Seek the Welfare of the City: A Meditation for 10 April 2011

Note: The occasion of this meditation was an interfaith worship service hosted by Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith.

In the Hebrew Scripture just read (Jeremiah 29:4-7 NRSV), the prophet Jeremiah speaks words of comfort to the elders, priests, and people of Israel who had been exiled to Babylon. He also instructs them, in the name of the Lord God, to pray for Babylon.

Throughout history, the Jewish people have lived in many lands and cities under many different rulers and governments, and since the time of Jeremiah, have prayed for them.

One of the many ways Christianity is rooted in Judaism is that Christians of many denominations also pray for rulers and governments in the countries and communities where they live. It’s always nice to find connections among our faith traditions.

But notice that in instructing the Jews to pray for the city, God had a grander agenda than starting a tradition. Indeed, the situation for the Israelites was actually quite ironic. Jeremiah tells the Israelites to pray for the very enemies who had destroyed their home city, Jerusalem, captured them and carried them off against their will to Babylonia.

Why? Was God teaching how to “be nice” to captors or that we should accept abuses of power that oppress us? No. The motive and lesson clearly conveyed by Jeremiah is self-interest. Listen to it again: "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (Jeremiah 29:7 NRSV).

Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith seeks the welfare of Monroe, West Monroe, Ouachita Parish and all of our neighborhoods and communities because we understand self interest. We understand that our welfare as individuals and families is tied up, not only with that of our close relatives and church families, but also with the welfare of our cities and parish, state and region.

One of our founding leaders, Rabbi David Kline, understood and communicated Jeremiah’s point particularly well. A few years ago, we were asking the Monroe City Council to do something about a drainage canal that ran right through the playground of Madison James Foster School. “You must fix this,” Rabbi Kline said, “because the safety of our children depends on it.” And everybody in the room knew that not one of Rabbi Kline’s children or grandchildren had ever set foot in that school. And the ditch got closed!

The lesson God is teaching us through Jeremiah is twofold. First is self interest, the notion that what is good for the whole will be good for the individuals and families that make up the whole. So seek the good of the whole and everyone will prosper.

The second lesson that comes to us in this passage is that seeking the welfare of the city involves more than just sitting around complaining about how bad things are and complaining about the Babylonians who oppress us. Rather, God says through Jeremiah, you must do things that matter. You must take action. You must get involved and contribute to the welfare of the city.

Build homes, Jeremiah says. Plant gardens, grow your families by encouraging your children to marry and have children. Invest in the city in which you find yourself and create a prosperous community for yourself and your grandchildren.

Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith came into being approximately 15 years ago with a similar vision. With the agitation of our first organizer, Perry Perkins, a handful of local clergy began to meet and to talk about the state of this city and region, and about what needed to change for the city to prosper and along with it their congregations.

These pastors gathered together more pastors and many people from their congregations, and those people brought friends and neighbors. Turns out a lot of people understood that their own welfare and the welfare of their families is all tied up with the welfare of the city.

They understood that the prosperity of diverse neighborhoods is linked, and that one neighborhood cannot fully prosper if another across the river or across the railroad tracks is better habitat for snakes and rats than it is for children.

They understood that educating themselves and their own children meant less and had less value when public schools in the community perform poorly. They understood that all of our children need to finish high school, and to come out of high school prepared for either college or the workplace.

On the other side of that equation, they understood that businesses and employers of all kinds need qualified workers from among the local population in order to grow and contribute to the prosperity of the city.

And so Interfaith was born, and the notion that ordinary people can pool their smarts and their energy and their money and build power and get things done in their communities… spread from Monroe to Shreveport… and to Alexandria… and to the Delta.

Not only that, but we have sister organizations in other parts of the state: Together Baton Rouge in our capital city, and one in New Orleans that indeed calls itself "Jeremiah."

The message of Jeremiah is that God works through the voices and actions of people of faith everywhere. Ordinary people of faith everywhere who understand that to prosper themselves, they must seek the prosperity of the city.

Thus Interfaith created the political will and the funding to start NOVA, an employer-driven workforce intermediary that recruits under-employed people and helps them get the skills they need to move into jobs that actually exist, and that pay a living wage and have benefits and a career path.

At the end of just two years, NOVA graduates have not only transformed their own families, but they are also contributing $2 million dollars annually to the economy of Ouachita Parish.

