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  • Primal Scream

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    Primal Scream

    John 20:11-20

    Sam Wells

    St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, LInited Kingdom

    However comfortable your life, however secure your relationships, however deeply you know you’ re loved, however stable your health, however strong your faith, there are, at bottom, two primal fears that stalk each one of us. The first fear shouts. It claims that there is, finally, no deep logic at work in the universe—that all attempts to find meaning and purpose are in the end arbitrary, that there is no guiding divine hand at work at the beginning, middle, or end of all things, that there is no ultimate truth, and the whole of existence is either a joke or an accident. The second fear is subtly different. It whispers. It whispers that there is indeed a logic, purpose, meaning, truth in the universe, but that this ultimate orientation, this God as we conventionally call it, has an interest, attention, or judgement that lies elsewhere and is not, in the end, on our side. Imagine you’ve been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Part of you is rational: you say, “I know everyone dies. Why should I expect to live longer than anyone else?” Another part is emotional: you say, “I can’t bear to think of my children trying to cope without me. I can’t face the prospect of not existing, all my life coming to nothing.” Another part of you is desperate: “Don’t let this happen! There must be a cure! I’ll try anything!” These all shout into the abyss of meaninglessness. But there’s also the whisper into the heart of cruelty: “God, why are you punishing me? Do I not matter to you, after all? Have you forgotten me? Do you have some kind of plan to make me suffer?” Or imagine you long to find a person with whom to share your life. Part of you asks the shouty question, “Why won’t it happen for me like I see it happening to others?” Or maybe it becomes self-blame: “Is there something wrong with me?” Or possibly cynicism: “There’s no point and in any case you can’t trust people and love’s an illusion anyway. The world’s just full of people who haven’t yet found that out.” But at the back of your head there’s often the whispering question saying maybe you’ re being singled out for isolation: “Is God punishing me?” And there’s sometimes a sense of persecution or absurdity: “There must be some conspiracy that sends me all the heartless and the selfish ones. Is God laughing out loud that I only fall for the ones that never look at me?” Such experiences reveal these two primal fears: the shout that there’s no God, no truth, no meaning and the whisper that there is a purpose, there is a logic—but that it’s set against me. The gospels present us with the figure of Jesus. Think for a moment about how he appears when set against these two primal fears. There’s the fear that life is meaningless, that there’s no purpose to anything. Jesus lives a life that is beautiful because it’s generous, gentle, and sacrificial, a life that’s challenging because it’s full of controversy and suffering and courage, but also a life that’s compelling because it’s inviting, intriguing, and demanding. Above all he tells a story that includes his life, then the life of Israel, then the life of the church and the whole world, and all within

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    the story of God. He doesn’t prove anything, but he thrills and entices and questions and empowers so much that we want to walk with him to Jerusalem, to Galilee, to the kingdom of heaven. Then there’s the fear that God is against us. Jesus comes to Israel, a people living under occupation who fear that God’s turned against them, and every gesture he makes in healing lepers, speaking with and touching shunned women, forgiving and calling tax-collectors, denouncing scribes’ proclaims that God is on our side, God has no bone to pick with us, God is like a shepherd who travels to the furthest corner of the countryside to retrieve the lost sheep, like a father who pines every day for the return of his lost son, like a woman who searches high and low for a lost coin. You could say the whole of the gospels are written to address these two primal fears and to say, yes, there is an almighty God, but yes, that almighty God is on our side and is made not of petulance but of mercy, not of judgement but of grace. But where’s the proof? Thus far Christians are simply those who, given the choice between meaning and meaninglessness, choose the former, and given the choice between a God of vindictiveness and a God of grace, choose the latter. One could easily say that’s just a choice. And that primal fear still shouts or whispers in the background saying faith is just a whistling in the wind. And that brings us to Holy Week, because Holy Week refers to the eight days in which Jesus addresses the depth of these two primal fears comprehensively, agonisingly , and conclusively. On Good Friday Jesus faces the duplicity of the authorities, the betrayal of Judas, the denial of Peter, the cowardice of Pilate, the cruelty of the soldiers, the ridicule of the crowds, the agony of the nails, the horror of suffocation, the humiliation of nakedness, the awfulness of asphyxiation, and—more than all the rest put together, the indescribable primal fear of being forsaken by the Father. When you weigh all of these dimensions, what you see is that Good Friday is so important because it answers that second, whispering fear, is God truly on our side? Well, if what Jesus goes through on Good Friday doesn’t persuade us that God is on our side, nothing will. Jesus goes through every level of physical, emotional, relational, psychological, and cosmic agony. Why? Because he is the embodiment of God’s determination never to be except to be with us. It’s not that God is some faraway deity who for unknown reasons fixates on humankind and decides to identify with us until it all gets too costly. It’s that we are in God’s DNA. God had us in mind when the universe began, God always meant to be with us in Jesus, and our perfidy, fecklessness , and folly weren’t going to alter that. God has no other plan than the plan to be with us. Christmas embodies that; Good Friday proves it. But that still leaves one primal fear hanging. The shouty one. Jesus may be offering us something beautiful, showing us something wonderful, demonstrating something good, affirming us more profoundly than any casual remark or kind gift, but that could be no more than a glorious gesture if ultimately it comes out of a commitment that’s founded on hope not sureness, idealism not reality, shifting sands of fantasy not solid rock of truth. So where do we go looking for that truth? We go to the biggest rival of all, the deepest chasm of all—the unavoidable prospect of death. And here we come face to face with the most significant moment in history. Peter and the Beloved Disciple see the empty tomb and the folded grave clothes. That evening in the upper room, the eleven disciples feel the breath of God. A week later, Thomas touches the wounds in the Lord’s hands and side. Right here, right now, Mary Magdalene hears

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    Jesus calling her name, “Mary,” the name of the one whose womb brought Jesus to birth, the name of the one who beside the tomb sees Jesus come to new birth. “Mary.” That one word tells her that the cross was not a beautiful failure; that the one who is on her side is not defeated by horror or pain or betrayal or duplicity or denial or agony or forsakenness; that there’s ultimately no difference between the love that lays its life down for us and the power that brings that life back to us. That power, in the blood-drenched hands of her crucified Lord, is so gentle that it waits for her to make her own journey, so patient that it understands her confusion, so tender that it simply calls her by name. But it speaks to her from the other side of fear, from a deeper place than her primal anxiety, with a confidence that can wait as long as it takes and a kindness that lets her discover in her own way. We have two primal fears: that there’s no God, or that there is a God but it’s a God who’s against us. On Good Friday we meet a God who’s utterly with us right down to the agony and horror of death and hell. On Easter Day we meet a tender, gentle, patient presence that turns out to have met us from the other side of fear, of death, of separation, of primal despair. Look at those hands. Look at that face. Hear those words. Feel a love that death cannot destroy. A love where truth and power meet. A love that cannot be kept down. A power that’s forever. And an eternal truth that knows your name.

