When You Run into the Wall of Injustice, I Get Bruises Too

I remember getting my first ministerial call as I prepared to graduate from seminary. Small town in the heart of Appalachia. The church was beautiful, a traditional Protestant downtown county seat kind of church.

The parsonage was nice … big. It had a large yard with an enormous swing set, new landscaping in the front. And to complete the perfect vocational/domestic idyll, the parsonage sat across the street from the fourth tee at the country club—to which the church bought me a membership.

So, back at the seminary I told my buddies about it … saving the country club part for last. Let’s be honest I was bragging. Looking back, I’m not proud of it. I was twenty-six and insensitive in that obnoxious way young people who figure they’ve got the world by the tail can be.

My pride didn’t even make it through that first conversation with my friends at seminary, however. Because after I finished recounting the glories of my new job, complete with the country club audio tour I wanted so badly to share, one of my friends, Marcus, spoke up and said, “Are you going to take that membership?”

I thought surely this must be a rhetorical question, because … really? Are you nuts? Of course, I’m taking it.

“Good for you. But let me ask you something: Can I come visit you at your new church?”

“You’reracis my friend. Of course.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that. Let me ask you another question: If you take me to play golf at your country club, will they let me play? Or will I have to caddy for you?”

Hearing those words hurt my heart. Marcus was my friend. So, it never occurred to me that a country club anywhere, including the South, might accept me but not my African-American friend.

LIke most middle class white kids, it never much occurred to me that a world of injustice exists, one that thrives beneath the horizon of my awareness. I knew about instances of unfairness, but it never occurred to me that those instances were connected on a deeper level.

But what struck me about Marcus’ question—beyond the fact that we still lived in a country where African-Americans could be refused access because of something as uncontrollable as the happenstance of birth—was my casual assumption that if I wasn’t being hurt by it, then nobody was.

For a couple of weeks we’ve watched as the implications of the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman fiasco unfold. Without rehashing all the details, it seems clear that Trayvon Martin’s race was more than just a coincidental factor in the confrontation that led to his death.

It would be easy for me to chalk this whole tragedy up to the problem with Stand-your-ground laws, which, as Walter Breuggemann has rightly pointed out, should be unthinkable to Christians—inviting violence as these laws do.

I could very easily look past this case as merely another instance of the breakdown of civility, another rending of the social fabric through an insistence that my life is more important than yours.

But I have dear sisters and brothers who, themselves African-American, see this case as just another illustration of how injustice is embedded in our society. And because they are my sisters and brothers, I have a responsibility to add my voice to theirs in drawing attention to a system that regularly puts a thumb on the scales of justice, disadvantaging people of color.

It doesn’t affect me, though, right? I wasn’t shot. I’m white. I’m generally not in danger of inviting violence because of how I look.

The popular assumption seems to be that we have varieties of injustice, complete with interest and advocacy groups for each. Which interest and advocacy groups dedicate themselves to seeking redress and reform for their particular cause. You take care of your stuff, because I’ve got my hands full taking care of my own.

In such a world, I need not be concerned so much with Trayvon Martin for two reasons: 1) I’m not African-American, so his death doesn’t seem to affect my world, and 2) there are already competent and passionate interest groups taking up his cause.

But beyond the laziness of such casual assumptions about somebody else doing the heavy lifting, the problem with thinking that I don’t have a responsibility to speak out about the racism baked into the American cake is a reality we don’t often name: racism isn’t a thing unto itself, but an expression of the larger problems of injustice and oppression committed by those in power against those who too often don’t have a voice. And that, my friends, affects us all … whether we realize it or not.

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you,’” (1 Cor. 12:21) is how Paul says it.

I cannot say to my African-American sisters and brothers, “I have no responsibility for you.”

I cannot say to my Hispanic sisters and brothers, “I know they’re ripping your families apart through deportation; I know they’re slandering your character, calling you unspeakable things for having committed the ‘crime’ of seeking to make a better life for those you love—but you should have thought of that before you crossed the border.”

I cannot say to my LGBT sisters and brothers, “I know you’ve felt like everybody’s favorite punching bag (sometimes literally); I know some of you are living on the streets or dying because you can no longer bear the hateful world we’ve made for you, but I’m straight, so I’ve got no dog in this fight.”

I cannot say to my sisters, “I know many of you live in fear that you’ll attract the unwanted attention of violent men; I know that you have to work harder to find a job that will pay you what you’re worth (or as is the case in my profession, that you’ll find a job at all), but you just need to quit being so ‘sensitive.’”

I cannot say to my sisters and brothers who live in other parts of the world, “I know that many of you cower in your homes, afraid of American bombs falling out of the sky; I know that you shrink behind locked doors, waiting for armed men to come crashing through; but if you’d have been smart enough to have been born in our country, you wouldn’t have to worry about that.”

I cannot say to my sisters and brothers without housing or adequate healthcare, “I know you worry about how you’ll make it through, but you’re just going to have to quit being lazy and get a job.”

It’s not enough for me to look after my own interests. It’s not enough for me to remain ignorant of the pain others experience. We’re connected in ways that make injustice a problem for all of us.

And if you follow Jesus, if you seek to participate in the unfolding reign of God, you don’t get to choose which injustices you care about. Racism, being anti-immigrant, homophobia, sexism, militarism, poverty … these are all presenting symptoms of the much larger disease of injustice that is at odds with what God desires for those whom God created and loves.

