An Eco-justice Christmas Sermon

What does Christmas mean for climate refugees, migrant workers, 

and our very Earth suffering under climate disruption?  

Jesus' birth interrupts us with a reminder about whose lives matter to God.

The Rev. Dr. Leah D. Schade

Assistant Professor of Preaching and Worship, Lexington Theological Seminary, Lexington, KY

Author, Creation-Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology and the Pulpit (Chalice Press, 2016)

Text: Luke 2:2-20 

In a congregation I served several years ago, I sent out an informal email poll asking people the following question:  “What do you find to be the biggest distraction when you attend a worship service?”

There were a variety of responses.  Some people named cell phones, the sound of traffic outside, or the temperature being too hot or cold.  But by far, the biggest source of annoyance during worship is . . . (you guessed it) children! 

Some churches are more welcoming of children than others.  But even the most forbearing among us can get a bit exasperated with the interruptions of children.  How about when you have one of these lovable little urchins sitting in the pew directly in front of or behind you.  You watch Cheerios cascading to the floor, lose count of the number of times the child goes back and forth to the bathroom, and climbs up and down, up and down, as if the pew was a jungle gym.  And you hear all the juvenile prattle, despite the parent’s continued admonition:  “Use your inside voice!”

If you are one of the parents or grandparents who actually has one of these children in your care during worship, you’re lucky if you can even catch the gist of the sermon or hear a phrase or two from the prayers.  Worshiping with a child is one big exercise in patience and interruption.  Actually, life with a child is a series of interruptions – diaper surprises, sudden sicknesses, nightmares at 3 a.m. 

Mary and Joseph understood what it means to be interrupted by a child. Nine months ago, Mary was going about her life, happily planning for her upcoming marriage, when an angel appeared from God and interrupted her:  “Greetings, Favored One!  The Lord is with you. But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.  The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus,” (Luke 1:28-31).

Just like that -- girl interrupted.  Life interrupted. 

The Gospel of Matthew records a similar incident for Joseph.  Nine months ago, he was just going about his life, engaged to a pretty young girl, busy with his carpentry business, when an angel appeared from God and interrupted him:   “Joseph, Son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:20-21).

Just like that -- man interrupted.  Life interrupted.

And that’s just the beginning.  The rest of the story is also punctuated with interruptions.  The government interrupts their lives and tells them they have to make the long trek to Bethlehem from their hometown of Nazareth in order to pay their taxes.  The innkeeper interrupts their lives to tell them they have to stay in the barn with the animals because there are no more rooms available.  It’s one interruption after another.

As we revisit these age-old stories in at Christmas this year, we find interruptions of a different kind are in need of our attention.  Our planet’s ecosystems are interrupting humanity with an urgency that cannot be ignored. Nearly everywhere we look across the globe, the effects of human-induced climate change, pollution, deforestation, and extreme energy extraction are interrupting and disrupting the lives of billions of people.  While many of us and our parishioners will long for a sweet sermon of greeting-card sentimentality, the reality is that for people living in poverty, dealing with rising sea levels, escaping war-torn areas, facing environmental violation of their homes or tribal lands, and trying to survive in a society that has told them their lives don’t matter, such saccharine sentimentality is a luxury they cannot afford.  If our aim is to be true to the text about this interrupting Christ-child, our preaching shouldn’t pay for such a short-lived luxury either.

Because the truth about this little family is that they were buffeted by forces beyond their control.  They were like so many families today who live in areas gripped by violent regimes, or whose crops have been decimated by drought, or who find themselves wandering as climate-refugees seeking someplace with room at the inn where they can find shelter, a warm place to sleep, a meal, a change of clothes, and a lead on a new life.  Howard Thurman’s poem captures the reality of these families:

“Christmas is Waiting to be Born”

by Howard Thurman (African American theologian and Civil Rights activist)

Where refugees seek deliverance that never comes

And the heart consumes itself as if it would live,

Where children age before their time

And life wears down the edges of the mind,

Where the old man sits with mind grown cold,

While bones and sinew, blood and cell, go slowly down to death,

Where fear companions each day's life,

And Perfect Love seems long delayed.

Christmas is waiting to be born:

In you, in me, in all mankind.

This doesn’t mean that we should hammer away at folks with a litany of guilt-inducing crimes against the planet and humanity.  No one wants to feel so overwhelmed by the complexities and compound fractures of our human and Earth community that they limp from the church regretting having come.  So is there any Good News in the midst of these interruptions?

The shepherds would say: Yes!  Living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night . . . the romantic vision we have of their simple, bucolic life is another artificially sweetened misconception.  Because, in fact, a shepherd’s life was one that no one envied.  Long days and nights isolated and alone, these were people who society often rejected for one reason or another.  No one wanted to hire them, so the only job they could get was watching sheep.  It was a difficult life of being constantly on the move with no hope of a promotion, no promise of a salary increase, no hope of companionship beyond the other rejects out there with you.  It’s a life all too familiar for today’s migrant workers and “illegal” immigrants who, like the shepherds, are often viewed as rejects and do the work no one wants to do, often the dirty work of supplying our food, all while being blamed for taking jobs of the native-born (who don’t want that kind of work anyway). 

And then one fateful night, the angel interrupts them.  “Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:  to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.  This will be a sign for you:  you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:10-12).

Just like that – shepherds interrupted.  Hopelessness interrupted.