  • Protagonist Corner: Refusing to Confirm and Ditch: High School Youth Who Have Integrated into the Adult Membership of the Church

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    Protagonist Corner

    Refusing to Confirm and Ditch: High School Youth Who Have

    In tegrated into the Adult Membership of the Church

    James Rogers First (Scots) Presbyterian Church, Charleston, South Carolina

    “Where are the high school youth?” That is not a question that I like to hear in the church! But it is a question that is asked when the high school youth of a congregation are visibly absent. This question almost always comes forth with a sense of frustration when it gets dropped at Christian education meetings, in the sanctuary before worship, and even in the church parking lot. We ask this question because we baptize infants and children and make promises to nurture and guide them so that they will grow in faith and live as disciples of Jesus Christ. When those who have been baptized express faith at confirmation and later fail to live out that profession during their high school years through the life of the church, the whole body of Christ suffers. In my ministry context we call this “confirm and ditch.” The good news is that not all high school youth are missing from the life of my church. So in February of 2017, in hopes of learning what leads high school youth to be active and with the support of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, I completed fourteen interviews with high school youth who live out their faith in a variety of different ministry areas: youth group, mission trips, worship, Sunday school, Bible study, church leadership, Presbytery Youth Council, family practices, and ministry outside the church walls. The approximately thirty minute interviews were recorded and transcribed, and as I read through the transcriptions, common themes began to emerge, helping me to better understand what leads high school youth to be active in the church. According to my research, youth who are active in the life of First (Scots) are often active for several of the following eight reasons. First, their parents have encouraged and modeled for them active participation. Second, they feel a strong sense of community within the body of Christ. Third, they embraced the opportunity to join the church through confirmation. Fourth, they are involved in church-wide worship on Sunday morning. Fifth, they are passionate about serving others through mission work. Sixth, they feel that their faith and the church are sources of strength and comfort during tough times. Seventh, they see their faith as their worldview or lens for living. Finally, they feel that youth are valued within the life of the congregation. While each of these themes was prominent throughout the interviews, the first two seemed to have the biggest impact on our active high school youth: parents who have encouraged and modeled active participation and a sense of community within the larger church. Parents are one of the main reasons that these high school youth are active within the church, and they play a more important role than the pastor, Sunday school teacher, youth advisor, or even the really hip youth minister. Interviewees explained that their parents encouraged them to participate in church starting at an early age, and this encouragement continued through middle school, confirmation, and into high school. When one of our high school youth was nominated to serve on a church committee,

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    her mom told her, “Oh, you have to do it. You’re a[n adult] member now. You have to do it.”1 And she did. These parents not only encourage their youth to participate, but they also model for them what it means to live out the Christian faith, so their youth shared laundry lists of the activities and leadership roles that their parents have been involved in at church. These parents also demonstrate their faith through their everyday words and actions. While reflecting on her own faith formation, one youth explained, “I feel like the most important thing for [my brother] and I…has been [our parents] encouraging us in our faith, and… really exemplifying what it means to be a Christian.”2 These parents have also incorporated faithful practices or routines into family life by having regular faith conversations, service projects, or worship as a family. One youth explained, “Since I was little, every night [my family]… sit[s] down and pray[s] together… .It’s a little routine.”3 Other research projects confirm the important role that parents play in the faith formation of their children. In Soul Searching: The Religions and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, which reports findings from The National Study of Youth and Religion, Christian Smith writes, “The most important social influence in shaping young people’s religious lives is the religious life modeled and taught to them by their parents.”4 It was also clear that high school youth who are active within the life of First (Scots) feel a strong sense of community with the entire congregation. This sense of community is not limited to same age peers or the adults serving as youth ministry leaders, but involves people of all ages. Over and over these youth described how experiences with children, younger and older youth, and adults of all ages in the congregation have impacted their faith in Jesus Christ. When one youth reflected on the relationships he has formed in the church, he shared, “I…really like the older people in the congregation….It’s really been great to see how much we have in common… and they’ve been able to teach me so much.”5 Another youth explained, “It’s cool…to have the same adults surrounding me now that I am almost seventeen that I did when I was in preschool… .1 remember growing up with them.”6 For these youth, the church is their family full of additional moms, dads, sisters, brothers, and other relatives prompting one youth to share, “I feel like I have a church full of grandparents.”7 And it was this sense of community that led these youth to profess faith in Jesus Christ, join as adult members, and continue to be active in high school. When asked why she professed faith in Christ, one youth replied, “It was having such a community of support around me. Some of them I knew since I was little and baptized, and some I met when I was in sixth grade, and having people to look out for me and encourage me in my faith really helped.”8 It should not be surprising that the two main themes that appeared in these interviews involve the two groups of people who make promises at a child’s baptism: parents and the congregation. However, in a day and age when the responsibility of youth ministry is often delegated to a youth pastor and youth ministry is frequently segregated from the rest of the congregation, these themes suggest some corrections. First, we need to better support parents in their faith and in their role as spiritual leaders for their children. In Soul Searching, Christian Smith also writes, ‘The best way to get most youth more involved in and serious about their faith communities is to get their parents more involved in and serious about their faith communities.”9 Second, while age specific ministry practices like youth Sunday school, youth group, and youth retreats are important, we must provide more opportunities to connect our

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    young people to the rest of the body of Christ where faith formation happens. Is the question “Where are the high school youth?” being asked in your ministry context? May God help us all keep the promises we make at baptism.

    Notes 1 Interview with a First (Scots) high school youth, February 8, 2017. 2 Interview with a First (Scots) high school youth, February 6, 2017. 3 Interview with a First (Scots) high school youth, February 19, 2017. 4 Christian Smith, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005), 56. 5 Interview with a First (Scots) high school youth, February 2, 2017. 6 Interview with a First (Scots) high school youth, February 6, 2017. 7 Interview with a First (Scots) high school youth, February 6, 2017. 8 Interview with a First (Scots) high school youth, February 6, 2017. 9 Smith, Soul Searching, 267.

  • Not without Tears

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    Not without Tears

    Thomas W. Currie

    Georgetown, Texas

    In a sermonic essay entitled “To Hell With Acceptance,” William Muehl tells of a group of parents waiting in a church hall to pick up their nursery school children from their last pre-Christmas class session.

