Sermon: Baby Moses in the Bulrushes

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT
Sermon Series
The Rev. Leah D. Schade
June 30, 2013 - Part One:  Moses in the Bulrushes
First Reading -- Exodus 2:1-10

(Opening/closing line from A River Runs Through It, while draping blue river cloth over pulpit.)
“Eventually all things merge into one. And a river runs through it. The river was cut from the world’s great flood and flows over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words. And some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”

You may recognize those words from the book and movie, A River Runs Through It. Today we are beginning a five-part sermon series about rivers in the Bible. Summer seems to be a good time to do this. Some of my best summertime and vacation memories have to do with rivers. I grew up in York, not far from the Susquehanna River. 

I have memories of fishing in a boat along the river with my father, our time together as unhurried as the slow-moving current on a warm summer evening.

There is a place near Wrightsville called Long Level, where my Aunt Joan would take me for long walks and talks. I would marvel at the long expanse of the river stretching out in front of me, skipping stones across the tiny waves.

And now since living in Milton along the West Branch of the Susquehanna, I have an even greater love for the river.  Last year I helped with a water blessing ceremony at the marina at Shikelammy State Park.  And my husband and I take great joy in walking with our children along the river on the island at Milton State Park.  I am hoping the create memories for them that will last a lifetime.

The Bible, too, has “river memories”. We’re going to be exploring five of them in this sermon series. After having read through these texts, I’ve come to some conclusions about rivers:

1) Rivers can bring out the best in people.
2) Rivers can bring out the worst in people.

Today we’re going to look at a story where the river brings out the worst and the best in people. The river in this case is the Nile in Egypt, and the story takes place thousands of years ago when the people of Israel were slaves in this powerful desert empire.

The Pharaoh instituted a policy of slavery and apartheid in the land, forcing the Israelites into hard labor. He thought this would put them in their place, teach them who was in control, keep them quiet and submissive.

But even in the midst of this hardship, the Israelites continued to grow in numbers and strength. So Pharaoh responded by imposing more and more harsh tasks upon them. Not only that, but he came up with a plan of genocide. He decreed that the male babies born in Israelite homes should be killed. It made perfect sense. If you kill all the males, then they would not be able to rise up against their oppressors.

Pharaoh made a key mistake, however. He underestimated the power of the women. First of all, he instructed the Egyptian midwives to kill the male babies that were born. Now he should have known better. I was attended to by midwives when I gave birth to Rachel and Benjamin. And I can tell you, there’s no way you could convince these women to kill any child that they helped bring into the world. So when Pharaoh summoned them to ask why they were letting all the male children live, they came up with a very clever answer.

“Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” One of the few times it was okay to tell a lie in the Bible.

So Pharaoh went beyond the midwives and created a law for all the Egyptians, “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the river Nile.” You see, rivers can bring out the worst in people.

And then we come to this beloved story from Sunday School - Baby Moses in the bulrushes. Being a mother myself I try to imagine what it must have been like for this woman to take her precious three-month old baby, wrap him in a blanket, place him in a basket, and set him floating among the reeds along the river’s edge.

Things would have to be desperate for me to let my child go like this, entrusting him or her to the unpredictable flow of the river, not knowing who might find my baby, and what might happen to him. What could drive a mother to do such a thing?

A friend of mine shared with me a true story about a missionary he met in Africa who was getting ready to board a plane to return to the US. The conditions in Liberia at the time were as bad as they can get - civil war, famine, disease. Just as she was to get on the plane, a woman came up to her, holding out a package wrapped up in a tattered blanket. The missionary saw that it was a child. The mother was begging her to take the baby along home with her, knowing that at least the child would have some chance of survival if she let him go to another.  It would be better to entrust her child to the arms of another and suffer the pain of that separation and loss in order that he might live, than to try to keep the child with her, knowing that he will die in her arms.

I can only imagine that kind of dire situation in my worst nightmare. But that is what Moses’ mother faced. Yet even though she was desperate, she thought this through. She was not a stupid woman. She strategically placed her older daughter a little ways off to watch over her little brother. And then Pharaoh’s daughter came with her entourage to bathe in the River Nile. Coincidence? Or had Moses’ mother cleverly planned this out ahead of time? We’ll never know. All the Bible tells us is that Pharaoh’s daughter discovered the basket, undoubtedly hearing the child crying.