This is startling to them.  Imagine the feeling of a child when the first big snow falls, and hearing the announcement that school is closed!  You run out and jump and roll in that beautiful, downy iciness, because you know it means freedom.  Freedom from the monotony of another day.  A brief reprieve from that big test you were dreading.  Freedom to breathe a sigh of relief and play and drink hot cocoa and enjoy the day as a gift.

Imagine that feeling multiplied times a hundred.  The shepherds “make haste” – they’re running!  They’re laughing and hooting, jumping and singing the song they heard in the angel’s serenade:  “Glory to God in the highest!”

These are men who welcome the interruption. They long for something to break through the prison of their poverty, disrupt the monotony of their dreary lives.  For just this night they have a brief reprieve from their desolate lives.  They have freedom to breathe a sigh of relief, inhale a breath of hope, and enjoy this night as a gift.

These are men whose ears are tuned to hear the cry of a baby.  They are happy to be interrupted by this child!  Because this infant’s cry is the most important revelation the world has yet heard.  God is with us!  Emmanuel! 

These men run all through the city of Bethlehem, banging on doors, interrupting the sleep of countless people, looking for the child.  They want to see the Cheerios making a mess on the floor.  They want to hear the incessant prattle of this little one.  They want to be interrupted.  This is what they have longed for all their lives - a holy interruption.

Seeing these migrant workers in the doorway standing on tippy-toe to catch a glimpse of the baby, Mary and Joseph probably sighed with exasperation.  Another interruption?  

But then the men speak. “We’re sorry to (ahem) interrupt.  But we’ve just been given the greatest news.  This baby – your baby – is the One!  The angel told us!  Do you know what you have here?  This child is the greatest gift God could ever interrupt the world to give.  Whatever you have to go through for this child, it will be worth it.  Because this child will bring peace where there had been no hope of peace before.” 

“And Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19). 

She pondered these words when the child grew to be a twelve-year-old, and interrupted their trip to Jerusalem by disappearing for days, teaching in the temple.

Joseph pondered these words when the child grew to be a young man, and interrupted his promising career as a carpenter to journey to the Jordan River and seek baptism and a life as a traveling rabbi.

You see, Jesus’ life was all about interruption. 
He interrupted the sick to tell them that they were healed.
He interrupted the sinners to tell them they were forgiven.
He interrupted the outcasts to tell them they were welcome.

But he also:
interrupted the corrupt leaders to tell them that they were wrong.
Interrupted the oppressors to tell them that God was seeking justice.
Interrupted the whole system that marginalized the weak, forcing inequality, and poverty, and violence on so many people. 

And of course, there was the most important interruption of them all – the resurrection.  Here evil and death were just going along, minding their own business, happily consuming just one more child of humanity, this one delivered by a cross on a hill at Golgotha.  But then three days later in a cemetery garden, suddenly an angel appears and interrupts the women and disciples in their grieving, saying, “Do not be afraid!  Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here.  He is risen!” 

Just like that -- Death interrupted.

If God found a way into the world in the midst of the interruptions back then, perhaps we need to be more alert to God’s presence in the midst of interruptions today.  In fact, maybe that’s the only way that God can get through to us.  Maybe it takes a holy interruption to shake us out of our routine, release us from our prisons of monotony, break the ongoing cycles of violence and evil and pain in this world.

We need this child, piercing the air with his cries, interrupting our lives with this most important news:  God is with us.  Emmanuel. 

And this is good news not just for humanity, but for the entire planet.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son . . .” (John 3:16).  Did you catch that?  The whole world:  Microorganisms! Mountains!  Air!  Rivers! Coral reefs! Giraffes!  Babies born to Muslim women!  Children sewing our clothes in foreign lands!  Teenage boys with chocolate-brown skin!  Your mother’s child – you!  All of these lives matter to God.

Which means we need to carry this holy interruption into the world outside the stable doors. 

We need to interrupt today’s corrupt leaders to tell them they are wrong.

We need to interrupt the oppressors to tell them that God is still seeking justice.

We need to interrupt the systems that marginalize people and force inequality, poverty, and violence on so many.

As Charles Campbell and Johann Ciliers remind us: "Jesus' birth interrupted the old age with a radically new order, which turned the world upside down. . . The Christmas festivals celebrate - again in communal, embodied form - the incarnation, in which God became body, flesh - carne.  God is born as a human child to common folk; or in specifically carnivalesque terms, a baby is made king - an event certainly as foolish and disruptive as the parodic exaltation of the crucifixion. . ." (Campbell, Charles L. and Johan H. Cilliers, Preaching Fools:  The Gospel as a Rhetoric of Folly, Baylor University Press; Waco, TX, 2012; 77).

We, too, need to interrupt the lives of today’s shepherd’s - the migrants and those labelled "illegal" - to tell them they deserve respect and fair wages, and full citizenship.  We need to interrupt the lives of refugees to tell them there is, in fact, room at the inn. 

Buffalo at Standing Rock protest site.

Even Earth itself is joining in this holy interruption.  I’m remembering the tribal people gathered at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation interrupting the plans of the oil pipeline companies, enduring water hoses, tear gas and sonic grenades launched against them in their peaceful protests.  In an interview with one of the tribal men about the impasse, suddenly the air is punctuated with whoops and shouts of joy – a herd of buffalo thunders into view.  Buffalo are not only a traditional source of food and clothing for the Sioux, they are symbolic of the power of the land itself.  For the Water Protectors, these buffalo announced good news – even the land itself is declaring God’s work in the world.