    As the youngsters ran from their lockers, each one carried in his hands the “surprise,” the brightly wrapped package on which he had been working diligently for weeks. One small boy, trying to run, put on his coat, and wave, all at the same time, slipped and fell. The “surprise” flew out of his grasp, landed on the floor, and broke with an obvious ceramic crash. The child’s first reaction was one of stunned silence. But in a moment he set up an inconsolable wail. His father, thinking to comfort him, knelt down and murmured, “Now it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter.” But his mother, much wiser in such affairs, swept the boy into her arms and said, “Oh, but it does matter. It matters a great deal.” And she wept with her son.1

    In telling this story, Muehl suggests that whatever redemption the gospel offers, it comes to us not by ignoring our tears or emptying them of their significance, but by receiving them, acknowledging them, even sharing in their misery. Jesus, after all, wept. This past spring my wife and I, along with about 30 other folks, journeyed into the Low Country of South Carolina and Georgia to learn something about the past that might shed light on our current understanding of the Christian life. We visited a number of churches, several of which were organized prior to or immediately after the Civil War. About half of these congregations originated out of the African American experience of the faith and are still rendering a vital witness today. The other half were largely white congregations often living out their mission in close proximity to, and even in historical entanglement with, their African American neighbors. The history was, as history often is, messy, and the engagement with these living embodiments of Christian witness induced both shame and guilt as well as a kind of tearful amazement and gratitude at the way the gospel gets itself proclaimed and heard in the world. One of the places we visited was Liberty County, Georgia, where the Midway congregation was formed. That congregation no longer exists as such though its building has been kept in fine repair and its cemetery across the highway is still maintained. Interred there, among others, is Charles Colcock Jones, a former memher of this church, who later pastored First Presbyterian Church in Savannah before serving as professor of Church History at Columbia Theological Seminary.2 Jones inherited plantations in the Low Country and owned slaves himself. His education at Andover and Princeton and his own experience in a congregation where slaves also worshipped and could even be members led him to the conviction that the slaves in

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    the Low Country had souls that could hear and be redeemed by the gospel. Jones was no abolitionist, and it was only because his fellow planters trusted him that he was allowed to teach and evangelize the slave population in Liberty County. The planters thought, and perhaps he did too, that the Christian faith would make these enslaved persons more virtuous, industrious, and faithful servants. When reading about Jones’ s efforts and seeing some of the residual effects still apparent from those days of slavery, one could not help but reflect upon the painful contradictions stemming from the suffering of those whose enslaved condition called into question every word of the gospel that was being taught and proclaimed. As a tourist, perhaps even more as a pilgrim, one felt more than a bit uncomfortable with this particular “means of grace,” if that is what it was. The disparity between the church’s proclamation of the gospel’s good news and its comfortable acquiescence in, if not fervent support of, a culture of chattel slavery seems almost impossibly wide and ridiculously false. How could the gospel ever be proclaimed in such a setting? What hearer could ever receive the gospel’s promises from one who could buy or sell him or her the next day? What preacher could ever proclaim such a word to those for whom the word bore such little relevance to their most obvious need? Was such a gospel so entirely discarnate that it could not even see the flesh before it? Could one imagine a more unpromising setting for the gospel’s message to leap from one to another?

    II Sentimentality and pornography are deeply related, Flannery O’ Connor reminds us, because they both seek to skip over the consequences of the fall and discover an innocence apart from the redemption wrought through Christ’s suffering and death.3 It is our slow participation in his redemption, what our Reformed forebears would have called “sanctification, ”that cautions us against reading too quickly the hand of Divine Providence in whatever current outcome seems praiseworthy to us at the moment. Yet somehow the gospel was proclaimed in this setting, and even more amazing to relate, the gospel created its own auditors to hear its message and live out its claims even amidst the contradictions of the culture and in the face of that culture’s systemic oppressiveness. How could that be? Such a question is troubling, not just in regard to the past but perhaps even more when put to us in our own day. How do we proclaim the gospel in our time, in a culture still bedeviled by painful memories of the past and the all too present reality of racial oppression, conflict, and division? How do we proclaim the gospel in a culture bent on its own lethal self-justifications, its worship of wealth, its comfortable ability to ignore or dismiss the cries of others, its easy acceptance of the brutality of its own politics, the ruthlessness of its own getting and spending, the self-absorption of its own idolatries, and perhaps worst of all, its own quiet hopelessness? If we are honest with ourselves, or at least attentive to the gospel we preach, we must admit that it has never been easy to proclaim the gospel. To think that it might be proclaimed without cost is to enter that pornographic and sentimental “innocence ” that O’ Connor cautions us against. The cross, even in its forgiveness, perhaps especially in its forgiveness , cuts against an easy acceptance of the past, just as it refuses to allow us to “spiritualize” the work of ministry or render it sentimentally pious. There is and has always been a cost involved in this work, a cost that may well also discover for us an

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    unspeakable joy, but a cost that should make the bravest of us quail. And when we look at our own efforts to proclaim the gospel, just as when we look at the world of the ante-bellum South, there is ample reason for tears.

    Ill Scripture is well acquainted with tears, and not just the tears of lament or even the tears of weariness in the face of death. There are also tears of shame and regret, tears that acknowledge our own guilt and complicity in the death-dealing ways that make up so much of our lives. Such tears witness to and even describe the unreality of life apart from God’s redeeming grace. One place where these tears are spoken of is found in the eschatological vision of St. John the Divine, where he sees a new heaven and a new earth. These words are sometimes read at funerals or memorial services or on other occasions when the preacher would offer hope and comfort to the gathered saints. The vision is of a new world, even heaven itself, where, as the spiritual would have it, the saints have shoes and robes and are free to walk all over God’s heaven. There, we read, there is One who will “wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 21:4). We might think that heaven would be tearless, but that is not what the text says. Evidently we will bring our tears, along with all our other baggage, before the throne of grace: our sufferings, our failures, our guilt, our pitiful efforts to do justice and love mercy, our regrets and sorrows and unbelief. We will bring all that with us, and there and only there will there be One who takes our tears seriously enough to acknowledge them and wipe them away. Our history, our culture, the good and the bad that makes us who we are, these things are not obliterated or ignored by God, nor are they dismissed as irrelevant or unimportant. Our history, even that part of our history of which we are ashamed, has a place in the Kingdom of Heaven, if only to be wiped away by One who is able to receive it in the ocean of his redemptive love, granting us a better vision that heals the eyes that are weeping and enables them to see a new heaven and a new earth. Such an action of divine grace, far from “spiritualizing” our history or pretending that it never happened, invites us instead to embrace our past, tears and all, and to do so with a more generous heart and a more penitent spirit. There are tears enough that need to be wiped away in our own day, tears to be wept and tears to be acknowledged as such. Perhaps that is part of the reason the church exists, not just to name these tears or even offer them before God, but to share them with each other and to bear each other’s burdens as we weep. The God who will one day wipe our tears away does not think they are insignificant. Indeed, his Kingdom comes in no other way.

    Notes 1 William Muehl, All the Damned Angels (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1972), 39. 2 For those interested in learning more about Charles Colcock Jones, see Erskine Clarke, Dwelling Place (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2005). Dr. Clarke served as a resource for this tour. 3 Flannery O’Connor, “The Church and the Fiction Writer,” Mystery and Manners (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000), 148.

