Category: Serving

Grief, Healing, and Action

Many of us are grieving the reelection of Donald Trump to the office of president of the United States of America. We have seen his cruelty. We remember his separating children from their parents at the border. We have seen how he demeans and taunts others. We have seen his racism, sexism, and xenophobia. We have seen how he hooks into people’s fears, grievances, and prejudices. He manipulates and abuses human weakness for his own purposes.

So we grieve. We grieve the state of our union, our relationships to one another, our divisions.

Joe Biden has often said “That is not who we are,” when speaking of the kinds of actions and attitudes expressed by Trump. And yet the extent of our embrace of Trump makes him a mirror that reflects us as a nation. He certainly is not the only mirror, but he is one that reveals something of what is valued and pursued in our nation and how we view one another.

The truth is we are all broken. We need healing. We need deliverance. From anger. From self-absorption. From fear. From grievances. From the way we view and judge one another. We need to be freed from the hooks that a Trump can hook into.

We need to love one another. Those of us who are followers of Jesus have learned from Jesus that we are to serve one another with compassion and to witness to the love that is near and available.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. (Matthew 9:36)

Harassed and helpless describes the human condition. In our helplessness, we need compassionate action in our lives. When we have come to know that compassion, we must share it. We must exercise it.

Compassion does not judge others; it does not write them off. But it does discern. And it does not remain silent. We must speak the truth in love. We must speak to the underlying egotism and self-absorption that alienates us from one another, alienates us from knowing or caring about what others are going through, confines us to our own felt needs and agendas and views of the world. Alienates us from Love. We must speak deliverance.

And then the compassion we experience must continue to move us outward in doing justice. When, for example, Trump starts rounding up millions of undocumented people, putting them into internment camps, separating them from spouses and children, in order to process them out of the country, we must stand in the way. We must speak out. We must call others to give witness to the injustice and work to make right what is wrong. Rather than add to the darkness, we must be light in our society.

Filed under: Compassion, Healing, Love, Serving, Society, WitnessTagged with: ,

Solidarity and the Coronavirus

It was a nurse practitioner that got me “woke.” She made plain that the trajectory we are presently on, without radical measures, will mean an exponential growth of the coronavirus. Her sharing also made plain the steps that I needed to take. I am taking directions from the doctors in my life and listening to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). God speaks to us in many ways.

Here is a sobering warning from an article this morning: “If the number of cases were to continue to double every three days, there would be about a hundred million cases in the United States by May.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/?itid=hp_hp-banner-low_virus-simulator520pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

It is all about containment at this point. It is about flattening out the growth curve. Therefore, it is about social distancing and cutting down on gatherings. (Along with hand washing and other practices that ought to be a general part of our lives.) The CDC is now encouraging gatherings of no more than 50. Illinois is closing restaurants and bars. The more we can stay out of circulation the better. This is particularly true for those of us who are able to do this. Young adults, who may have much less to be concerned about personally with this virus, must care about the wider community. There are some who have this virus and do not know it and are carriers.

We each have a part to play for the sake of the common good. Christians know (if they do not forget) that they are part of this world with all its problems, struggles, and breakdowns. We share in the decisions and calls to action. We know we are to seek knowledge and love our neighbor. We are called away from acting from fear or from self-absorption. We are to be a “people for others.” We must take steps regarding our gatherings in the same manner that others in the larger community must do.

We are to pray. Pray and act for the vulnerable among us. Pray for health workers and others who are on the front lines in countering this pandemic. Pray for those who are out of work and those who have child-care issues. Pray for leaders and those in positions of authority whose decisions affect the direction that we, as a global community, take. Pray for solidarity, that we work together for the good of all.

Be mindful of the changing needs in our communities. Each congregation has various ministries and ways of serving, some of which can be activated in response to specific needs. New ways of serving also may come into being in response to what is happening around us.

And receive the gift that is present in what we are enduring right now. We are experiencing an astonishing global action. Actions are being taken despite the effects on the economy. We must learn from this. What we are seeing right now of the global response, we must give witness to, when it comes to combating global climate change.

People of faith, reach out for discernment for the actions to take and for what God is doing in this time.

Filed under: Serving, SocietyTagged with: ,

Evangelical Support for Trump and Following Jesus

Eighty percent of white evangelicals support Trump. Why? An evangelical faith adviser to Trump says the number one reason is “religious liberty.” The issue of abortion is number two.

Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, in a PBS News Hour interview, explains:

“Evangelicals experienced or felt that, in the past number of years, the past 10 years, issues of religious liberty, issues of advancing their Judeo-Christian value systems stood…threatened. Sisters of the Poor, Hobby Lobby, Supreme Court cases that to evangelicals infringed their ability to advance the Gospel of Jesus. So, all of a sudden, we have President Donald Trump, and the public policy initiatives as it pertains to faith is much more favorable to the evangelical community indeed.”