May you experience this most holy interruption.  May God interrupt us with the gift of this Christ child.  And may all Earth experience this interruption of grace and peace, love and joy.  Amen. 

Following God’s Call – Guest Advent Sermon by Rachel Schade

Rachel Schade, 13-year-old
budding preacher (and my daughter!)

December 11, 2016

Gethsemane Lutheran Church, Lexington, Kentucky

Text:  Matthew 1:18-25  

[Rachel Schade is in 8^th Grade at Tates Creek Middle School in Lexington, KY, and a new member at Gethsemane Lutheran.  She was invited to preach at their monthly evening praise service and chose to focus on the theme of “calling” for this Advent service.  This is her first sermon, and I am proud to feature my daughter’s work in this special blog post.  You can watch the video here.]

There are many things we think about in our daily lives, such as our families, friends, jobs and school. However, I think it’s safe to say that there’s something else that many people don’t think about - God’s calling for us.

          In Matthew 1:18-25, an angel appears to Joseph telling him to take Mary as his wife, “for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” I don’t know about you, but if an angel told me to marry someone who was pregnant with a baby that wasn’t mine, I’d be a bit concerned. But Joseph believed the angel, listened to his dreams, and followed God’s call.

          But of course, this isn’t all about Josephs’ calling.  It’s about Mary’s calling as well. Remember Luke 1:26-38 which tells us that the angel Gabriel gives Mary the message that she will conceive a son named Jesus. Let’s break this down. In today’s society, we don’t like to think about our kids bearing children at a young age, let alone marrying someone twice their age. Even though Mary is much perplexed by his words, she accepts God’s calling for her even though it’s uncertain what lies ahead.

          So why would Mary and Joseph agree to follow this call? I can tell you one thing - the list of reasons why they shouldn’t is VERY lengthy: rejection by their loved ones, disapproval by religious leaders, uncertainty about their future, the list goes on. But to understand why they chose to follow God’s call, I think we can discern three qualities in both of them that opened their hearts and minds to God.

          The first quality was trust. They trusted the will of God, the assurance of the Angel, and the promise Holy Spirit. They also had to trust and believe in themselves. And just as important – they had to trust each other.    And this trust  helped them to build a better relationship in order to do what God wanted them to do. Overall, trust was and extremely important quality in this for both of them.

          The next quality was courage.   Courage is feeling afraid, but going forward anyway.  In Luke, we can tell that Mary is very brave. She says “Behold, I am the lord’s servant; let it be with me according to your word.” Not only is she agreeing to the angel’s words, she’s taking it upon herself to make sure that God’s will is being done.

Joseph, on the other hand, shows bravery in a different way. He takes the chance of moral embarrassment to follow God’s call. In those days, I’m sure it was mortifying to know people would be talking about you, whispering that your wife must have been unfaithful to be carrying a child who is not your own.  But he faced this humiliation to carry out the will of God.

          The final quality was commitment - commitment to God, commitment to each other, and commitment to their child. For Mary, she had to take the initiative to keep her relationship with her spouse as healthy as possible. Not only that, but she took on the responsibility of parenthood. For Joseph, he showed many examples of commitment. It would’ve been easy for him to walk out on Mary at any point, even abandon her on their way to Bethlehem. But no. He kept his attention on Mary for their whole journey, and this is what helped them to answer God’s call.

          So, there you have Mary and Joseph’s story. But what about yours? What is God’s call for your life at this time?  Maybe you’re considering a career change.  Maybe you’re thinking of what college you might attend.  Maybe you have a big decision coming up.  Well, I suggest that we all take the steps that Mary and Joseph did; 1) Trust, 2) Courage, 3) Commitment. You might be asking, “How do I acquire these qualities?” Let’s think about this for a minute.

          Trust. What do you think of when you hear this word? Well, I personally think of it as putting your faith in someone or something, because you have confidence that what you’re doing is right. And that’s exactly what Mary and Joseph did; they put their trust in God and the Holy Spirit. Remember that like Mary and Joseph, just because you answer God’s call doesn’t mean life will suddenly be easy for you. In fact, sometimes it’s just the opposite.  But that’s exactly why trusting God is important – to help you get through those challenges.

   

Which brings us to courage. Courage, by definition, is “the ability to do something that frightens you.” Let me ask you this, what frightens you? Think of that for just one second.  Maybe you’re like Joseph, and you fear public humiliation.  Maybe you’re like Mary and you fear taking on a task that feels too big for you. Now think about how God can help you overcome it. Remember that the root word for courage means “heart” – you have to put your heart into God’s call for you.  And God will make sure you have the gift of courage.

          But no matter how much trust and courage you have, they won’t last long if you don’t have the third quality - commitment. We see today that so many people neglect the obligations, or give up, or simply get distracted from God’s call. We see this in marital relationships, kids with their school work, friendships, jobs, etc. But especially as Christians we must show our commitment to the people involved most in our calling, and to God.

          Following God’s call won’t be easy, and it will take lots of hard work to attain it.  But remember that you are not alone in this call.  You have your church family to sustain you as you follow God’s call. And through trust, courage and commitment each of us - and all of us as a church together – we will be able to follow God’s call. Amen.

Disintegrationism: How We Got Here, Where We Go Next

The Rev. Dr. Leah D. Schade

"Gyre - The Center Cannot Hold" - by scart, http://scart.deviantart.com/art/Gyre-The-Centre-Cannot-Hold-505173481

How did we come to this point where a man misled by a fake news story about a completely made-up scenario of a criminal ring fronted by a pizza shop walks into the establishment firing his gun?