  • We Who Are Called

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    We Who Are Called

    Tyrone Greenlee Christians for a United Community, Asheville, North Carolina

    Our New Testament scripture is my focus today, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, where Paul speaks to, perhaps even chastises, the Corinthians by reminding them that they are called to be about love the greatest gift—the beginning, middle, and end for each of us as believers. Paul is, I believe here, redirecting the Corinthian church to the right ways of Christian behavior, reminding them who they are, who they are called to be, and the power of the love that each of them possesses. While I have loved this powerful passage for years, I have been particularly intrigued with it recently. As I don’t have to tell any of you, we as Americans live in dark, divisive, confusing times. I have found myself on the brink, maybe past the brink, of total despair in the last few years. We live in a country, in a society, that has become about demonizing “the other,” whoever we have determined the other to be, and I have grown desperately weary and frightened for myself and others who fall into the category of the other. I have asked myself in these dark days how I can make a difference? What is my work and ministry in these difficult times? How do I show the face of Christ to the world, no matter who they are, where they have come from, and what their political leanings are? Who, as a person of faith, am I called to be? Almost twenty-four years ago, I did a program in Asheville for the first time called Building Bridges. Building Bridges is an eight-week small group discussion series around racism and the history of Asheville. To be honest, I was not particularly interested at that period of my life in discussing racism. I believed we had lived through the turmoil of the sixties and seventies, and there was no longer a need to concern ourselves with race and racism. What I learned in my first Building Bridges course was huge for me. I became aware of the wounds I had growing up in this society as a young African American man, wounds I had never admitted to myself, much less to anyone else. I learned all the ways racism exists in our society, and while I had been deeply affected by the racism in our society, I could not articulate the manifestations of racism, institutional racism, the difference between integration and assimilation, and the difference between prejudice and racism. After that first session, I was convinced that each of us in this society, myself included, must always be in conversation about racism and how it lives in us, in our relationships, in our policies and practices. I became a member of the Building Bridges steering committee, became a small group facilitator for many sessions, and I still volunteer with the organization today. In 20051 was offered the opportunity to become the co-director of Christians for A United Community, a coalition of churches whose ministry focused on dismantling the root causes of racism and the disparities caused by racism. We do this work through advocacy, relationship building, and dismantling racism trainings. I jumped at the chance to work with this organization, believing that I had done dismantling racism work for years, that I was a man of faith, and that I would be a great gift to the work of this coalition. What in fact happened was a huge piece of learning. Another layer of my understanding was peeled back for me, and I came to understand how my identity had been shaped, changed, warped even, by my internalization of the

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    oppression I had experienced over the years, an internalization that cast a negative light on how I saw myself and how I saw others that looked like me. Perhaps the biggest revelation for me from my work with Christians for a United Community came from the connection between my work in the community around justice issues and my faith. For years I had done dismantling racism work in the community quite apart from my faith, and the great gift that the wonderful people of CUC gave me was an understanding of how to connect my spirituality with the work of justice, the work of addressing racism in our community. Indeed, the two not only became connected, but my spirituality, my relationship with God, became the foundation and fuel for my work and ministry in the community. I came to understand that working to dismantle the evil of racism in the world was not just a good idea or a charitable act; it was a crucial part of my identity as a Christian, who I was, and who I am called to be. This brings me to the question I asked at the start of my sermon, who am I called to be in these difficult times. The work of addressing racism in our communities, in our institutions, in our hearts is, I believe, very different than it was years ago. I am, honestly, filled with fear, with rage, with apprehension about tomorrow at every turn. The events especially of the last two years have done damage to my soul. They have created an uncharacteristic darkness in my spirit, a darkness that at times threatens to overtake me. Our newsfeeds, our headlines, are filled with episodes and instances of violence and divisiveness. I often feel hunted as though someone, somewhere, somehow is after me, waiting for me, and that I will become the next statistic or the star of my very own police abuse video. And the darkness in me tempts me with anger, bitterness, and vengeance, all waiting at my doorstep for me to open that door and begin an intimate relationship with them. For many years I taught bible study at my church on Wednesday nights. Just after the shooting at Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston South Carolina, two years ago, I was teaching the class one Wednesday night and in walked a young white man I had never seen before, and as he walked through the door, a panic seized me. I immediately began to wonder what I should do. Should I ask him to leave? Should I ask members to escort him out, should we search his belongings, were we all about to become victims in yet another horrible scenario? It turned out the young man was friends with other members of our church, and he had simply walked in a few paces ahead of them. All was fine, except I was, am, deeply ashamed of the place my brain went in those few seconds. So again I ask, who am I called to be? Who was I called to be when that young man came to our bible study class? Who am I called to be while the blood of many of our young men is shed in our streets? Who am I called to be when confederate flags roll past me in an Ingles parking lot? Who am I called to be when the world, our world, terrifies me every day? I am called, we are called I believe, to lean into our faith and all that entails. We are called to love—to love each other, ourselves, and “the other”—whoever the other is in our lives. We are called to understand who the “others” are, why and where they exist for us, and to come to understand what showing love looks like. We are called to work for justice; we are called to bring comfort and healing to those brutalized daily by the aggressions, both micro and macro, of racism. We are called to show the world the love that lives in each of us, the power of the love that calls to each of us to be patient, to be kind, to not live in anger, and to understand that each of us as

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    followers of Christ has the spirit of God dwelling in us, giving us the strength and direction we need to live out our calling. I will honestly say here that it is not easy showing love, manifesting the love of Christ. There are many days when I have no idea what it looks like to love myself, to love my church family, and to love those in the world. But I must, we must, simply because God loves us and never gives up on us. And in those moments, those moments when I am ready to give up and allow the darkness to overtake me, I am reminded that I don’t have the luxury of giving up or giving in. I stand on the shoulders of, and walk roads paved by, all those who have come before me. A few months ago, I went on a field trip with our middle school classes to see the film “Hidden Figures, ” a wonderful and important film about African American women who worked for NASA in the early sixties. I cried almost all the way through. My tears came from watching the depiction of the daily indignities that these women suffered, the same kind of indignities that my parents and grandparents and greatgrandparents and aunts and uncles and on and on suffered each day of their lives. And they never gave up, and they gave me the life I have today. “Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ” That is who I am called to be.

  • Pentecostals and Advent Expectations in a Time of Social Disarray: Enough Is Enough!

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    Protagonist Corner Pentecostals and Advent Expectations in a Time of Social Disarray: Enough Is Enough!

    Joshua Rice Point University, West Point, Georgia

    Not long ago, we Pentecostals were invited to the stage of the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States. No, we didn’t sneak in the back. We holy rollers had prominent speaking roles, three of them. We stood shoulder to shoulder with the other speakers, the ones who belonged there, who were Catholic, Jewish, and Evangelical, and we outnumbered them all. One of us was black, one Latino, and the other a lady evangelist who has served as Trump’s “spiritual advisor” for a decade. This is too ironic to even be called irony. It is tragedy, like the extinction of a species, the loss of a language. I felt glum for days after. During the ceremony I shot out a tweet:

    If you want to observe what breaking the Third Commandment looks like, just listen to the denigration of the name of Jesus at the presidential inauguration today. For attempts to christianize a man who has no regard for the teachings of Jesus are truly “in vain.”