Here’s the thing: Since I happen to be an activist for a particular cause, I can too easily forget that I have sisters and brothers suffering from different forms of injustice to whom I need to offer my support. But they ought to be able to count on me to stand by their side … even if the issue doesn’t affect me directly. Because if I claim to follow Jesus, then—all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding—it does.

According to Paul, when you run headlong into the wall of oppression and injustice, I get bruises too.

I think Marcus would agree with me.

Staying Busy or Changing the World?

I remember that point in my first ministry when I came to the office, sat down behind my desk prepared to write a sermon and realized I had already said everything I knew to say. I kept going over possible angles for the sermon, and kept running headlong into a brick wall: "Said it. Nope, said it. Said that. Said that too."

I figured my career had reached its conclusion. I was sure that the next sermon would be my valedictory.

Where do ministers go after they've exhausted their knowledge, or perhaps better, when they've lost ways to communicate what they care about? After all, I hadn't really said everything I knew. I just couldn't see the bridges that would take me back to all the knowledge I had accumulated.

Sometimes I still feel that way when I preach or when I write—like whatever good I've had to say has already been said. Not much in front of me from here on out. I start feeling sorry for myself, wondering why inspiration isn't a constant companion.

Some of it is boredom, some of it laziness. You do your thing for a while and you start thinking, "What's next? Surely, there's got to be something that will motivate me."

And do you want to know what usually happens when these thoughts come flitting back through my mind? I eventually think: "I need to get busy doing something . . . something important."

I know that sounds counter-intuitive, in part because what I seem to have lost at these times of depletion is the ability to identify what's important. Perhaps better put: What I've lost is the the belief that I'm no longer able to identify what's important.

There's a difference, because I haven't really forgotten what's important. I'm still able to name the kinds of values I bring to my work. What I've lost is the ambition to discover where those values might be found in the next thing I want to do.

So, my response is to get busy doing something that I think might be important, with the idea that what I value will reveal itself to me soon enough.

Here's how it works in writing. I don't know what to write, so I fiddle. I fiddle until I feel guilty enough about it; then I force myself to write something. Usually, I will start out writing about the first thing that comes to my mind. And if I keep writing, eventually what's important will find me.

But this doing something important isn't just motivational talk. Human beings continually struggle to find meaning in life. However, many of the ways our culture seeks to define that meaning center on quantifiable measurements like money and success. But while money and success are nothing to sneeze at, they don't ultimately provide much in the way of meaning.

According to Harvard Business School Professor, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, meaning is to be found when we are a part of something that makes a difference. She argues that "everyone regardless of their work situation, [should] have a sense of responsibility for at least one aspect of changing the world."

So, engaging in something important isn't merely a bridge back to the interesting, but a chance to make a difference.

Turns out, I'm not just trying to get motivated; deep down I want to change the world.

Churches, it occurs to me, often experience this same cycle of despair, when there's not a whole lot new going on. Maintenance. If you've been busy, then taking a break can feel pretty good.

After a while, though, somebody notices that "we're not doing anything anymore."

Somebody, often clergy, will respond by saying, "What do you think we should do?"

And like my kids at home during summer vacation—usually sometime in July—the person responds with some sort of variation on: "I don't know. Nothing sounds good."

That's when it's time to get busy doing something important.

"But what should we do?"

It matters less at first what you do than with doing something that aligns with your values, with something you feel will make a difference.

Let me put it another way. What kinds of things have you done in the past as a congregation that you take pride in?

"Well, we did that back-to-school backpack thing that one summer for the children of undocumented workers in the area. That was pretty great?"

Why did you do it?

"The kids needed backpacks."

A lot of kids need backpacks. Why these kids?

"Well, somebody in the congregation heard that this group of people are often paid so little that their children go to school under-equipped. So, we thought that we could do something tangible to help."

Why'd you stop?

"It was just a one time thing."

Why?

"I don't know, now that you mention it. But it sure did feel good to be able to help. It was a lot of work, but it felt right."

What's going on with those kids now?

"I don't know."

Why don't you find out? Call the people you worked with last time and see what they're up to, what their needs are.

Pro tip: Why not find out what it is about the system as it now stands that continues to under-pay workers, and get involved in that?

Look, here's the thing: Being a Christian (or a writer, or a software designer, or a seamstress, or a golf cart salesperson) is almost always more about intentionality than inspiration.

Get to work doing something, and the important stuff will find you . . . if important stuff is what you want to find, and not just looking to stay busy.

You follow Jesus. You shouldn't be worried about trying to stay busy. You should be worried about trying to change the world.

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Passes Historic Resolution on Welcome of LGBT People

On Tuesday, July 16, as part of its biennial General Assembly, the Protestant mainline denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) voted to "to affirm the faith, baptism and spiritual gifts of all Christians regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity," declaring "that neither is grounds for exclusion from fellowship or service within the church." The resolution passed with over 75% of the vote.

Rev. Derek Penwell, pastor of Douglass Blvd. Christian Church in Louisville, was the resolution's primary author and DBCC served as the resolution's original sponsor. While this resolution does not speak directly either to the question of the same gender marriage or to standards for ordination, it attempts to say a positive word of grace and welcome to those people who, because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, have historically felt unrecognized and unwelcome by the churc.h"

Rev. Penwell said, "We know that the church has harmed countless LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, BiSexual, and Transgender) people in the past. Many churches continue to hurt today. This was a chance for Disciples to say publicly 'enough.' It was our chance to say that many Christians wnat to be a part of the solution of welcoming everyone, instead of the part of the problem."