How did we come to this point where one-third of Americans still do not believe the science about climate change, one of whom is the president-elect who has called global warming “a hoax,” and another is his newly-appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, who has perpetuated the patently false statement that “scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extend of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind.”

How did we come to this point where fabrications about entire groups of people (all Mexicans are “rapists,” all Muslims are “terrorists”) spouted by the president-elect of the United States can become accepted as fact and justify hate crimes against these communities? 

How did we come to this point where what is a lie becomes truth, and what is truth becomes irrelevant?  Is there even such a thing as truth anymore?  How did we get to this point where we actually have to ask these questions?

And from a progressive Christian perspective, what is the church’s role in this time of unprecedented upheaval in reality?

These questions have churned in my mind following the presidential election, urging me to search for ways to make sense of this bizarre reality we now live in.  So I’ve been wondering if what we are observing is an inevitable consequence of the era of postmodernism?   (I’m about to get a bit academic and intellectual here, but stay with me – the pay-off is coming.)  Postmodernism is a philosophical system that emerged following the two World Wars and brought with it a questioning of all received truth and ways of knowing. Postmodernism arose in response to modernism, a period spanning about 300 years (1648 – mid-1900s) that included the Age of Enlightenment which stressed order, universal foundations, and truths based on science and reasoning.  While modernism’s goal was enlightened human rationalism and the establishment of power for the good of the many, in reality it was only the white, wealthy male elite who benefited.  And the unified narratives not only discounted women, people of color, and colonized people, they led to a clash of competing ideologies that resulted in two back-to-back catastrophic global wars. 

Like modernism, the goals of postmodernism were noble – freeing people from oppression and validating alternative voices.  Different perspectives and the deconstruction of the totalizing hegemonic narratives enabled the rise of feminism, queer studies, liberation theology, environmentalism, and post-colonialism. But the rejection of objective truth has come at the expense of the ability to speak of “truth” at all.

For many decades, the strongest reaction against postmodernism has been fundamentalism.   Fundamentalism not only insists on one truth, it claims that this truth has been divinely revealed, and, further, it demands that this truth should be imposed on everyone.  In some ways, fundamentalism is a throw-back to pre-modernism, which was the predominant mindset of humankind up until the 1600’s.  The premodern mind not only unquestioningly assented to Ultimate Truth, it believed that God or the gods revealed this truth to humanity.  Thus sacred texts and religious leaders were the primary arbiters of reality.  Today, the evolution of fundamentalism in the 2000s has been like premodernism on steroids due to the reach and organizational power of the Internet combined with the firepower of modern-day weaponry. 

(Understand, of course, that elements of all three eras – premodernism, modernism and post-modernism/fundamentalism – have been present throughout human history, despite whatever philosophical worldview was dominant at the time.  As well, this progression of “eras” as I’ve described it is not only oversimplified, it is predominantly a Western-based movement that does not always take other global cultures into consideration.)  

The influences of premodernism, modernism and postmodernism are still at work on human society at the individual and collective levels.  But now it appears as if another phenomenon is taking hold which is cause for grave concern.  The word to describe this period has not yet been articulated.  But a poem by William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939) entitled “The Second Coming” uncannily captures the feeling of this phenomenon:

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre

    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

    Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

    The best lack all conviction, while the worst

    Are full of passionate intensity.

Yeats’ words written at the conclusion of WWI eerily foreshadow our own era.  So we might call this time we’re in “post-centerism.”  Or perhaps “disintegrationism.”  However we choose to name it, this phenomenon is beyond the post-structuralism and deconstructionism that were off-shoots of the postmodern era.  Because those movements sought liberation.  What we’re experiencing now is like an auto-immune disorder, where the very systems that have served human society (flawed though they were) have turned against humanity itself and result in self-destruction.  Something sinister has overtaken the premises of postmodernism in order to unravel the fabric of human community, like a flesh-eating disease that is attacking us at the cellular level. [For a more scholarly treatment of this phenomenon, please see this excellent article by Whitney A. Bauman, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Florida International University: http://wabashcenter.typepad.com/teaching_religion_politic/2017/02/confronting-alternative-facts-in-a-post-modern-classroom-educating-planetary-citizens.html.]

As a Christian, a recent pastor, and now a seminary professor teaching preaching, I make the argument that the church’s role in this time is two-fold: 

1) to reclaim the theological language we use to describe evil

2) to re-establish a moral and ethical center based on life-giving values shared with other religions and non-religious people of good will.   

In Part Two of this series, we’ll look at the first task of the church – naming and confronting evil.  In Part Three, we’ll take up the second task – identifying and establishing the moral and ethical center. 

In the meantime, if you have been feeling anxious, unsettled, distracted, unfocused, angry and afraid during these last few weeks and months, understand that those feelings are normal and actually healthy.  Because they are your mind and your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong.  When something or someone messes with your sense of reality, manipulates your perception of truth, and disorients you to the point where you question your own sanity, this means that something wicked is at work.  One word for it is gaslighting, and it is one of the most sinister forms of psychological abuse there is. (I suggest reading this helpful article about gaslighting before moving on to Part Two of this series.) 