    Never mind that I am a registered Republican and that I tend to agree with the contention of Stanley Hauerwas that the day an American president doesn’t need to be a Christian to win the election will be a good day for Christianity in America.1 Yet as you might expect, my rather large network of Pentecostal readers pounced on me as if I had cursed their mother. How did we Pentecostals get here? In short, somewhat like the 4th century Chris­ tians, we won. What started as a movement of “deplorables” in Appalachia and skid row now boasts glittery television networks, prestigious universities, and the world’s largest churches. The preeminent Harvey Cox has written books about us, and our ranks have grown to almost a billion strong.2 As Saint Francis was supposedly told by the pope, “No longer must we say ‘Silver and gold have I not.’”3 Given our rise, I suppose it is only natural that we would look for a Constantine to crown, the ultimate sign that we have arrived. But I don’t need to tell you that we Pentecostals aren’t supposed to be natural (We think that’s for all you Presbyterians!). It is precisely a failure of our rootedness in the supernatural that led to our anointing of the impenitent lecher that is Donald Trump. What is the way forward? It is simply the reclamation of our former commitments to the power of the Holy Spirit and a robust eschatology. There was a time when this was all that we needed, when these commitments were enough. I believe that returning to the texts of Advent can make them enough again. Outsiders often assume that Pentecostals essentially begin reading the Bible in Acts 2. Certainly without Acts we would not exist. But our story starts in the prequel to Acts, where the birth of Chr ist is accompanied by an unexpected outbreak of Pen­ tecost.

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    “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit,” we are told of John, in the very first narrated words of Luke’s gospel, spoken by the supernatural voice of the angel of the Lord (1:15). A few verses later, “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit,” upon hearing the humble voice of Mary (1:41). “Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied” to boot (1:67). Jesus’ birth has not even occurred, and the Pentecostal infilling of all believers is already foreshadowed, Acts 2 now a foregone conclusion. This infilling, according to Luke Timothy Johnson, is “the essential mark of the prophet for Luke,” and what Spirit-empowered prophets they are!4 A bug-eating renegade, a peasant woman, and an unbelieving priest are those who first experience the promise of Pentecost. This same renegade will launch the gospel revolution after receiving the word of God in the wilderness, far from the inauguration stages of Tiberius, Pi­ late, Herod, and Caiaphas. The power of God in Luke-Acts is always found on the margins. Luke chooses an odd term for “filled,” implying not just spatial fullness, but sat­ isfaction, even satiation, “the removal of external wants.”5 This is especially striking against the backdrop of those living on the margins, where lack is the norm.6 In short, the power of the Spirit was enough for those who otherwise did not have enough. Luke’s focus on the movement of the Spirit among the most unlikely people is also directly linked to eschatology. While Matthew’s fulfillment theme is framed in reference to the Scriptures, Luke’s is in reference to time. Luke’s word for “filled” refers also to the crescendo of time that peaks at Jesus’ birth and dedication, and later to Jesus’ dreadful prophecy about the fall of Jerusalem (2:21-22, 21:22). This time is intensely eschatological, as Simeon announces the new age for all the earth that the child will inaugurate (2:29-31). Such eschatology was a counter-narrative to the ideology of Rome, whose Golden Age, inaugurated by Augustus, was said to bring good news and freedom to the cosmos.7 Luke’s gospel announces that the time has expired for the imperial narrative, supplanted by the reign of Jesus. As John announces, “The ax is already at the root of the trees” (3:9). Enough is enough for Roman eschatology! How might these texts speak freshly to the people of the Spirit today? First, they remind us of our own fullness. Because of Pentecost, we are satiated, overcome with God’s power! This is an assault on Trump’s worldview, where there is never enough. There is never enough economic growth, never enough security, never enough guns, never enough strength (We do, however, have quite enough marginalized immigrants!). The infilling of the Holy Spirit allows us to testify: We have enough, because Christ has sent his Spirit. Secondly, these texts call us back to our eschatology. The political and economic systems championed by the governments of this world each have “a view of how hu­ man history ought to unfold.”8 Trump’s eschatology is clear—“Make America Great Again” —and also directly reminiscent of the propaganda of the Pax Romana. There is not enough greatness to go around, so we must manufacture a false eschatology! Whichever sort of governmental eschatology is preferred or envisioned, the results on the ground are the same: the consolidation of wealth, power, and influence into the hands of the few (and far from the marginalized) because they are unable to define “enough.” But when we live with a fresh expectation of the Lord’s imminent return, we are freed from these false eschatologies. We look forward to the day when “God may be all in all,” when God’s very self will be enough.

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    When we Pentecostals reclaim these former commitments, we will be able to meet this cultural moment with a prophetic utterance of the Spirit: “Enough is enough!”

    Notes 1 See Stanley Hauerwas, “A Christian Critique of Christian America,” The Cresset 50, no. 1 (November 1986): 5-16. 2 Harvey Cox, Fire From Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1995); The Future of Faith (New York: Harper One, 2009). 3 See G.K. Chesterton, Saint Francis of Assisi (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2015). 4 Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1991), 33. 5 Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Volume VI (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans , 1968), 130. 6 For a discussion of the economic implications of the marginalized Judeans depicted in Luke 1-2, see Richard A. Horsley, The Liberation of Christmas: The Infancy Narratives in Social Context (New York: Continuum, 1989), 67-77. 7 “This man, this is he whom you have often heard promised, Augustus Caesar, born of the god, he will bring the golden age again to Latium….” Virgil, The Aenicl, 6.788-80. See Mark Reasoner, Roman Imperial Texts: A Sourcebook (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 28-29. 8 Philip Elliott, “Condoleeza Rice: The Former Secretary of State on Predicting Chaos, Dealing with Russia and How to Fix Soggy Bottom.” TIME (May 14, 2018): 64.

  • Ash Wednesday

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    Ash Wednesday

    Seth Dietrich

    Christ Church Episcopal, Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin

    It’s a parent’s worst nightmare. You turn your back for a second, and your toddler wanders away and discovers a way to get up into that top bathroom cabinet where you keep all those little red and white pills that look so much like candy. Or somehow the childproof clasp on the kitchen cabinet door fails; the child peers into the darkness under the sink, and she chooses something bright and blue that looks so much like mommy’s mouthwash. There are more than 300,000 cases of child poisoning a year. Surely there are some gathered here who’ve had to call Poison Control. Perhaps there are some here who have had to rush their child into the ER. If you are one of those parents, there is a good chance that the first thing that was given to your child was a substance called activated charcoal. It’s a standard ER treatment. Activated charcoal is made from burning coconut shells and hardwood at a very high temperature. The resulting ashes are injected with steam and acid to create this incredibly fine powder. Charcoal does not break down in the digestive system, and because the powder is so fine, it can move through the whole system into all the little folds. A fifty-gram dose has the square-foot coverage of more than a football field. And as it moves through the system, the charcoal binds to the toxins and absorbs them out of the tissue so that healing can begin. Every day lives are saved by this black, burned powder. For us in the Church, Ash Wednesday serves as the gateway into the season of Lent. In Lent, the Christian community is given space to acknowledge that we have ingested some things that are not good for us. We have opened up the dark cabinets that should have stayed closed. We have been tempted and we have succumbed and our systems have paid the price. In Lent, we name the poisons in our bodies and minds, and we also name the poisons in our larger systems: our churches, our corporations, our governments. Some of us have been following the story of what happened to the people who live near the Flint River in Michigan. State officials took over the water management, and in a move to save money, they did not add a critical chemical to the river that would neutralize the naturally occurring high levels of chlorine. Subsequently, the chlorine corroded the old pipes, releasing trace amounts of lead into the city’s water supply. Hundreds of kids began to get sick. Most of those affected were families with little power and influence. Most of them were poor. Most of them were people of color. People accustomed to ingesting trace amounts of systemic injustice for generation after generation. On Ash Wednesday we come together to say that we, as a people, have made a mess of things, and it is only through the infinite mercy of God in Christ Jesus that we have any hope to set things right. Last week, a small group of us gathered here at church for the annual burning of the palms. We took out the old palm branches from last year’s Palm Sunday Procession. If you remember back to that procession, these were the palms that we waved as Jesus entered Jerusalem. If you remember back to that day, we play-acted people in the crowd—people full of hope that we had a Savior who was going to fall in line with our agenda. “Praise God in the Highest for