Interfaith continues to work also in the areas of education and of neighborhood renewal. We meet on a regular basis with Superintendent Harris, seeking ways to support her efforts and those of the Monroe City School Board to put children first in all decision making. We have supported Mount Nebo in its quest to revitalize this neighborhood, and we continue to work in the neighborhood around New Light Baptist Church.

We are contemporary Israelites seeking the welfare of our city, for therein lies the welfare of all of us. We are ordinary people gathered here this evening to celebrate a vision—our shared vision—and not only to celebrate, but to build the power we need to get the job done in our communities and our state.

 AMEN.

                                                            

Back to Reality: A sermon for 14 February 2010

Each time I read or hear the account of the transfiguration in Luke’s Gospel, I wish I could ask the writer a question. “Well,” I would say, “which was it? Were the disciples awake or asleep when Jesus had his chat with Moses and Elijah?”

It sounds like the writer was not sure. First he says they were heavy with sleep, then that they were awake. They see Jesus blazing with light and conversing with the two most prominent prophets of the Hebrew tradition: Moses and Elijah.

Those disciples, being practicing Jews, certainly knew the story of Moses’ own transfiguration experience, as told in today’s Old Testament lesson. But that account too gets a bit confusing, with all the veiling and unveiling of Moses' face. I lose track. When was his face veiled and when not? How did the Israelites know that Moses’ face was shining if he put a veil over it?

And why—given that the glow from his face signaled that he had been speaking with God… why did he hide it from the people anyway? Seems to me if I had that kind of visible proof that I spoke God’s true word, I would want everyone to see it… loud and clear!

The world of dreams and visions and mountaintop experiences is strange and mysterious. It seems to be poised somewhere between sound asleep and wide awake, somewhere between hard-nosed reality and pure hallucination. It’s probably not surprising that the Biblical accounts are not always clear about the details.

I imagine most of us have had at least one experience something like those described in today’s lessons—a mountaintop experience, a vision or dream that changed our life.  And we’re not sure afterward whether we were awake or asleep, whether it happened or we imagined it.

Of course, there are those among us who scoff at such things. They take pride in being realists; they believe that dreams are just dreams and visions always frauds, and that meaning can only come from what we apprehend with our human senses.

The human intellect is a wonderful thing and a great gift from God that we should use to its fullest capacity. But in comparison to the mind of God, human intellect is profoundly limited.

I am sorry for those who live so thoroughly inside their own cranium that they cannot find meaning in dreams, visions and mountaintop experiences. Their world is small. They are not available to be transformed by a close encounter with God!

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul certainly does not hesitate to find meaning in Moses’ transfiguration. In fact, he makes it almost entirely metaphoric. He says the veiling of Moses’ face stands for the closed minds of the Israelites, who could not enter into the mystery of Christ precisely because of their closed minds.

We are about to enter Lent, a time of reflection and listening for the voice of God. That requires an open mind. It requires letting go. It requires loosening our grip on the comfort and security of reality as we think we know it.

And that takes courage. If we enter into the presence of God with an open mind, we indeed put ourselves in the way of transformation, God’s transformation. Who knows what shifting of the tectonic plates of our world that might produce!

Now, I just made a reference to the natural phenomenon we know as “earthquake,” and it was purposeful. I bring news of Haiti today, but first I want to draw your attention to something that almost gets lost in our amazement at transfiguration. Notice that when Jesus comes down off the mountain fresh from his transfiguration experience, he goes right back to work. The first thing he does is to heal a sick child.

Today I bring news from Fr. Jean-Monique Bruno, who is hard at work responding to the needs of the people of Haiti. I met Fr. Bruno when I and several others from St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic a number of years ago.

Fr. Bruno is Haitian and has ministries in both Haiti and the DR, but right now he is devoting all of his energy and resources to addressing the profound needs of a country and people devastated beyond our imagining.

Fr. Bruno has been particularly successful in his ministry because he knows how to organize local leaders in the communities of displaced people that have formed everywhere. I’m not sure Fr. Bruno ever had training at the hands of an Interfaith type organizer, but it sure sounds like he did!

So now let me share Fr. Bruno’s most recent report, because I think there is no better way to illustrate why Jesus came down off the mountain and immediately went back to work.

February 7, 2010

Dear friends,
Greetings from the Northeast of Haiti! I will always praise the Lord who is using me as instrument for His work. I want to thank all of you who have given me the opportunity to serve my fellow citizens. Your prayers and generous contributions have made the relief work possible.