She knew right away that this was a Hebrew child. What she should have done - what the law said, what her father would have had her do - was to take that child and throw it out into the river and watch it drown, feeling satisfaction that the only good Israelite is a dead Israelite. You know all those terrible racist jokes that we tell today that undoubtedly had their versions in Egypt. Pharaoh’s daughter could probably hear them in her mind: “What do you call a hundred male Israelite babies at the bottom of the Nile? A good start.” And laughter would erupt from the Egyptian men around her father’s table.

But she could not do it. She knew it was wrong. She knew the law was unjust. She knew that’s not the kind of person she was. She might have been her father’s daughter, but she was not her father’s henchman.

She picked up that baby and held it to her, wondering how she was going to feed this child who was obviously hungry to nurse.  And lo and behold, along comes a Hebrew girl who says, “I know of a Hebrew woman who could nurse this child for you.”

Sometimes I wonder if Pharaoh’s daughter might have figured out what was going on. Could she see the resemblance between the mother and the daughter and the baby boy? Again, we’ll never know. But in any case, she gave the boy back to his mother to nurse him and raise him up until he became a young man. Not only that, but she gave money to Moses’ mother to do this. So not only was she saving the life of Moses, she was saving the life of his family as well. Remember - the Israelites were slaves; they were never paid for their work. But Pharaoh’s daughter broke with her father again by paying this woman her wages, honoring her personhood, lifting her up with dignity.

And so you see, once again, Pharaoh underestimated the power of the women. The Bible doesn’t even see fit to give them names, these two Hebrew slaves, and an Egyptian princess. But here they are conspiring together to save the life of one child and his family.

Because, you see, Pharaoh not only underestimated the power of the women, he also underestimated the power of God. Because the river can sometimes bring out the best in people. Pharaoh intended for those waters to be an instrument of death. But God had other plans. God used that Nile River to bring out the best in those women. And at least for this one child, they became the saving waters of life. In fact, the name that Pharaoh’s daughter gave this little boy has a double meaning that shows the little joke she played on her father. The name Moses in Egyptian means “son”. But do you know what it means in Hebrew? The Hebrew word “Mosheh” means, “I drew him out of the water.”

And there is another pun on Moses’ name. The word “Masheh” means “the one who draws out.” Pharaoh’s daughter might have thought of herself as drawing Moses out of the waters and saving his life. But it will be Moses who, as a man, draws out the people of Israel, drawing them out of the Red Sea unharmed, pulling them from slavery in the land of Egypt and bringing them to the Promised Land.

It is an interesting idea - the concept of women conspiring beyond boundaries of race and class to work against unjust laws and practices. And it still happens today.. I think of the organization called Mothers Against Drunk Driving, where the mother of a child who died when a drunk driver hit him, turned her grief into a force for good, educating people about the dangers and immorality of driving after drinking. That organization cuts across different economic and racial lines and has prevented countless death through their efforts. I think, too, of the Million Mom March which brought together mothers and women from across our nation to speak out against gun violence.

It even happens right here in the Susquehanna Valley at the Transitions crisis center where women help other women and their children who are victims of domestic abuse. It’s women coming together across the boundaries of race and class to save and protect their children.

It might have even happened in your household. I’ll bet some of you were raised without a father in the house, for whatever reason - divorce, death, or just not being there. And who was it that looked after you, and put a roof over your head, and made sure you had something to eat, and disciplined you when you were acting up. It was your mother . . . or your grandmother . . . or your sister . . . or your aunt. It’s that way in a lot of families. When the chips are down and the men are violent or neglectful or just not there, the women come together to make sure the children will survive. Sometimes they have to use subversive means, pool their resources, do whatever they have to do to survive. But they do it. They draw the children out of dangerous waters.

This is not to say that all women are heroes, for there are certainly some mothers who have committed abuse.  But if you think about your life, you can probably name at least one woman who demonstrated that kind of strength and cunning and love that those women had at the Nile River had which helped to save you from a time of danger. Who was the woman who drew you out of the dangerous water? Have you thanked her? Have you lived your life to carry on her legacy? Have you made her proud of you? Are you following in her footsteps, helping to pull others out of dangerous waters?