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    the Savior who will conquer our enemies, bring us national glory, bring us personal prosperity, who will ‘Make Jerusalem Great Again.’” Of course, when that Savior turned out to be a fraud, hanging limp in the sun, mumbling for water mixed with hyssop, we dropped our palms and walked away. Disgusted. Embarrassed. After last year’s service, the branches from our play were put away in a dark church closet. Last week, the small group who gathered took those dried, brittle branches, and we burned them at a high temperature to create a fine, grey ashen powder. And this morning, the other clergy and I stirred those ashes together with oil blessed for anointing. In just a moment all will be invited to come forward. The pastor will dip a thumb into this thick, black slurry and draw a small cross on the center of your forehead. That ashen mark is an ancient sign of humility and mortality. But that ashen mark is also a bold proclamation that the cross of Jesus Christ is the only true antidote to the poison in us and in our world. The cross of Jesus, the ultimate sign of God’s suffering , non-violent love, is our only hope of deep healing. In the cross, Jesus absorbs the sin of the world. In the cross, we are offered a love that can move through the folds of any person, through the pipes of any city, through the psyche of any nation. A cleansing love that binds to our sin and offers the forgiveness necessary to let it go. To make amends. To start again. With that ashen mark on our heads, we proclaim that even our brittle palm branches, even our failures, our hubris, our contempt, even our most toxic ways of death can be consumed in the fire of God’s love and used for our healing. What are those things in our lives today that are poisoning our personal systems, keeping us from flourishing? What are those toxins that continue to flow through the larger systems in our community? May this day we open ourselves to God’s infinite power for healing in Jesus and his cross.

    Lent 2017

  • The Parable of the Lost Ring: A Prose Poem

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    The Parable of the Lost Ring: A Prose Poem

    Emily Rose Proctor

    SoWal Community, Santa Rosa Beach, Florida

    Sometimes you live your way into a parable. Take the woman with the lost coin for instance. Turns out it was a ring. Maimie’s ring passed down through eldest daughter to daughter-in-law. The son’s first wife not worthy of the inheritance, but the second —oh how they loved the second—in love with the fiery preacher just like Maimie (of whom no one speaks ill). The ring was platinum—an Edwardian antique with one brilliant round diamond and six little disciples trailing on each side—the most precious thing she’d ever been given, though her skin rebelled against it, and one day at the gym, she had to take it off. She put it in the safest place she could think of, not the pocket but the closed loop of the karabiner with her keys, and when she remembered it two days later it was gone like Jesus on Good Friday and she could not wash her hands of it—no, not even her, governor of good intentions and good excuses. She told no one for days and even though Mary Oliver says you do not have to be good, still she swept the house and ran a coat hanger under the dryer and fridge and moved the dresser and unscrewed the floor vents and shoved the broom way up under the bed and prayed for resurrection or maybe the second coming and found quite a number of missing things that had not been missed at all but not the ring of course and she even went to the neighborhood where they ’ d been strolling—strolling ! — before they knew it was gone and she must have turned over every ridiculous brown leaf that littered the street (in spring!) and took advantage of the kindness of friends and strangers and passed out her number and filed a report and when she thought of visiting every seedy pawn shop in the metro area all by her lonesome (and how many times?) she finally told her husband who could hardly speak to her for days he was so red and black with rage and disappointment but only for a week or so then grace won the day as sometimes happens in parables but by then it was too late for she had become the kind of person who loses precious things—first the baby and now the ring and what would be next? They couldn’t help but wonder, and the parables don’t mention the shame of it but that’s the worst part how it creeps into you, and you realize what an idiot thing it is to say that you love the sinner and hate the sin because whether you meant to or not it sticks to you—unless of course you find it five months later collecting dust in the comer behind a basket of socks, for Christ’s sake, and you know there’s no way you didn’t look there (the bedroom being the most thoroughly inspected place) but you don’t really care—the joy seizes you so—and you leap and shout and curse and embrace and praise the Lord you had given up on four months earlier and now you wonder if the angel Gabriel didn’t fish the thing out of the gutter to lay it in the dusty corner himself, but more importantly you realize two most wonderful things—your in-laws will never have to know the truth (and just what is that anyway) and your husband’s already forgiven you for an almost unforgivable thing, which turns out to be almost as precious as the ring.

    Journal for Preachers

  • Why Preach a Sermon Series on the Beatitudes?

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    Why Preach a Sermon Series on the Beatitudes?

    Mark Ramsey

    Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church, Austin, Texas

    and Kristy Färber Mercer Island Presbyterian Church, Mercer Island, Washington

    It was at a high school awards assembly where an off-brand version of the Beatitudes was offered (for some reason that has long since been forgotten) that it became evident that these blessings of Jesus may be in need of refocusing. Our culture likes soft words like blessing. The idea of a blessing can be placed in any number of situations . In most uses, “blessing” is a non-threatening good wish that costs nothing and asks little. We preached a series of sermons on the Beatitudes of Jesus in Matthew 5 to try to reclaim the power of these words to shape our active life of faith. We wanted to engage the congregation we were serving at the time in a deeper exploration on how “blessings” are closely related to ethics, faith development, and the consequences of following Jesus today. Far from being soft, benign good wishes, Jesus preaches the Sermon on the Mount—and the Beatitudes within—filled with expectations for our participation in the Kingdom of God. It is the reshaping of our imagination of how to live as God’s children that was the focus of our exploration of the Beatitudes. We proceeded through the series focusing on spiritual geography—how are the Beatitudes lived out in real time by people like us? To further illustrate this, we preached scriptural texts alongside the Beatitudes that illuminated how these blessings are made real by the power of God working through the lives of those in the Bible—the laborers in the vineyard, Jacob wrestling until dawn, Jesus in the moments of his betrayal and arrest, and Paul and Silas in prison.