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), based in Indianapolis, Indiana, and part of an indigenous American religious movement that arose at the beginning of the 1800s, is today considered a Protestant mainline denomination with a historic concern for the pursuit of ecumenical unity, social justice, and freedom of Biblical interpretation.

For more information on the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), visit http://www.disciples.org.

Douglass Boulevard Christian Church, founded in 1846, has historically been committed to the pursuit of justice for all people, offering leadership in trying to live out the message of love and hospitality embodied by Jesus. In 2008, Douglass Boulevard Christian Church voted to become an Open and Affirming Community of Faith.

Douglass Boulevard Christian Church is located at 2005 Douglass Boulevard in the Highlands near Douglass Loop. For more information on the church, visit http://douglassblvdcc.com.

For more information on Rev. Derek Penwell, visit http://derekpenwell.net.

Rev. Penwell handing out certificates to over 19 new Open & Affirming congregations.

The Iconoclasm of Washing the Wrong Feet

On Holy Thursday newly elected Pope, Francis I, stunned traditionalists by washing the feet of the wrong people. Yes, they were prisoners. Yes, one was Muslim. But that fact failed to raise any eyebrows. What really chapped the backsides of the keepers of the ecclesiastical keys was the fact that Pope Francis washed the feet of two teenage girls.

The scandal wasn't that they were teenagers either (a completely different article), but that they were female. Because, you know . . . they weren't men. Jesus, "on the night he was betrayed," washed the feet of those who enjoyed the comfy advantage of having been blessed at birth with the correct anatomical equipment.

Vatican observers with a commitment to the reforms instituted by Pope Benedict—reforms that called Catholics back to traditional liturgical and social concerns—blanched at the thought that Francis may be opening the door to innovation.

Innovation, to those who care about the unswerving devotion to a particular legacy, is not merely a lousy idea, but a potential threat to the faith. You can't have people walking around chucking the old stuff, adopting new practices higgledy-piggledy. That's a recipe for anarchy—or, if not anarchy, then potentially a state of affairs less than satisfactory to those used to calling the shots.

But then again, churches of all times and places have had to balance the competing impulses to stay the course or to strike out in a new direction. It's easy for new (read: young) people to come in and seek to turn over—at least in the estimation of the reformers—the tables of the ecclesiastical money changers. Self-righteousness, when it comes to seeing the failures of your forbears, is easy. They've made many mistakes.

However, we should probably begin with the generosity of spirit necessary for reform by pointing out that many of those mistakes in building a legacy were made in good faith. That is to say, for example, the institutional behemoth of mid-twentieth century mainline Protestantism didn't start out to build monuments to its own cultural domination. On the contrary, I take it as read that church leaders in the 1950s and 60s were overwhelmed by the pressures of trying to make enough space for all the people that came pouring in as the effects of the post-World War II baby boom began to emerge.

Young families were all there were. (Hyperbole: Don't email me.) It was like the curse of the Midas touch. Not necessarily through any special genius on the part of existing leadership, everything churches touched turned into 2.4 children. Pretty soon, churches didn't have room for them all. So, they built bigger and better sanctuaries to accommodate the inflow.

What the average minister didn't necessarily feel the need to build, however, was an ecclesiological or theological foundation upon which to ground this new cultural supremacy. It came to feel almost like a birthright.

"People will come because we're the church," these new cultural brahmins surely thought. Church leaders didn't often stop to ask the question about whether this growth was undergirded by anything more solid than the behavioral expectations of the culture, or if it was even healthy.[^1]

[^1]:I mean not all metastatic growth is good, right? Ask an oncologist. I'm just saying. Don't email me.

Why not?

If you're in a lucite booth that's blowing $20 bills, you don't stop to ask why somebody let you in there in the first place or whether the blower's going to turn off at some point, you just grab the money. And when you don't have enough room to stuff all the cash, you start looking for bigger, more efficient ways to reap the harvest of legal tender.

Unfortunately, apparently good fortune left the church with amazingly deep and well designed pockets, as well as the expectation that those pockets would always be full. So, when the air started to thin out from the flurry of $20 dollar bills, the conventional wisdom held that what was needed was not so much to figure out what to do with the $20 bills already there, but to come up with ever more ingenious ways to mimic the air circulation produced by the fan. Because the thinking appears to have been that the fan created the currency, rather than just blowing it about.

Ok. Let's not torture that metaphor any longer. However, we should be reminded that the cultural game that brought so many people to mainline churches in the middle of the last century, wasn't a game designed by the church. That churches adjusted their expectations and building habits to adapt to the sudden rush of suburbanites is understandable. They had to do something. We can argue about whether, in retrospect, it was the right thing; but to the extent it was an error, it was an error prompted by the need to act quickly.

Let's torture another metaphor: The problem wasn't that the ecclesiastical behemoth of the last century was guilty of trying to drink from a fire hose, but that it expected the fire hose would always be turned on full blast, and that its job going forward was to figure out both how to control the water pressure, as well as to figure out ever more efficient programmatic strategies for swallowing all that water.

In short, our criticism of the kingdom building taken on by previous generations of mainliners should be tempered by an understanding that they were reacting to a quickly changing cultural landscape. The issue we need to evaluate is any assertion that the ongoing maintenance of those kingdoms is a necessary function of living the way Jesus said to live.