Since the beginning of the crisis we have been very active at all levels. We have helped in the areas of counseling, food distribution, and health care. Wherever people need help we manifest our presence. Today I want to give you a report of the work being done during the past three weeks.

First we have distributed the following items:
1. 45,000 pounds of rice
2. 10,000 pounds of beans
3. 3 000 pounds of dry fish
4. 4000 pounds of corn
5. 25,000 pounds of spaghetti
6. 4000 liters of oil
7. 1000 pounds of sardines
8. 3000 pounds of charcoal
9. Matches, candles, flash lights, water.
10. Air mattresses.

Those articles went to different people in all parts in the country: 6 communities in Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital; a farming village called Gros Morne; the cities of Gonaives and Leogane partly destroyed in the south; and finally Terrier Rouge in the Northeast, where we have our Center of operations. For some of those places we have used the channel of many friends who are leaders of the tent camps established in the affected areas. A total of 2000 families were beneficiaries of those donations.

Our truck has brought back from Port-au-Prince around 80 people who could not find transportation or did not have the means to get to their native village.

Every single day we face new challenges. According to a census made by a Committee of crisis, more than 300 families have moved to our town. I have been working with the Roman Catholic Priest and the members of the Committee providing food and counseling to the people. Last Sunday those who arrived in Terrier Rouge met with a psychologist who taught them some basic principles to adapt themselves to the present situation, since most of them are suffering from deep traumas. I met with the Committee twice to analyze the situation, and decide on the way we can help the people on a short term basis. We also did some planning for the long range.

Many of them have told us that they are not going back to Port-au-Prince - at least for the time being. We are trying to answer some urgent problems like: nutrition, shelter, schooling for the elementary and high school students, new College enrollment for the college students, sportive and cultural activities, and so on. The solution to some of these problems is not too difficult. Our organization is feeding them. Our school, Saint Barthélémy, has already made space available for the integration of the new elementary students. We will find schools for the High school students. But what about the College students, as we do not have Colleges in the area? We were thinking about teaching some short courses in marketable skills using the existing facilities, language courses, and so on. For lodging we talked about building some very light houses which will allow people to find a place to stay temporarily. We are referring the sick and the injured to the two health facilities of the community, our “Clinique Esperance & Vie” and the Government’s.

Another dimension of our relief effort consists in answering calls from people in the Dominican Republic and in the USA who have their relatives in Port-au-Prince. Some through Bethlehem Ministry have asked us to locate their loved ones and to provide some help to them. We have reached around 30 families that way.

We Haitians are survivors. We have known very difficult time as a people. We continue to fight with the grace of God and the aid of our brothers and sisters. We have survived because of our spirit of solidarity. When I mention earlier that we have given food to 2000 families, it means that at least 6000 families have eaten. When the neighbor prepares a meal, he or she shares it with the others.

I am here on the ground doing the work with our volunteers. Every week we make two or three trips to Port-au-Prince taking supplies to the needy. We are working with the community and the Government authorities which facilitate our endeavor. We are available at any time. The relief work continues. Our truck left early this morning with another load of food for Port-au-Prince.

With my best regards,
Jean Monique Bruno+

AMEN.

Feasting: A sermon for January 10, 2010

Christmas, Epiphany, the Baptism of our Lord. What an extraordinary sequence of events. It’s like eating not one, but three rich desserts, one right after the other.

And just as our taste buds and digestive systems have a little trouble handling so much richness all at once, so our hearts and minds struggle to remain receptive, attentive and comprehending of this series of feasts in the church year.

We’ll be back in what we call “ordinary time” for the next five Sundays. But today, we have the undeniably delicious but daunting task—not only of celebrating the baptism of our Lord—but also sort of tying up loose ends by looking at the relationships among these events.

Christmas we also know as The Incarnation: God’s gracious decision to become human and live among us. We celebrate the baby Jesus in the manger.

Epiphany we might also call “the showing forth.” The wise men have made it to the manger. They who came from afar to worship are stand-ins for all the peoples of the world. God’s showing forth in the person of Jesus is recognized by humankind.

And now, rather suddenly, Jesus the grown man is being baptized. Of course, we love the story of Jesus baptized, because we too are baptized. It’s another thing we share with him and another way we follow him.

Barbara Crafton is an Episcopal priest who writes an online meditation. She connects these three feasts in a particularly valuable emphasis. “This is what the Incarnation means,” she writes. “Even the most secular of our moments is soaked with holiness. Every last moment of our moments. There's no getting away from it -- God is with us.”