    “Geography ” (first in a series on the Beatitudes) Genesis 32:22-26 and Matthew 5:1-16

    Mark Ramsey Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church, Austin, Texas

    It seems that a sought after token of “the good life” today is also one of the most unattainable, at least according to The Wall Street Journal It’s a cell phone number with Manhattan’s 212 area code. It used to be that area codes were geographic: I grew up in the Central Illinois 309 area code and went to college in Central Virginia’s 804. Now, it doesn’t matter if you live in California or New Jersey, in Asheville or Peoria; if you want to be seen as “having what it takes,” you get a New York City 212 area code. Apparently, some people are going to great lengths in manipulating the system

    Journal for Preachers

  • Honeydew

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    One New Book for the Preacher

    Joanna Harader

    Peace Mennonite Church, Lawrence, Kansas

    Edith Pearlman, Honeydew (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2015). 275 pages.

    Good preachers constantly search for good stories. Not pre-processed, inspirational “sermon illustrations,” but true-to-life stories that put contemporary flesh on the bones of ancient scripture. We cull stories from the news and from other preachers’ sermons; we jot down stories from our friends and sometimes accidentally overhear them in the coffee shop; we dig into our own past and pay attention to our present and regretfully discard great stories that seem to embarrass our children; we scour the National Public Radio archives. But one often neglected source of sermon stories is, well, stories-literary short stories. I have been encouraged to use such stories in my preaching by Dr. Mike Graves, who teaches on the sermon and short stories at St. Paul Seminary in Kansas City. Dr. Graves’ recent book, The Story of Narrative Preaching: Story and Exposition : A Narrative, presents some of the literary and theological material from his class. The book encourages preachers to attend to both the expository and narrative elements of their sermons and to consider literary short stories as a key resource of rich narrative material. Rather than review a book about short stories, however, I want to share a book of short stories: Edith Pearlman’s 2015 story collection, Honeydew. The title is a reference to manna—a substance that the main character of the title story claims was the sweet tasting excrement of a particular desert-dwelling insect (page 264). Like manna, Pearlman’s stories are nourishing and sweet, earthy and a bit mysterious. The stories in Honeydew are full of wilderness moments and grace, of people searching and suffering and finding and losing. They are the kind of stories that can help us see ancient scripture from fresh perspectives. In “Deliverance,” we meet Mimi, a stylish middle-aged woman who applies for a job at the local soup kitchen for women and children called the Ladle. There are hints of Samuel’s selection and anointing of David (1 Samuel 16) when the staff of the soup kitchen interview Mimi. Her “bewitchingly chic” appearance is somewhat off-putting, but the staff have seen the soup kitchen guests “rummage through a pile of donated rags, select a few, and with those few convert themselves into a dead ringer for a CEO or, if you want to talk really elegant, a high-priced call girl” (162). Mimi beats out two other candidates who would seem, on the surface, to be much more qualified for the job. Mimi turns out to be a great asset to the organization. Reminiscent of Jesus feeding the 5,000, she is able to take “a meager amount of cod donated by a fish market half an hour before it turned and make it the basis for an abundant chowder” (165). Mimi’s personal concern for and interaction with the kitchen guests parallel Jesus’ engagement with the poor and outcast of his day. She has some of the women guests stay late one afternoon to help her with a Lego-sorting project. As a reward for their labors, she takes them out for pizza—and a bottle of wine. She insists that Donna,

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    the manager, does not need to reimburse her for the wine, to which Donna responds, “It was grape juice; I have it on the best authority” (166). With these earlier hints of Mimi as a Christ figure, the story continues into an odd and beautiful rendition of the Gerasene demoniac—particularly the version in Matthew 8:28-32 where two demon possessed men are healed. In Pearlman’s version of the story, the possessed men are instead women, Miss Valentine and O-Kay, who frequent the Ladle. The women hear voices; they are delusional and sometimes violent. Mimi talks with the women frequently and finally reports to Donna that the two women are possessed: “Miss Valentine and O-Kay can’t rid themselves of their demons, not without help” (167). Donna tells her that the two women don’t need an exorcism; they just need to go back on their medications. But Mimi doesn’t listen. In the final scene, Donna watches through a window as Mimi, Miss Valentine, and O-Kay sit together around a table, a cage containing the Ladle’s two gerbils sitting in the middle of the group. Mimi eventually lets the gerbils out of the cage, and Donna is afraid they will run into the pantry and ruin the food. Instead the rodents run out of the building—through the door that Mimi left propped open—and “Pell-mell, with all the willfulness of the crazed, they ran up the cement stairs and into the lake”—which is actually a large puddle created by the incessant rain (p. 172). Miss Valentine and O-Kay are more calm than Donna has ever seen them, and Mimi assures Donna that the gerbils will be replaced before the guests arrive for the next day’s meal. Another beautiful story with echoes of biblical texts is the opening piece “Tenderfoot . ” The Tenderfoot pedicure parlor fronts Main Street, with a large plate-glass window that allows people to see the foot washing rituals that are described in distinctly religious language. Paige attracts many clients “who appreciated that a footbath administered by a discreet attendant squatting on a stool could become a kind of secular confessional” (p. 4). And Paige’s new neighbor Bobby “liked to see the customers relax on the chair, as if this quasi-biblical experience transported them to some soapy heaven; as if, briefly dead, they could call their sins forgiven” (p. 5). We are even told that, in the work she did, Paige “ministered directly to people” (p. 6). It is perhaps this ministry, this confessional element, that Bobby, who has recently separated from his wife, is seeking when he makes an appointment for his pedicure. The scene of Bobby’s footwashing brings to mind Jesus washing the disciples’ feet: first Bobby removed his shoes, then Paige brought him a goblet of wine. “Then she fetched the tub of water. Cradling his ankles in one arm, she bent back the foot ledge of his chair and moved the tub a little and slid his feet into the warm liquid” (p. 8). The pedicure parlor becomes a sanctuary where Bobby confesses and is cleansed, even as Paige, with “a thick towel on her lap,” absorbs his sorrow and guilt (p. 8). While “Tenderfoot” portrays a location of spiritual healing, the second story in Pearlman’s collection, “Dream Children,” deals with questions of physical healing. Willa, a young woman from an unnamed island country, has come to New York to serve as a nanny for Jack and Sylvie who have four boys. In a drawer in her room, Willa discovers three old drawings done by Jack; they are of grotesque baby figures. The youngest of the four children develops a persistent fever, and the three adults take turns each night caring for the infant. One night, when it is Willa’s turn to care for the child, she gives him a bottle of tea made from crushed nuts—a “potion” from her island aunt. Finally, the baby’s fever