Back to Pope Francis. What I find refreshing about—at least at this early stage of his papacy—his apparent pastoral presence is his determination to concern himself with the kinds of things with which Jesus concerned himself: Compassion for those on the margins—the poor, the powerless, the outcast, and the prisoner. Moreover, Francis' compassion is suitably dressed in a humility that refuses to take advantage of advantage—that is, the perquisites associated with papal power.

Setting aside for a moment the (always satisfying) thumb in the eye of overly protective traditionalists as a worthwhile end in itself, the attractive thing about what Pope Francis seems to be signaling is a commitment to following Jesus down the dark alleys of the human journey, in spite of the fact that most of the rest of the religious world appears too busy protecting the sixteen lane super highways we built to accommodate the increase in traffic. Which protection, unfortunately and to our lasting shame, often has little to do with making sure that the last, the least, the lost, and the dying feel the hands of mercy washing their feet.

The thing is, mainline churches ought to take a cue from Pope Francis and start turning over tables that keep us from the truly important things—that is, ministry to the people the religious bigwigs have always considered at best, a distraction, and at worst, a threat to stability. In other words, we should be out in search of people who desperately need their feet washed, instead of spending our resources building elaborate foot washing stations for people convinced the only thing they really need is a pedicure.

Iconoclasm, though it makes for good cable news, isn't worth much if the wrong folks don't get their feet washed.

[Derek]

Leading 'Ex-Gay' Organization Closes, Apologizes To LGBT Community | ThinkProgress

So, in case you didn't hear.  This is going to be a huge deal. 

Exodus International, one of the nation’s most prominent coalitions of groups promoting harmful “ex-gay” therapy, announced Wednesday that it was disbanding and apologized to the LGBT community for the massive harm it has caused to many. Alan Chambers, the group’s president, issued a written apology, acknowledging that his organization hurt many.

In his apology, Chambers wrote:

Please know that I am deeply sorry. I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents. I am sorry that there were times I didn’t stand up to people publicly “on my side” who called you names like sodomite—or worse. I am sorry that I, knowing some of you so well, failed to share publicly that the gay and lesbian people I know were every bit as capable of being amazing parents as the straight people that I know. I am sorry that when I celebrated a person coming to Christ and surrendering their sexuality to Him that I callously celebrated the end of relationships that broke your heart. I am sorry that I have communicated that you and your families are less than me and mine.

Sermon Podcast: Is Your God Too Small? (Guest Preacher, Dr. Glenn Hinson)

Dr. Glenn Hinson argues that if your God only does what you expect, only confirms what you believe, and only loves the people you love, your God is too small.

This one's definitely worth your time!

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Pope Francis Says Atheists Who Do Good Are Redeemed, Not Just Catholics

"The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can... "The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!".. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

~Pope Francis

The Prophetic Call for a Little Brash Stupidity

In this blog post, Will Willimon reminds us that age and experience are important, but that they can become idols when we forget that God is dynamic, moving--and so is the world (and the church) that God oversees. We need to move forward, take chances, embrace failure not as a moral deficiency but as a tool for learning.

"We choke to death on the geriatric virtues of maturity, balance, and careful procedure when what our moribund system needs are more clergy who are young, brash, reckless, and stupid. That is new pastoral leaders who will give God enough room to get in this staid old church and do the sort of resurrection that this God does so well."

A Letter to LGBT Student Groups (and Allies) at Christian Colleges

From A Letter from Rachel Held Evans

I don’t know much about what it’s like to be you. But I value those times we’ve spent talking over coffee and exchanging emails. We always seem to find one another when I’m on a college campus, and I’m beginning to think it’s because we’re the same kind of people—broken, wrestling, hopeful, brave…ragamuffins and misfits just taking it one day at a time.

I love you, and I am honored to be your sister in Christ.

Hang in there.

I’ve got your back.

— Rachel

Sermon Podcast: They Will See His Face

"No, you start telling people that they live in a place where they can see the face of God, and pretty soon they’re going to start living like it’s true.

"And it’s not even like we’re responsible for pulling it off, for planning this new world that looks like John’s picture of God’s new city. But one day, after spending all this time with a different vision, we wake up to see that we inhabit an entirely different world from the one we used to inhabit, or the one that used to inhabit us."

A sermon on Revelation and the New Jerusalem.

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DBCC Hosts Screening of the Film "Gen Silent" on Aging and LGBT Elder Issues

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

CONTACT:

Chris Hartman, Fairness Campaign Director

(502) 640-1095; @FairnessCamp

Dr. Noell Rowan, BSW Program Director, UofL Kent School of Social Work

(502) 852-1964; NLRowa01@louisville.edu

"Aging Fairly" Series Includes FIlm & Lecture on LGBT Elder Issues

April 28, 4 p.m., UofL Chao Auditorium; June 9, 5 p.m., Douglass Blvd. Christian Church 

(Louisville, KY) As part of its "Aging Fairly" series, the Fairness Campaign is partnering with KIPDA Mental Health and Aging Coalition, the University of Louisville Kent School of Social Work, The LGBT Center at University of Louisville, Mad Stu Media, Faith Leaders for Fairness, and True Colors Ministry to present showings of Stu Maddux's award-winning documentary film on LGBT aging, Gen Silent. 

Each film showing is coupled with a brief lecture by Dr. Noell Rowan, BSW Program Director of UofL's Kent School of Social Work, who will reveal findings from a groundbreaking Hartford Faculty Scholars research project, Resiliency and Quality of Life for Older Lesbian Adults with Alcoholism. The series is free to the public with refreshments and will be shown Sunday, April 28, 4:00 p.m. at UofL's Chao Auditorium in the basement of Ekstrom Library and Sunday, June 9, 5:00 p.m. at Douglass Boulevard Christian Church, 2005 Douglass Boulevard.