"DNA Unraveling" by babyb371,
http://babyb371.deviantart.com/art/DNA-Unraveling-136229497

You may have noticed that no matter how hard you’re trying to be positive, make a contribution to the good of the world, and align yourself with acts of resistance to the evil at hand, you just can’t shake this feeling that something is off, something is amiss.  You’re not crazy.  Something is terribly wrong.   And together we’ll follow this through to find the strategies to neutralize this evil and return ourselves – and our world – to a place of centered sanity and re-integration. 

Leah Schade is the author of the book Creation-Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology and the Pulpit (Chalice Press, 2015). She is the Assistant Professor of Preaching and Worship at Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky, and an ordained minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  The views expressed in this blog are her own and do not necessarily represent the institutions she serves.  

Fight Evil Fire with Holy Fire: A Call for Prophetic Preaching

The Rev. Dr. Leah D. Schade

Text: Matthew 3:1-12

 

God showed Noah by the rainbow sign,

No more water, but fire next time.

-        “Mary Don’t You Weep,” spiritual

“I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I is coming.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

-        John the Baptist

It’s the Second Sunday of Advent. The Christmas decorations are up and the shopping has begun.  So we’re supposed to be feeling pretty good right about now. But here are these words from John the Baptist:  “You brood of vipers!”

Who does he think he is, talking to us like that? We’re in the midst of the holiday season, and he wants to start calling us snakes?  What’s going on here?

We had a prayer in seminary:

Lord, when we are shaken up, comfort us. 

And when we are comfortable, shake us up.
So hold on -- we are about to be shaken up.

This scene takes place on the Jordan River where people are coming to this strange prophet to be baptized. These are ordinary people like you and me – office workers and bankers, people who work for the government, people who’ve served in the military.  Both men and women, teachers, parents, builders, lawyers and healers.   And just like us, they are basically good people. These are not hardened criminals. So why is John calling them a brood of vipers?
 

John didn’t know Martin Luther, but he probably would have agreed with a Latin phrase that Luther used to describe people like us: simul justus et peccatore.  It means, at the same time saved and sinner, simultaneously justified and condemned, healed and broken. It’s the paradox of the human condition. We are at once loved and embraced by the grace of God, yet we hurt each other and damage our world, both individually and as a global human system.

So when John describes us as a brood of vipers, we know there is some truth to what he is saying.  But he gets even more provocative when describing the One who is coming: “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I is coming.  It would be a big deal for me just to tie his shoelaces. You have no idea what you’re in for. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 

Winnowing fork? Chaff? Unquenchable fire?  What can all of this mean?

In 1963 author James Baldwin wrote a book entitled The Fire Next Time which takes its title from a line in the spiritual “Mary Don’t You Weep.”  Baldwin’s book consists of two personal and poignant letters written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation.  His words exhorting Americans – both black and white – to confront the terrible legacy of racism were an intellectual rallying cry for the Civil Rights Movement.  But reading them now, over four decades later, in light of recent events following the presidential election, his words have just as much, if not more potency.  Because in many ways it feels as if a fire has burned across the political, cultural and social landscape of this country.  But this is not a holy fire.  It is the fire of white supremacy, racial and religious hatred, androcentrism, and eco-cidal domination.

I’m thinking of a video of White Supremacist Richard Spencer speaking openly about the supposed superiority of whites and his intention to return America to white people (as if it ever actually belonged to them).  I’m thinking about the hundreds of reported incidents of racial and religious hatred displayed throughout the country over the past three weeks.  I’m thinking of a teacher friend of mine telling about a white elementary school student telling their dark-skinned classmate, “Now that Donald Trump is president, he’s going to send your parents away and you’ll have to live here all by yourself.” 

Baldwin’s words in 1963 echo loudly today:  "[Whites] are still trapped in a history that they do not understand, and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.  They have had to believe for many years and for innumerable reasons that black men are inferior to white men."

I receive these words as a white, female Christian preacher and teacher of preachers, a woman who has benefited from the privilege of my race, my education, and my religion.  From this standpoint, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that what has happened since the election is a burning away of the chaff that barely covered the brood of vipers lying beneath.  As the saying goes, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” 

It is a truth that people of color have known for years, for decades, for centuries.  But this truth comes as a punch in the gut to those of us who existed in the comfort of our privilege.  The thin veil of decency has been burned away to reveal the truth about who we are as a nation.  The ugly, dangerous, venomous truth has come to light and shown us in no uncertain terms that we are in need of serious repentance – metanoia (Matthew 3:2).

After the election I was feeling particularly despondent thinking of the ways in which so much of the tenuous progress we have so carefully built in terms of interfaith relations, race relations, environmental protections, equal rights for women and the LGBTQI community could be rolled back in the coming years.  A friend said to me, “It’s like an arson came in the night and just burned down the house.”  I agreed.  That’s what it feels like.

But as I’ve sat with this image for the past couple weeks, and contemplated these last few days the image of the holy fire, I’ve realized that there are other images at work here.  For example, controlled fires can be used to stop wildfires by carefully burning a strip of land and depriving the wildfire of fuel.  

"Watching the Old Go," Mary Anne Morgan, http://www.maryannemorganblog.com/musings/burning-away-the-chaff/

And natural fires that occur in the forest not only allow the saplings to see the light, but also release seeds that need the heat from the fire in order to grow.

"Fire in the Night," Mary Anne Morgan, http://www.maryannemorganblog.com/musings/burning-away-the-chaff/

With these two images in mind, I make the case that as preachers, indeed, as Christians, our task now is to do two things: 

1) We need the “controlled burn” of Jesus’ prophetic fire to deprive the wildfires of evil of their fuel.  