What an interesting emphasis! We so often think of God as elusive. We often plead and even beg for God to be with us. But the Incarnation is irrevocable. God is here, plain and simple, in every moment of our moments, regardless of how remote God seems to us at times.

Crafton continues: “And here is what the Epiphany means: Anyone who wishes to see this can see it. Absolutely anyone. God is not hiding from us, nor is God closed to any of us. We can all walk a path that will reveal the divine presence to us. For most of us, this happens gradually throughout a life.”

In other words, God is here for everyone. The three wise kings are truly stand-ins. Their path to the divine presence was to follow a star over some great distance, we know not how far.

Our paths to the divine presence among us are as varied as we are. For each of us, it is the people, the events, the opportunities and obstacles of everyday life. When we walk those paths faithfully, we will come to see God in all of those places, moments and situations of our lives.

We all have moments of great clarity, when we see or comprehend something in a particularly fresh, compelling or unmistakable way. And it is no surprise or mystery that we call such moments “epiphanies.”

But I think Crafton is correct when she says that, by and large, our awareness of and ability to see God in the every day, more typically happens gradually throughout a lifetime. Indeed, I often am able to see God’s presence in my life, and more importantly to discern between things from God and my own willfulness and imagination, only in retrospect.

“And here is what the Baptism of Christ means,” says Barbara Crafton. “[It means] the inmost heart and utter wisdom of God is participant in our process of beginning to learn. The very same stumbling journey we make, a journey in which most of the learning that takes place happens through the challenge of learning from our mistakes, is undertaken by the Son of God...”

In other words, Crafton invites us to think of baptism—both our Lord’s and our own—as the beginning of a process of discovery and learning and living into our identities and ministries as people of God.

One aspect of Luke’s account of the baptism of our Lord merits special consideration but often does not get mentioned. Notice how Luke emphasizes that Jesus was baptized as one of many.

“Now when all the people were baptized,” says Luke, “and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying…” (NRSV: Luke 3:21) then the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove.

When all the people were baptized… and Jesus also, only then is Jesus revealed as the Son, the Beloved.

Two points I would make of this. The first is that Jesus’ baptism is a continuation of the “showing forth,” the revealing of God among us, that began at the manger to the angels and shepherds, and was made available to everyone with the epiphany of the wise men from afar.

And so our baptism is a showing forth, "the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace" (BCP, p 857*). It proclaims that God is among us and within us. Think of it: your baptism, my baptism, each and every baptism... a mini-Epiphany.

The second point is this: God showing forth among us and within us in the form of baptism is never earned, and it is never ours alone. Baptism is a communal event. It is a communal gift and a communal responsibility.

Now, we can all hear the words “community” and “communal” and be quite comfortable. We might even get warm fuzzes from hearing those words, for “community” like “family” is a good, solid middle class value.

But I venture to suggest that we are comfortable with these terms because we have in mind a pretty small and relatively homogeneous community—a good, solid middle class community a lot like the one in hundreds of Episcopal churches across the country on a given Sunday morning.

But that is not what God has in mind. God claims all. God’s vision as revealed to us through, for example, today's lesson from Isaiah, blows my limited human imagination of the scope and richness of God’s people right out of the water.

Each time I walk mentally through this sequence of events—God become human in the Incarnation, God revealed to absolutely anyone who elects to see in the Epiphany, God entering into human community and the process of human spiritual growth and learning through the baptism of our Lord—every time I walk through these events, then go back to Isaiah and read again the magnificent scope of God’s claim of that human community, I am stunned into silence.

Read it with me again:
"Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you;
I will say to the north, ‘Give them up’,
and to the south, ‘Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
and my daughters from the end of the earth—
everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.'" (NRSV: Isaiah 43:5-7)

It’s an epiphany. A moment of clarity in which I grasp the utterly vast sweep of God's view of human community. And then it's gone. I can only hold on to it for a moment, then my human brain gets stuck in the details of our human differences and hostilities and simple disagreements. And the struggle to comprehend God's vision and desire for humankind begins again.

So be it. Amen.

Epilogue: Recently I came to the same place this homily ends by a drastically different route. I visited Edward Steichen's "Family of Man" exhibit in Clervaux, Luxembourg. See Who are we in relationship to each other? on my main blog, Coming to Terms.