The film showing and lecture series is part of the Fairness Campaign's ongoing efforts to promote awareness in the community of LGBT aging issues and disparities among older LGBT adults. As chronicled in Gen Silent, many older LGBT people struggle with going back into the closet as they fear prejudice and unfair treatment in assisted living facilities and nursing homes. According to Improving the Lives of LGBT Older Adults, a joint study by the MAP Project, Center for American Progress, and SAGE, 8.3% of LGBT elders reported abuse or neglect by a caretaker due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, senior lesbian couples have almost twice the poverty rate of senior heterosexual couples, LGB older adults have 11% higher alcohol abuse rates than their heterosexual peers, and 72% of LGBT seniors are hesitant to engage in mainstream aging programs for fear of being unwelcome, among other staggering statistics.

"With more than 1.5 million LGBT seniors living in America today, and with that number ever increasing as more Baby Boomers join those ranks, caring for and better accommodating the needs of our LGBT elders has become an increasingly urgent issue on the Fairness Campaign's radar," shared director Chris Hartman. "In the coming years, we will be deepening our partnerships with these and other organizations--like Elderserve, Inc.--to best serve Louisville and Kentucky's LGBT seniors."

WHAT: "Aging Fairly" film and lecture series

WHEN & WHERE: 
Sunday, April 28, 4:00 p.m. 
UofL's Chao Auditorium in the basement of Ekstrom Library

Sunday, June 9, 5:00 p.m.
Douglass Boulevard Christian Church, 2005 Douglass Boulevard

WHO: Dr. Noell Rowan
KIPDA Mental Health and Aging Coalition
University of Louisville Kent School of Social Work
The LGBT Center at University of Louisville
Fairness Campaign
Mad Stu Media
Faith Leaders for Fairness

True Colors Ministry

Where Do I Want to Be When Justice Rolls Down?

By Derek Penwell

I had a parishioner write something the other day that I can’t quite get out of my head. Darla is an advocate in the state capitol on behalf of the rights of the disabled and the elderly, and had a bill go on life support -- the Adult Abuse Prevention Bill. (How do you not support that?)

In her disappointment, she wrote: “I sit here again thinking about exactly where do I want to be when justice does roll down!”

I’ll be honest: That question haunts me. Darla was referring to the famous passage from the prophet Amos, who , in a time where grave disparities existed between those in power and those on the margins, between those dining on bone china and those forced to eat leftovers out back from the dumpster, wrote:

“But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” (5:24).

Apparently, God has become upset with Israel because of the way those in power have treated the folks at the bottom of the food chain. God’s anger stems from the fact that “they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals -- they … trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way” (2:6b-7a).

The irony in Amos, however, is that the people who oversee this oppression labor under the assumption that they’re on God’s side. The oppressors are God’s people, people who long for the “day of the Lord.” They believe that when God sets things right, they’ll be -- as they’ve always been -- on the winning side of things.

But God says something like, “Don’t be so quick to hunger for the day of the Lord. The justice you seek may not be nearly as pleasant for you as you imagine” (5:18).

In other words, the people God is most annoyed with are the people who’ve always considered themselves the heroes of the story, the ones whom God should be grateful to have on the team -- the ones who throw holy festivals, who gather in solemn assemblies, who offer up all the right sacrifices, who sing beautiful songs -- all to God. These are the people who’ve taken care to make sure they believe all the right things, who hold all the correct theological positions and whose liturgical prowess is unmatched.

What is God’s response to these pillars of the assembly?

“I don’t care about your spiritual virtuosity! Fine, you know your way around the scriptures. You know what fraction of an ephah of flour should be used to bake bread for the tabernacle. Congratulations! You have an exhaustive metric concerned with determining who’s fit to bother with, and who doesn’t measure up. Here’s the problem, though: none of that means anything, since you forgot that all that stuff is a tool to make you into the kind of people who seek justice by loving the people I love.”

When my daughter was about 4 years old, she’d just received (at our prompting, of course) the latest in what must have felt like an endless string of apologies from her older brother for hitting her.

“Tell your sister you’re sorry,” we said.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

And she said something that still calls out to me: “I don’t want your ‘sorries.’ I just want you to stop hitting me.”

You see, the thing is: It’s easy to do that which seems big and true and righteous, but costs me little. Doing something that costs me, really costs me, is difficult. And I’m not talking about money, except inasmuch as money stands as another way to control the world I live in.

Making myself vulnerable. Voluntarily surrendering power. Placing myself in someone else’s hands. Not getting to be the boss of who’s in and who’s out, who’s worth helping and who “should have known better in the first place.” These things cost me.

Being right isn’t a bad thing. I try to do it regularly myself. But when being right costs you nothing and someone else everything, Amos says you’re bound to get crossways with God -- since God seeks first to love us, and through us to love one another. Even God is less interested in being right than in being loving -- for Christians, that’s what that whole Jesus thing was about.

God says to the keepers of the keys: “For my part, give me justice. Justice. Let it roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”

And for God, justice doesn’t mean simple fairness, flattening everything out so it’s the same. Justice means seeking for everyone what they need to flourish.

So, where do I want to be when justice rolls down? My first inclination is to say: “I want to be on the right side of it.”