2) We need to point to the new growth of saplings and seeds that are sprouting up from the ashes.  

The controlled burn of prophetic speech means speaking boldly in our pulpits and pews against racial hatred, Islamophobia, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and all the “isms” that are rearing their fanged heads with impunity.  It means taking bold actions as churches to divest from fossil fuels in order to deprive the wildfires of runaway climate change of the fuels that are consuming us, even as we consume. Holy fire can fight unholy fire. 

Of course, as John warned us, this will not be a comfortable process. We will experience pain, we will come to know deep sorrow, and we will come in contact with that sinful part of our own nature and the sinful nature of others. But that discomfort will be a sign that the holy fire is burning away the chaff.

As proclaimers of the gospel, we also need to ask: Where is God creating new growth?  What are the seeds of hope that need to be nurtured, even as we are still mourning in the ashes?  We need to point to that new growth and lift up stories of resistance and renewal. 

 

Michael Quinton/Minden Pictures/National Geographic http://www.natgeocreative.com/photography/1158747

Regarding our planet, I’m thinking of the growing numbers of cities and countries that are pledging to move to 100% renewable energy in the coming years – new growth, even in the midst of ashes.  

Regarding racial hatred, I’m thinking of the growing number of safety pins seen on the clothes of those who want to signal that they are a safe person, even in the midst of raging fires.  

Regarding Islamophobia, I’m thinking of the man in Texas man holding sign in front of mosque: "You belong. Stay strong. Be blessed. We are one America." 

The man’s name is Justin Normand, a 53-year-old man who owns a sign shop in Dallas. "This was about binding up the wounded. About showing compassion and empathy for the hurting and fearful among us," Normand wrote in his Facebook post. "Or, in some Christian traditions, this was about washing my brother's feet. This was about my religion, not theirs."

That is a controlled burn.  And it shows that new growth and new hope is springing up in places we would least expect to find it. 

This is what we need to be watching for during this Advent season – new growth after the controlled burn. So be on the lookout for that holy fire.  

It starts with only a small spark . . . in a manger full of dry hay. 

The Rev. Dr. Leah Schade is the Assistant Professor of Preaching and Worship at Lexington Theological Seminary (KY) and an ordained Lutheran minister (ELCA), though the views expressed in this post are her own and do not necessarily reflect the institutions she serves.  She is the author of the book Creation Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology and the Pulpit (Chalice Press, 2015).

How to be a Christian (and a Pastor) after the Election

The Rev. Dr. Leah D. Schade

My colleague, Dr. Dale Andrews from Vanderbilt Divinity School, and I sat with students at Wake Forest University Divinity School (North Carolina) the morning after the election for what was supposed to be a conversation about the intersections of race and environmental justice.  We were there for the school’s Prophetic Ministry Week and were prepared to talk with them about what prophetic preaching looks like in the face of eco-racism and related issues.  But that morning as the tears flowed and audible sobs were heard throughout the room, the feelings of shock, confusion and utter despair meant that we needed to process with these theologically-trained Christians – some of whom were preparing for ordained ministry – what had transpired for our nation. 

“How are we supposed to go into our churches on Sunday morning?  What are we supposed to say and do?  How can we face those who are going to gloat over this victory?  How are we going to endure the pain of those who are devastated by the outcome?  What does it look like to be church in the midst of all this?” These were the kinds of questions they were asking.

My first response was to remind them that ensuring people’s safety is top priority.  Given the rhetoric of the man who is now president-elect, a significant portion of this country is experiencing alarm and legitimate fear about their physical and emotional safety, or for their family members, friends, fellow students and co-workers.  Women, people of color, immigrants and their children, people of differing sexual orientations, people with disabilities, those who rely on health care from the Affordable Care Act, and Muslims are among those who are desperately worried about their safety and health as the new administration comes into power.  So if you are a pastor or leader of a congregation, it must be clearly stated that no kind of hateful rhetoric or disparaging remarks about those who are now threatened will be tolerated in God’s house of worship. The church is called to be a place of refuge.   And if you are a Christian, you are part of the body of Christ, which means that you are to refrain from that kind of talk even outside of the church.  You represent Christ in the world.  Behave in a manner that reflects the one whom you worship.

The Rev. Dr. Leah Schade and The Rev. Dr. Dale Andrews

Dr. Andrews astutely reminded the students that this is exactly why they are called to be Christian, to preach, to minister. “For such a time as this,” he said, invoking Mordecai’s words to Esther when she was faced with going into a place of potential danger for herself, carrying the burden of her people’s safety in her hands (Esther 4:14).  In other words, this is exactly the time when pastors are needed, even if they are feeling devastated themselves.  God is already in the tomb even after it appears sealed forever.  Jesus has already gone ahead to Galilee to meet you.  The Spirit is already at work in ways that may not yet be evident.  So you are called to be a pastoral presence and to use all of your skills in pastoral care for reflective listening, empathy and silent but attentive presence.    

And if you are a Christian (including a pastor) who is celebrating the results in this election, now is the time for restraint.  Do not gloat.  This is not like the Sunday after the World Series, or after the Superbowl.  This was not just some political game where the victors can good-naturedly rib the losers.  For half of this nation, this loss represents a crumbling of the basic foundations of decency, respect, and the means by which to preserve the common good.  For those who are concerned about the environment and climate change and have worked so hard to protect God’s Creation, the thought of the new administration rolling back every protection is terrifying.  For those whose very lives are threatened by people now empowered to strip their rights from them, the results of this election are panic-inducing.  So if you are celebrating after this election, remember – if it had gone the other way, you would be understandably disappointed and angry.  But you would have had no reason to fear for your health and safety. 