Christianity, as a religion, has had a privileged place in American society, from having chaplains for the House of Representatives to special tax breaks for clergy. Above all, Christians, along with other religions, have been legally free to worship and free to share their message with others. They must proclaim their message, however, in the midst of many other competing messages and at times in hostile environments. That is to be expected.

But compare that to the experience of Christians in the second century, when Justin Martyr pleaded with the Roman emperor, that Christians be judged justly, not merely because they went by the name Christian. Justin was addressing a situation where going by the name of Christ brought on persecution and even death. Justin himself was martyred. The issue was life and death. Even so, Christians continued to share the gospel and to serve. They had learned that they could do all things through the One who strengthened them and could proclaim the gospel in all circumstances. (Paul, in one of his imprisonments, writes that everyone guarding him was hearing the gospel.)

So, what is this concern for religious liberty on the part of “evangelicals” today? What more, in the way of liberty, is being expected from a highly secularized or “pagan” society? Apparently, the expectation is for a government that will make advancing our “Judeo-Christian value systems” less threatened, by carving out special laws that make room for our ability to take stands according to our peculiar consciences without any loss or discomfort.

I suspect that Pastor Rodriguez represents the evangelical community with some accuracy when he says that the number one white evangelical reason for voting for Trump is “public policy initiatives” that are “much more favorable to the evangelical community.” I also suspect that there are other underlying and hidden reasons. Trump’s appeal to racist and anti-immigrant attitudes is a significant factor, as it is in the general white populous. But the ostensible admission that “public policy initiatives” favorable to the evangelical community is the number one reason for continued support of Trump is surprising, given that it comes from those who say they are followers of Jesus who said, “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”[Matthew 16:25]

Jesus’ followers, rather than securing their positions, are called to lose their lives in order to serve. From a place of humility, we are empowered to do what Jesus did: Declare God’s reign which manifests itself in compassion for those who are “harassed like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus went to those who carried heavy burdens in order to liberate them, and he spoke against those in power who added to their burdens. Jesus ate with sinners, welcomed the outcast, healed the sick and brought good news to the poor. Jesus’ focus was not on obtaining and holding on to a place of privilege. He “didn’t come to be served but rather to serve and to give his life to liberate many people.”[Mark 10:45]

It would seem that those who go by the name of Christ, who experience God’s governance, would make their number one issue when voting for a leader, the care and uplift of others, especially the “least among us.” It would not be about themselves and gaining or holding on to a privileged position. It would be about the refugee, the hungry, the poor, the oppressed, the imprisoned, the life of the born as well as the unborn. It would seek leaders with some measure of compassion. When Christianity is true to its roots in Christ, it serves others, giving its life for others. It forgets itself and focuses on others, serving them with the good news in word and deed.

Filed under: Faith, Justice, Serving, WitnessTagged with: ,

Holy Communion From Below

On Maundy Thursday, our church—St. James Community Church—celebrated the last meal of Jesus with his disciples among the homeless camped in the lower reaches of the city. We went three levels down from the main level of streets of downtown Chicago to what is sometimes called Lower Lower Wacker Drive, a concrete environment, dark, dirty and distant from the lively streets above. It was there that we joined those who had made for themselves beds of blankets, a few with tents, along with various other items of survival. We brought hot meals, personal hygiene kits, and blankets—and the Eucharist.

Our pastor, William Hall, by bringing us to this place, made the connection between the night when Jesus was betrayed and the experience of those who are homeless—many of whom suffer with addictions and/or mental illness, and are forgotten and discarded by the society above. In the night on which Jesus was betrayed, we joined with those who have been betrayed by our society and often by the church.

After his last meal, Jesus went to a place of prayer and brought with him Peter, James, and John and said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.” (Matthew 26:38) Jesus still calls us to come and remain with him and to stay awake with him. So, where do we find Jesus grieving today? Where are we to remain and stay awake?

For us, at St. James, we found a place on Maundy Thursday where Jesus grieves, three levels down, distant from the lives of most of us. Our ministry to those who were homeless was at the same time—and, even more so, a ministry to our community of faith. We experienced the ministry of Jesus in our lives, as we came out of our places of comfort to a place of discomfort where Christ was present.

We offered Holy Communion to those who desired. Some embraced it as something they had long been without. Some joined us for prayer and asked for our prayers: “Pray for my deliverance from this addiction.” We saw hope in that place, the hope that is a response to being loved in some tangible way. There was community and God’s presence.

We do not have a ministry focused on the homeless at St. James. There are such ministries. And there are also justice ministries that work for societal change in relation to the homeless. What we had, on Thursday of Holy Week, was an act of serving that connected us with hurting people on the fringes of our society. We experienced Jesus leading us to deny ourselves (of what we could be doing instead), take up our cross (in the form of entering the suffering of others), and share in a holy communion from below.

Filed under: Faith, Serving, Witness