If I read Amos anything like correctly, my heart says: “When justice rolls down, I want to be right in the middle of it.”

This article originally appearead in the Huffington Post.

Sermon Podcast: Seeing with Different Eyes

"The story of Peter and Cornelius is a tough passage just to the extent that it asks us to do the difficult work of continuously discerning the movement of the Holy Spirit. Where is God going? What kind of new thing is God up to? Who is it that makes us uncomfortable, whom God is busy trying to welcome into the fold?

"It’s a lot easier to sit back, point out the rules, and say, 'This is the way God’s always done it before.' But God is bigger than our attempts to box God in. God cares about establishing a a reign of justice and mercy, not about making us feel comfortable."

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The Future of Faith

With the rise of both the "nones" and immigrant faith groups, the way future of faith seems squeezed between two opposing forces. What is the way forward? How about this?

"What if the path toward awakening is simple? Embracing faith as if we really mean it, not worrying about institutional power or rich congregations, living out the teachings of Moses and Jesus, sharing with others, seeking to be at peace with all, loving our neighbors as ourselves?"

A thought provoking article by Diana Butler Bass. Take some time to read it.

Evangelical Leader, Jim Wallis, Now Favors Marriage Equality

"Jim Wallis' support of same-sex marriage is yet another proof of the ever-changing opinions in the U.S. about the subject. Since 2003, Americans, even from the most conservative states and religious creeds, have steadily increased their support for the issue. Slowly but surely, gays rights are becoming what African American rights were 60 years ago: accepted by more and more people."

Do you hear that? It's the winds of change

It's All About Getting There

By Derek Penwell

Shipping

Shipping. In the end it’s all about shipping.

It’s not about starting. Anyone can start.

It’s about producing. It’s about seeing a project through to completion. It’s about shipping.

Used to be, I was a good starter. I liked the process. I’d get excited about something, and I’d go out and buy a notebook to start taking notes, start planning, start getting ready to start.

And pens. I bought a lot of pens.

And calendars. Notebooks, and pens, and calendars.

How could I not be serious with all these office supplies?

Or, after I got into the computer age, it was software. If I only had the right software, I’d already be finished.

The problem was I mistook starting for shipping. I thought that if I could just get started, I would have done the really important work. If I could just line up the perfect office supplies, the right software, I would have solved the hardest part.

I mistook preparing to work for work.

And it’s not that preparing for work is unimportant. You need the right tools to do the job. Unfortunately, I spent so much time getting the right tools, then organizing them, and making sure the desk or the paints or the tool bench was just so, that I could walk away from the work thinking I’d accomplished work without ever actually working.

Perhaps, even more importantly, I usually had tools enough to start anyway. I convinced myself that the work couldn’t get done, however, without “better” tools.

Here’s what it took me so long to figure out—and occasionally still need help figuring out—good work is the application of resources in the service of realizing a goal—that is, good work is about completing a project and shipping it. Good work doesn’t require a perfect beginning. Perfect beginnings are a white whale that lead you to the middle of nowhere.

Good rule of thumb: If the work you’re doing isn’t bringing you closer to achieving your objective, it’s wasting your time. Not only is it not helping you do good work, it’s preventing you from doing good work—since all the fiddling around deceives you into thinking you’re actually doing something, when in fact, you’re actively, not doing the very thing that would help you achieve your goal.

Sometimes you just have to use the notebook you have.

Maybe you have to make peace with the fact that the old Bic you find at the bottom of the drawer will work just fine.

Perhaps what you need isn’t new software, but a bare-bones text editor and the determination to start driving the cursor across the page—before you have all the details worked out.

The Church and Getting Sidetracked

One of the problems with following Jesus is that you never know quite where he’s going to go. According to the Gospels, the disciples regularly found this little idiosyncrasy of Jesus vexing.

First, he’s going here. Then, he’s going there. The disciples found it next to impossible to keep up with him.

Then, after Jesus left, they stood around, waiting for someone to tell them what to do next.

After the ascension, they stood around looking into the heavens, wondering, “Now what?” Suddenly, two men in white robes sidle up and say, “Why are you just standing there? Quit mouth-breathing and get back to work.”

At Pentecost, they were all gathered together in the Azalea Room at the local Holiday Inn Express, wringing their hands, unable to work out just where to go next. The Holy Spirit showed up, kicked them out into the street with no discernible plan, “For crying out loud! Will you just get out there and start working?”

“We don’t know what to do.”

“Of course you don’t. And you’re never going to know sitting here, rearranging office supplies. You’re going to have to get out there and start.”

“We don’t know where to go.”

“If you wait to start walking until it’s all lined up for you, you’ll never find out where you need to go.”

“But what if we go in the wrong direction? What if we do the wrong thing?”

“You will. Inevitably. You’re going to make so many mistakes, even Lindsay Lohan’s going to look thoughtful next to you. But so what? Most likely, you won’t know exactly what to do and where to go until you’re already out there in the middle of it. So, go ahead and make some mistakes; because making mistakes in the service of a goal is preferable to sitting about endlessly rehearsing the reasons to continue sitting about.”

Congregations too often gets sidetracked. Worried about making mistakes, congregations freeze up.

Well, that’s not true entirely. It’s not like congregations that are afraid of making mistakes don’t do anything. They start things; they just don’t ship much that’s interesting. Unfortunately, the things they start are things with which they feel comfortable.

They spend a great deal of time lining up budgets, making flow charts, buying fancy stationary, dreaming up new programs. And these things feel like good work, like ministry.