Thus refrain from insisting that people need to “come together.”  Avoid using words like “unify” and “move on.”  You cannot expect or even ask people to unify with a person whose words have authorized homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, gun violence, sexual violence, racism and white privilege.  Or to “come together” with someone who has supported those values by voting for the person who encourages all of that.  So if you are coming to church Sunday with feelings of elation, exercise compassionate restraint. Even if you feel like sidling up to your fellow Trump supporters during coffee hour and giving a knowing wink and sly high-five – resist the urge.  I would have given the same exhortation to Clinton supporters if the election had gone the other way.  Being a Christian during this time requires space-giving.  Eventually we will need to talk about where we go from here.  But understand that this is a time of deep grief for many.  Especially for those “blue dots” in predominantly red churches.

"Women at the Tomb" by Claire Elam

Which is why some people may not even feel comfortable going to church this Sunday if they cannot bring themselves to face what they fear will be the triumphant jeers of their fellow Christians.  That is perfectly understandable.  But if you are a pastor, you don’t have the luxury of absence.  So I reminded the students that the day after the crucifixion, the women did something that we need to do.  They showed up.  The women were confused, angry, anguished and in deep grief.  But they went to the tomb because they were faithful.  They went to perform the rituals – the sacred actions and words – that were part of their people’s faith for centuries.  We, too, are called to show up.  We are called to be faithful.  And we have actions and words – rituals – that are designed to hold the vast range of feelings experienced by the congregation.  Rely on that pattern of worship that is so ingrained in us – gathering, hearing God’s word, breaking bread and sharing wine, and sending out into the world.  Let the liturgy minister to you and your congregation.  Let it gather in all who will come.  And trust that the Spirit of God through the compassion of Jesus Christ will indeed be in our midst.

The Rev. Dr. Leah Schade is the Assistant Professor of Preaching and Worship at Lexington Theological Seminary (KY) and an ordained Lutheran minister (ELCA).  She is the author of the book Creation Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology and the Pulpit (Chalice Press, 2015).

Blessings and Woes: The Christian Case for Hillary Clinton

The Rev. Dr. Leah D. Schade

If you are a Christian whose church follows the Revised Common Lectionary, the gospel reading assigned for this coming Sunday is amazingly appropriate given the national presidential election two days later.  The passage is Luke 6:20-31, known as The Beatitudes, where Jesus is talking to the crowd about blessings and woes.  He begins by saying this:

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

He then follows with a list of woes for those who are rich, fat and happy with lots of yes-men around them telling them how great they are.

And in one of the most profound religious teachings in history, Jesus gives instructions for those who would follow in the way of God’s radical grace:

But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

As I read these words, and I consider my vote, it is all too clear which candidate aligns with the values of Jesus, and which one is diametrically opposed to those values. Donald Trump is the one who is rich, fat and happy surrounded by yes-men telling him how great he is.  While Hillary Clinton has spent most of her 30 years of public service in advocacy, defense and support of those whom Jesus calls “blessed” – the poor, the hungry, the despondent.  She herself has been subjected to the kind of hatred, defamation and derision described in this passage.  And while she is admittedly a candidate with flaws (as all humans are), from what I have witnessed, at her core is a strong grounding in the Christian upbringing that instilled these values of Jesus into her beliefs and actions.   

Full disclosure – I did vote for Bernie Sanders in the primary because I have serious disagreements with Clinton’s stance on fracking (she mistakenly thinks methane gas is a “bridge fuel”). And I do not think she takes climate change seriously enough to confront her fossil fuel corporate backers.  Nevertheless, at this point in the presidential race, it is very clear that a vote for Hillary Clinton is much more aligned with my values as a Christian than would be a vote for Donald Trump. 

“But, but, what about the emails?” some sputter.  I reiterate what Forward Progressives co-founder Allen Clifton wrote in a recent column:  "Until I start seeing the private emails of the RNC, Donald Trump and everyone else who’s claimed her emails (even the ones Russians hacked and gave to WikiLeaks to distribute) ‘prove she’s corrupt,’ she’s being held to a standard that nobody else is being held to. I don’t see the RNC or Donald Trump eagerly publishing thousands upon thousands of pages of their personal emails for everyone to read . . .”

“But, but, what if she’s indicted?” Again, from Clifton:  “The truth of the matter is, even if you told me 6 months from now that the FBI was going to indict Clinton for mishandling classified information, I’d still vote for her . . . just as long as it keeps Donald Trump from becoming this nation’s president." [Read Clifton’s full piece here.] 

I need a president who does not violate the very basics of human decency.  I need a president with whom I can engage with in the areas where we disagree by appealing to the shared values we have – as a female, as a mother, and as an advocate for what Jesus called “the least of these.”  I need a president who will not inspire and encourage the kind of bullying, racism, xenophobia and violent chauvinism I have witnessed in the past year from Trump and his supporters.  I need a president who I believe will do her very best to move us from woes to blessings.

Granted, this move is not some kind of Hollywood epiphany moment with singing violins and credits rolling on happy faces at the end of the movie.  We will be engaged in a long process filled with fits and starts, sudden jumps ahead, followed by stumbling backward with mistakes and missteps.  So we will need each other, we will need our houses of worship, we will need all of our resources of education, financial generosity, creativity, hearts for justice and minds for organization to apprentice ourselves to the blessing.

