripture lesson this week ends with “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”  You may want to find out what I do with that line! I hope you will join us this Sunday at 10 am.

      Oh, and I hope a lot of you can congregate at the auditorium at Longview at 2 pm Sunday to share worship there.  It’s a lovely time to share the Good News of God’s love and our presence with folks up on that hill.  See you Sunday!

                                                                              In Christ,
                                                                           
                                                                                David


Texts for Sunday
      From the Hebrew Bible       Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
      From the Epistles               Romans 10:5-15
      From the Gospels              Matthew 14:22-33