But so often these scared congregations stop just short of doing good work because they fear making a mistake. Not wanting to do something that might raise the ire of the faithful, they stick to things they know—which would be one thing, if what they know actually took them toward anywhere interesting. As it is, much of the normal flurry of activity fails to help them arrive at a destination, amounting to energy expended in the service of wheel-spinning.

Here’s What I Think

1. Use the tools you’ve got … until you have enough experience to know they’re not sufficient. Then, go get what you need. (Consistently reversing the order here, will almost certainly guarantee you won’t ship.)
2. Start working. Start heading toward a destination.
3. If you don’t have all the details figured out about your goal, start working anyway. You’re more likely to understand exactly what you’re trying to do only after you’ve begun.
4. If you don’t have the exact GPS coordinates in hand, start heading in the general direction. (This isn’t the same as traveling at random. Start heading north, if north is where you think you need to be.)
5. Make some mistakes. Embrace your mistakes. They provide you valuable information.
6. If you’re on a journey to a destination, backtracking is not defeat; it’s re-calibration. (If you have an idea where you’re going, backtracking is almost always better than sidetracking.)
7. If you’re vaguely afraid of going someplace, it might be that you need to pay more attention to that place. It could truly be dangerous. Or it could be that it’s the very place you should be headed, since all truly interesting places involve a certain amount of risk.
8. Start. Produce. Finish. Ship. Repeat.

Creeping around the Edges (Mark 5:21-43)

Rev. Derek Penwell's sermon for 7/1/2012

In the recent debate over healthcare reform one focus of the argument centers on whether the government or the private sector can better provide healthcare service at a manageable cost. Distilled to its essence, the debate seems to me to focus on which bureaucracy is less bureaucratic.

Private insurance providers claim that the free market is more efficient, because competition drives prices down—which, given the metastatic growth in healthcare costs, is a dubious claim at best. Public healthcare advocates say that the profit incentive in private healthcare makes the job of insurance companies center around figuring out how to deny coverage. Whatever your position, though, the main argument revolves around how to get more healthcare for less money.

Our society spends a great deal of time doing cost-benefit analysis. That is to say, we're socialized to ask, “Does the benefit I derive from a thing exceed the cost I lay out?”

I love cherries, for instance. But whereas I will pay $2.99 a pound for them, $4.99 a pound strikes me as unreasonably high.

Advertising is the practice of convincing you that the prices we're charging for toilet brushes are worth the investment. This makes a certain amount of sense in a market based economy. The problem, though, is that we don't just apply cost/benefit analysis to stuff—we also apply it to one another.

John Stuart Mill wrote in the middle of the nineteenth century that ethics is a matter of “maximizing utility.” Maximizing utility means doing that which leads to the greatest happiness.

According to Mill, if I have to make a choice about whether to save one person or to save ten, I make that choice based on the greatest benefit I can achieve by my action. The sacrifice of one person to save ten is good utilitarian math—though it may not necessarily be good Christian math.

But utilitarianism in Western calculations concerns not only thorny ethical dilemmas, but also the investment of energy. Does it make more sense to teach one special needs child to read or ten average kids? We only have so many resources. We need to get the biggest bang for our buck, right? You see the problem.

But it's one thing to have to figure out how to divide up food for six among seven people on a life boat; it's an entirely different thing to apply utilitarian calculations to our everyday social arrangements. Under this kind of cost/benefit analysis, people can be judged to “cost” more than they're “worth.”

How do we deal with the mentally handicapped, with alzheimer's patients, with people in a persistent vegetative state? What do we do with people who've gotten in over their heads with mortgages they can't afford, or who've had to buy groceries with credit cards? What kind of return on our investment can we expect from them? These are tough questions.

We much prefer to deal with the easy ones: should Jr. go to Harvard or Yale? Can we really afford private Zamboni lessons for our sweet little girl? Do we want our child to date the doctor or the lawyer? Does it make more sense to be a Cubs or Yankees fan?

By and large, people want their kids to be voted “most likely to succeed,” not “best body piercing.” That's the way our society operates. The pressure is to move forward and upward—and to associate ourselves with those who do.

If you have any experience on Facebook, you know that one of the moments of pleasure it can bring is when someone you've sent a friend request to responds by accepting you as a Facebook friend. On the other hand, it can be a little unnerving to send out a friend request to somebody, and never have them respond.

You start thinking, “Did he get it? Is he ignoring me? Did I do something to insult him at some point? Does he think his other friends will think less of him if they see I'm also his friend? Am I

goofier than I thought? That can't be right, because I hung out with way cooler people in school than he did?”

It becomes a sort of endless social calculation of worth—who's more important? Who's worth my time? Do other people think I'm not worth their time?

Of course, these endless calculations of worth aren't unique to us. People throughout history have been doing these sorts of things. Even Jesus isn't completely removed from the social pressures of figuring out who's worth his time and energy.

In our Gospel, Jesus has just calmed the storm and exorcised the demons from the Gerasene demoniac. He crosses back over the sea he's just calmed, where he is approached by an important man, a leader of the synagogue named, Jairus. Up to this point in Mark, Jesus is getting a bad reputation for hanging out with the wrong sort of folks. He's paying attention to all the wrong people. Healing lepers and paralytics and the demon possessed.