That’s what the Christian life is about.  We are apprenticing ourselves to the blessing.  And this apprenticeship means taking up the tools of the trade and learning to use them in order to help our country move from woes to blessings.  Among those tools is our ministry in the world – our vocation in our work, our volunteering, and yes, our voting.  IF you are a Christian, and IF you are considering whether or not to vote for Trump, ask yourself – am I voting for blessings or woes?  Am I voting for blessings for myself alone?  Or blessings to share in abundance?

IF you are a Christian, the teachings of Jesus can and should inform your vote.  As you consider the candidacy of Hillary Clinton and the blessings and woes before us, cast your vote for the blessings.

The Rev. Dr. Leah Schade is an ordained Lutheran (ELCA) minister and is the Assistant Professor of Preaching and Worship at Lexington Theological Seminary.  The views in this blog belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ELCA or Lexington Theological Seminary.

Trump as Plumb Line: The Christian Case against Donald Trump

The Rev. Dr. Leah D. Schade

Watching Confederate flags pop up all over central Pennsylvania in the summer of 2015 like weeds cropping up in the garden overnight was my first indication that something was terribly wrong.  This phenomenon followed on the heels of two surges – white supremacy following the removal of the flag from South Carolina’s government buildings in response to the massacre of African Americans at Mother Bethel Church; and the ascendancy of Donald Trump.

Since then the rise of hateful rhetoric, hateful symbols and hate-filled actions against non-whites, foreigners, immigrants, refugees, those with disabilities, and women by Trump supporters and the candidate himself is incredibly alarming.  I am reminded of a passage from Amos 7:7-9 where the prophet is given a vision by God:

This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. ⁸And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; ⁹the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

What is a plumb line?  It’s the weight at the end of a line used by builders to show vertical direction.  This is how you can tell if your walls are straight and even. It is the means by which you can tell if what you’re building is true or off-balance.  And if your building is off-balance what can happen? The walls will lean, doors won’t close, and you’ll get cracks in the walls.  Ultimately, unless the problems are corrected, the house will eventually fall. When you hang the plumb line, it’s measuring the trueness of the house.  In a sense, it is making a judgment about the house - revealing whether everything lines up, or whether it is off-balance and headed for destruction.

So what does it mean when God puts a plumb line in the midst of the people?  What we have here is a metaphor. It describes God’s measuring the moral and ethical walls of our house to see if they are lined up with God’s will.  When the plumb line drops, there are serious consequences, because the truth about the way society is constructed is revealed. 

My fellow Americans – Donald Trump is our plumb line.

He is our plumb line because his presence has revealed that the walls of our democracy, our economic structures, and our American society are cracked.  Does this mean that God sent Donald Trump to reveal the truth about our house?  Certainly not.  But we need to understand what a Trump presidency would mean for this country.  Trump is so powerful because he is a result of systemic, economic and cultural forces that have created a wave of discontent.  But more than that, he has discovered a way to amplify and capitalize on that discontent by misdirecting away from the very forces that caused the problems in the first place.

The people who are supporting Trump see the cracks in the walls.  But rather than work on ways to fix or rebuild the house, they choose to demonize and blame the problems on the very ones who have been the historic victims of this system for hundreds of years.  For centuries, whites have ignored the fact that our foundation was built on shifting sand.  They have ignored issues of social justice, choosing instead to insulate themselves within certain well-furnished rooms of the house.  What they did not realize is that while they were living a comfortable life, the house is falling down around them.  Now they are panicking and championing one whom they think can save them, when, in fact, he epitomizes all the causes and reasons for the cracked walls in the first place. 

After Amos’ prophecy, in a poetic fulfillment of the judgment, Israel was later rocked by a devastating earthquake, and their houses literally fell down around them.  What people today do not realize is that a vote for Trump will not make America great again.  It will create more pressure on an already unsteady structure.  And when the walls come tumbling down, they will not distinguish between whites and non-whites. 

IF you are a person of faith, and IF you are thinking of voting for Trump, I would strongly urge you to reconsider.  The plumb line of Donald Trump has already revealed the truth about the choices we have to make.  And that can be quite uncomfortable.  You have to be honest about where your own values are not lining up true with God’s values, especially in terms of how you treat others, and the ways you benefit from a system that favors you either because of your skin color, your gender and sexuality, your occupation, your age, or your financial level.

You may not agree with everything that Hillary Clinton has done in her 30 years of public service.  It may gall you to have to vote for the candidate who is not of your party.  You may feel squeamish about having a female hold the highest elected office in this country.  And that’s okay.  I have a few disagreements with Hillary myself. 

But I have never witnessed her engage in the kind of hateful human-bashing that I see from Trump.  My Christian values leave me no other choice than to vote against him and cast a prophetic vote on the side of the plumb line that says: “Let’s get to work.”  Let’s set about the task of making sure that the walls are true, the foundation is secure, and that justice and righteousness for all are the measurements of our success, rather than the extreme wealth of a few. 

IF you are a person of faith, the teachings of the prophets and the teachings of Jesus can and should inform your vote.  As you consider the plumb line of Donald Trump, cast your vote for the whole house we all share. 

The Rev. Dr. Leah Schade is an ordained Lutheran (ELCA) minister and is the Assistant Professor of Preaching and Worship at Lexington Theological Seminary.  The views in this blog belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ELCA or Lexington Theological Seminary.