Because the river is a metaphor for life. Life can sometimes bring out the best in people and sometimes bring out the worst. Think of that river of life and what God is calling you to do. How will the river - how will God bring out the best in you?

Amen.

Review: Gasland 2, a documentary by Josh Fox

By The Rev. Leah Schade

I attended the premier of the documentary Gasland II at the Community Arts Center in Williamsport, PA, the bustling heart of frackdom in the state, along with over 900 others curious to see this latest installment by the man who broke open the story about the horrors of the shale gas industry three years ago.  I viewed the movie both from my own perspective as an anti-fracking activist, and from that of my college-age friend who was only attending the film for extra credit in her sociology class and had virtually no knowledge about the issues of unconventional drilling for natural gas.  We both agreed that the movie was riveting and alarming.  It was also successful in its attempt to alert people to the ways in which the shale gas industry has either colluded with or outright controlled government policies, regulations and actions toward itself, the citizens damaged by it, and the activists seeking to halt the onslaught of corporate fascism.

Those who saw the first Gasland will notice the reuse and revisiting of material from that movie in order to pick up the thread where Fox left off, and to orient the new viewer to the complexities of the industrial, social, and economic issues, as well as the stories of real people negatively affected by drilling. Thus, it is not necessary to have seen the first movie in order to understand Gasland II; the film works as a stand-alone piece.  One vital piece of explanation was missing, however, for my friend:  why we “need” gas and what it is used for in the first place.  Fox should have included a minute or two to explain that gas is used in power plants to generate electricity and in “cracker” plants to produce plastics, all of which are multi-billion-dollar enterprises.  Leaving out this key bit of information left my friend confused as to why the companies are leasing and destroying land totaling the size of Florida and California in the first place.

The images and cinematography are compelling, and sometimes overwhelming.  The juxtaposition of verdant forests and pristine waterways in Fox’s home state of Pennsylvania against the fire, metal, noxious gases and clear-cut industrial sites of well pads and compressor stations is jarring.  At the same time the interviews with families whose water turns to fire, and whose children frolic and suffer nosebleeds in the shadow of drill rigs are juxtaposed against dizzying scenes of government hallways, hearings and the arrest of Fox himself for attempting to legally record a public hearing.  The contrast illustrates just how far removed our government is from the people and lands it is supposed to protect.

As an ecological theologian, I resonated with two ethical concepts that provided a cohesive framework for the film.  First is the notion of the backyard and the neighbor.  An effective camera trick takes the viewer in a bubble floating above and looking down on Fox’s home while he notes that what has become clear to him is that all of our backyards are connected.  What happens when his neighbors lease will affect him.  What happens if New York lifts its moratorium affects him.  

What happens to the families in Dimock, PA, whose water is poisoned by migrating fracking fluids and methane is connected to what happens to families in Pavillion, Wyoming, whose water was tested by the EPA and found with 50 times the accepted level of benzyne, along with countless other chemicals and compounds associated only with fracking. 

 “There’s no such thing as anyone’s backyard anymore,” Fox concludes.  Indeed, as Jesus challenged the wealthy lawyer on the question, “Who is my neighbor?” we, too, learn that our neighbors are as close as the Australian farmer watching his dwindling water supply go up in flames, and as far away as our local legislators who are either afraid of the industry, or profiting handsomely from their corrupt collusion with it.

The other framework is that of story and voice.  Using the same advertising firms who sowed seeds of doubt about the safety of cigarettes in the 1960s, the gas industry has spent millions of dollars to control the story of shale gas.  

Property rights have been swept aside, people’s health has been compromised, and the threat of methane gas adding to climate change has been ignored.  All the while those families whose homes and health have been destroyed by drilling are mocked, demonized, or bought off with settlements that require nondisclosure statements.  As one observer in the film put it, they are told to “Take the money, shut up and go away.”  When you take away a person’s ability to tell their story, you take away their voice, personhood, dignity, sanity and their life.

 

So what are we to do?  Fox interviewed former administrator of the EPA Lisa Jackson, who urged people to be vocal with their legislators.  “The real power is with the people,” she stated.  One wonders how she must feel now, knowing that President Obama has betrayed her commitment to protecting environmental and public health in this country by kowtowing to the gas industry.  I hope that she will view the pictures that are being taken at every premier on the Gasland II tour across the country, showing hundreds of people packing theatres with their hands defiantly in the air, present and accounted for.  