Back in chapter two he does some leadership recruitment—not at the finest business schools—but at a “tax booth,” where he calls Levi. Then, he adds insult to injury by going to Levi's house to eat with a bunch of “tax collectors and sinners.” People are starting to talk. You have to be a bit more discerning about the company you keep. Jesus is getting a bad reputation.

So, when Jairus prevails upon Jesus to come see about Jairus's sick little girl, everyone’s relieved. Jairus is the kind of ally Jesus is supposed to cultivate. He's head of the Men's Morning Breakfast down at the synagogue, president of the local Lion's club; he's got contacts. He can help Jesus network.

The disciples must have been thinking, “Finally. Now, we're getting somewhere.” Do a favor for this guy, and no telling the kind of political capital Jesus can start building.

On the way to Jairus's house, though, something happens. It shouldn't have been a big thing. Jesus probably should have just kept going. When you've got a big one on the hook like Jairus, you don't

want to lose your concentration, don't want to get distracted. But Jesus stops anyway. Somebody's yanking on his shirttail. “Who touched my clothes?” he wants to know.

The disciples look at each other, their eyebrows knitted. “What do you mean, 'who touched my clothes?' You're in a crowd, for Pete’s sake.”

A woman approaches. She's owns up to grabbing onto his cloak.

If Jesus is going to turn over a new social leaf, quit hanging out with the wrong crowd, this is the perfect time to start. Women weren't supposed to touch men who were not their husbands. Jesus could make a real statement about how he's willing to play ball in the current political environment by giving this woman what-for.

Moreover, not only is she a woman, she's an unclean woman. She has, what the King James called, an issue of blood. She's been bleeding for 12 years, which is a nice way of saying she's had female problems—not just monthly, but daily . . . for 12 years.

A menstruating woman was considered unclean—which is to say, untouchable. She wasn't supposed to touch anyone, let alone a strange man.

Jesus could really signal his willingness to play by the rules by doing the right thing, the thing that would grease the social gears, the thing that would maximize utility, making the largest number of people happy. He could humiliate her, should humiliate her. But he doesn't.

He tells her that her faith has healed her. “So what?” you ask.

The outrage is that he gives tacit approval to the woman's actions. She’s a drain on society. You can’t encourage that kind of behavior. We know how people are, they’ll take advantage of you every time if they think they can get something for free—especially healthcare.

But rather than do the socially and politically expedient thing, Jesus walks the margins again in search of those folks who are creeping around the edges.

Soon, he and Jairus make it to where the sick little girl is. But by the time they get there, she's already died.

Oh well, nice try, Jesus. Thanks for coming. We appreciate you taking the time, but all that's left to us now is to start preparing her body for burial.

Jesus says, “I'd like to see her anyway. She's really only sleeping.”

Mark says that everybody laughed at Jesus for saying this. They've seen dead people before. They know what dead people look like.

Jesus persists, though. As far as Jairus is concerned, Jesus has done all that could be asked of him. Now that she's dead, Jesus will only make himself unclean by going to see her to hold her lifeless hand.

He never learns, this Jesus. What's the public relations upside here? You've got to think about how this stuff is going to play on cable news.

Not Jesus. Ignoring the cost/benefit analysis, Jesus goes to her, takes her hand, and tells her to get up, and together they walked the margins hand in hand.

What I find interesting about these two intertwined stories is the issue of how short-sighted they make Jesus appear on the front end. In both cases, Jesus participates in activity guaranteed to marginalize him in everyone’s eyes. In both cases, he risks the social and political costs of being unclean by touching those who are unclean. A true test of your convictions is what you’re prepared to look like a complete idiot for.

But the great shock of the story, however, is that once Jesus touches them, they are healed, made alive—and not only is Jesus not unclean as a result of the this encounter, neither any longer are they.

In touching these two in an unclean state, Jesus has not only healed them physically, he’s restored them to the social world in which purity is boss. In other words, he’s given them back their lives . . . in more ways than one.

When Jesus walks the margins looking for those who creep around the edges, he redefines the edges, so that the margins are set in the center; and it's the folks who usually occupy the center who risk finding themselves on the margins.

Once again, Jesus turns the world on its head. The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. The one who wants to find life, must first lose it. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. The one who wants to gain the world, must forfeit everything.

But Jesus, that doesn't make sense; it's just not good math. You need to put your money on a winner, get a good return on your investment, ride the middle of the road. And Jesus says, “Life's much more interesting out here with those folks on the edges.”

Ask them. Ask those folks who, because society’s told them repeatedly that they’re not worth the effort, what it means for Jesus to go out of his way to reach out a hand, to risk the bad opinion of those bigwigs who occupy center. Ask them whether somebody finally willing to go looking for them means anything.

Walk the margins with Jesus, go looking for those folks creeping around the edges, and sooner or later your cost/benefit analysis is going to get really goofed up.

I promise you.

-Amen. 

True Colors Film Screening

Our friends at the True Colors Ministry of Highland Baptist Church are screening the film Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin this Sunday, February 5th.  If the Super Bowl just isn't your cup of tea, or you're simply looking for an interesting and stimulating activity on Sunday, this is definitely the place to be!  For more information, contact Maurice Bojangles-Blanchard at truecolorsministry@gmail.com. 

Youth: Saturday Night Movie Social

The DBCC Youth, as well as our friends, are invited to our first monthly Saturday Night Movie Social (official name pending).  Youth are encouraged to bring friends as we dine, play games, watch a movie, and just hang out together.  The event will be from 6-11PM this Saturday, Jan. 28th.  Bring friendly attitudes, empty stomachs, and lots of friends!