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    breaks. When Willa goes into the kitchen to tell Jack the good news, she discovers him creating another drawing, “only a head this time, pointed ears and one eye missing and an open mouth, lipless” (p. 24). He explains that his drawings are amulets, and he watches as she pours the remaining tea down the drain. The questions about healing raised in this story resonate with many stories of Jesus’ healings as well: What is the relationship between the healer and the healed? Does the healing have a biological cause, is it supernatural, or is it merely coincidental? How do we cope when our loved ones are ill? Another story, “Wait and See,” raises significant theological questions about truth—and how much of it we really want to see. The main character Lyle has hyperchromasticity , which means he can see more colors than other people. As Lyle grows up with this condition, he increasingly feels isolated by his vision. At one point he is able to see the cancer under the skin of a woman he has a sexual relationship with. She dies not long after. Many people tell Lyle that he has a gift, but he experiences his heightened vision as a burden. And so Lyle’s stepfather, an optometrist, develops special glasses that Lyle can wear to normalize his vision. At the end of the story, Lyle takes off his glasses and then puts them back on, deciding that his vision without or with the glasses is equally true: “Truth had nothing to do with the witness of the eyes. What he saw now was simply what other people saw. He chose their limited vision; he meant to live in this world as an ordinary man. He would not remove his glasses again” (p. 205). Beyond “Deliverance,” “Tenderfoot,” “Dream Children,” and “Wait and See,” many other stories in this collection are also preachable. For this Lenten season, the title story “Honeydew” connects to themes of wilderness and directly references the Israelites’ desert wanderings. “Blessed Harry” and “Descent of Happiness” explore ideas about creation, fall, and the topic of the speech Myron Flaxbaum is asked to give in “Blessed Harry”—“‘The Mystery of Life and Death’” (p. 70). “Fishwater” pairs well with the story of Abraham, assigned this year for the Second Sunday of Lent; it introduces us to Franz, a Holocaust survivor well acquainted with barrenness, sacrifice, and promise. “Cul-de-Sac” offers us an outcast woman (to set next to the woman at the well) in addition to a chaotic and congenial meal scene complete with a spilled wine glass. While many stories in this collection could become effective sermon material, the value of Honeydew for the preacher goes far beyond providing usable stories. Pearlman presents us with beautifully human characters, realistically complex relationships, and language that both delights and communicates truth. In each story we witness a master writer putting flesh on the bones of emotion and idea. In the end, even if you never use any of Pearlman’s stories in a sermon, reading this book just might make you a better preacher.

  • Who Lynched Willie Earle?: Preaching to Confront Racism

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    One New Book for the Preacher

    Joe Harvard First (Scots) Presbyterian Church, Charleston, South Carolina

    Will Willimon, Who Lynched Willie Earle? (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2016)

    With an amazing new book, Will Willimon has given us preachers something invaluable. For years Will has been turning out books, articles, sermons, and commentaries to help us. Next to Walter Brueggemann and Barbara Brown Taylor, he is the most prolific writer of good theological insights to assist us in proclaiming the Gospel and living as disciples of Jesus Christ. After the election of Donald Trump, I needed help. I needed help to figure out my responsibility as a pastor after a horribly contentious election of a President who seems to deny many of the primary values of the Christian faith. (Will has reminded me thatTrump claims to be a Presbyterian—John Calvin is spinning ! ) Seriously, Will and I have been colleagues and friends in Durham for thirty years. I have great respect for him as a committed disciple of Jesus Christ. So I am not surprised by the sound theology and timeliness of this book Will and I both have South Carolina roots, having been educated in school and college in the Palmetto State in the 1960s. It was a society that was rigidly segregated. And we are both preachers who believe that God is calling us to change ourselves and our culture. The horrific killing of the Mother Emanuel Nine on June 17, 2015, led Will to write this book. On that same day, I accepted the call to be transitional pastor at First (Scots) Presbyterian Church in Charleston, South Carolina, down Meeting Street from Emanuel AME Church. It was a call that I had not sought or expected, but it has given me the opportunity to seek to help a community grieve a tragic expression of racial hatred and to experience the response to such hate by people of deep faith shaped by the power of God’s love. This book has been written “for such a time as this.” I felt it personally as I struggled to figure out my baptism vocation as a citizen and disciple of Jesus Christ after the 2016 election. I have felt like a “resident alien” since the election of Donald Trump. One of the most distressing aspects of Trump’s campaign was the explicit racism. Even more troubling is the fact that this did not disqualify Trump among many who seek to follow Christ. To make matters worse, despite the talk of a post-racist America, right below the surface, racism is alive and well. Now it has surfaced in the rhetoric of Trump which gives license to bullying, bigotry, and hate. We are being called to face it from the pulpit and in our congregations. Will and I were privileged to have as a neighbor and colleague Dr. John Hope Franklin, who taught at Duke University until retirement. He was one of our most distinguished and insightful historians as well as an amazing human being. Among his many outstanding books is The Color Line in which he encouraged us to face the racism so deeply ingrained in our society. This is necessary, he wrote, to keep the color line from being “a most important legacy of the twenty-first century. ” In 1993, Franklin wrote:

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    Perhaps the first thing we need to do as a nation and as individual members of society is to confront our past and see it for what it is. It is a past that is filled with some of the ugliest possible examples of racial brutality in human history. We need to recognize it for what it was and is and not explain it away, excuse it, or justify it. Having done that, we should then make a good-faith effort to turn our history around so that we can see it in front of us.

    Will begins by doing just that with a painful account of how he as a college student was confronted with a lynching of a black man, Willie Earle, by whites in his hometown in 1947. It is an all too familiar story. This murder, as well as the unjust trial and acquittal of those who did it, was kept secret. At the age of thirty, I also had a professor at Florida State University inform me of a horrific incident perpetrated against a black women in Live Oak, Florida, a small town where I grew up. He gave me a book by William Bradford Huie that gave an account of the troubling story of Ruby McCollum, which took place on the street where I lived. No one ever talked about it. Dig deep enough into the common life of our communities, and there are hidden tales of woe about the “lynching” of African Americans. Will encourages us to do some truth telling. Because in the matter of race, as we often say in the liturgical call to confession, “We are self-deceived and strangers to the truth.” It is clear that there is conventional wisdom that if we do not talk about the racism so ingrained in our culture and our lives, it will not exist. So confession is essential. I am impressed by Will’s honesty about his own struggle to face honestly and to confess his own racism. The book recounts a very courageous sermon preached by a Methodist pastor, Harley Lynn, in response to the lynching of Willie Earle. There are other insightful examples of sermons preached about the sin of racism. Will not only encourages us to preach faithful sermons, but also “to talk about it” in sermons and our Common life. It is important to “speak the truth in love” about our horrendous racial past. This is not to wallow in guilt, but it is, as John Hope Franklin wrote, a major step towards creating space where true reconciliation can happen. The good news is that this task is not something we must accomplish on our own. The major theological point Will makes is that God is at work to make reconciliation a reality and wants us to engage in this work of God’s kingdom. Will strongly believes that preaching is a significant way God has chosen to get the job done. Preaching is important, but it is not enough. Will suggests we may not be able to keep the 11 o’clock hour on Sunday from being the most segregated hour of the week. But it is also crucial to engage in honest conversations with brothers and sisters in Christ in which we white folks listen to how African Americans experience racism in their daily lives. This is hard work, but it is essential if we are going to move towards what Dr. Martin Luther King called the Beloved Community. In my experience, incredible things start happening when congregations of different races take the risk of talking together and building honest relationships. This takes time and requires commitment, but it is well worth the effort. I strongly recommend this book. Don’t take my word for it. Read the article by Will Willimon, “Resurrection and the Courage to Confront Racism,” in this issue of Journal for Preachers, and I believe you will want more.

    Easter 2017