Democracy is alive and energized even as we are labeled as insurgents and terrorists by military psy-ops agents hired by the industry and government. 

As my college-age friend and the rest of the crowd learned in the Q&A after the show, fractivist grassroots organizations (see Shale Justice) are sprouting up around the country made up of veterans, college professors, former gas workers, Tea-Partiers, clergy, retirees, small business owners, scientists, ecologists, Democrats, Republicans, libertarians, and parents all committed to stopping the shale gas industry onslaught and hastening a clean-energy future. These are my neighbors.  These are our stories.  Thanks to Fox’s film, these neighbors and these voices will gain greater audience, and the movement will gain strength and momentum.

Green Slime? You Betcha!

By The Rev. Leah Schade

On the Pennsylvania Turnpike from Harrisburg to Philadelphia, I passed a billboard with lettering in fluorescent green that seemed to ooze and drip down the sign:  nogreenslime.com.

I knew instantly they were talking about me and the thousands of committed citizens working to tell the truth about the “black slime” of the oil and gas industry and move our economy to a sustainable, greener future.  According to the website, we are green “slime” because of the “propaganda, deliberate misinformation, distortion, and junk science” that is thrown out there to try to stop the growth of the oil and gas industry.  The myths of energy independence, employment, tax windfalls, and the inadequacy of non-fossil-fuel energy sources are touted by the site.

According to the site, we are “community activists, national environmental groups, academics and biased public-interest organizations.”  We are “advancing an agenda that will prevent your energy costs from going through the roof with the ridiculous idea that renewable sources can provide enough energy to meet your needs.”  We have “deliberately implemented a deceiving and negative campaign about oil and natural gas development to paint a more favorable picture of expensive, inefficient renewable energy.”

Considering the billions of dollars raked in by the oil and gas industry, and the utter selflessness with which environmental activists give of their time, energy and personal finances, one wonders what the industry thinks is our primary motivation.  The industry is obviously in it for the money.  What are we in this fight for?  If it was for money or fame, most of us would have gotten out long ago.  The defamation and despair that comes with this battle is enough to make even the hardiest activist burn out.  I can only speak for myself, but I do this work because it is a calling from God to do all that I can to protect my children’s - and all children’s - future from the ravages of fossil fuels on our economy, our most vulnerable citizens, and God’s Creation.  When my future grandchildren look at the devastation of climate change and dispersed industrialization of fossil fuels and ask me, “What did you do?” I have to be able to look them in the eye and say, “Beloved, I did everything thing I could.”  And if things turn around and we avoid the worst-case-scenario of global climate disaster and, by God’s grace, enter a truly Ecozoic Age that honors Earth and Earth’s children, I will be able to say to them, “Beloved, I did everything I could.”

And for this I am called “green slime.”

The choice of words is interesting.  Slime feels icky and sticky.  Green slime is used in kids’ t.v. game shows when the loser gets “slimed.”  We are described as “slime peddlers” who “have tried to pitch new and easily refuted boogey-monster-style stories.”  Boogies, snot, slime.  The lowest of the low.  The ickiest of the ick.  It seems an ingenious way to sneeringly dismiss the environmental movement.  The tactics are familiar – the group in power uses dehumanizing language to discredit and delegitimize the marginalized minority.  It is also an indication that the movement has grown strong enough that a paid billboard on a PA highway is actually necessary to “debunk” the green slimers.  Never mind that the fact that the real slime is leaking out of pipelines in Arkansas, 

gushing out of fracked well sites, 

and contaminating the waterways of our Earth.

 

But what the oil and gas industry is forgetting is the other kind of green slime that comes in the form of algae, kelp, seaweed and countless other forms of watery plant life.  The vast variety of algae found the world over is capable to deriving energy from the sun and predates any form of plant or animal life found on land.  It is from this primordial green ooze that all life arose and upon which all life still depends at one level or another.  Though lowly and easily dismissed, green slime in the form of algae is a powerhouse that may yet become the primary source of fuel for our world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel.

So to my friends in Shale Justice, Protecting Our Waters, Responsible Drilling Alliance, PennEnvironment, and the many other organizations vilified by the oil and gas industry on this and many more websites like it, I say:  embrace your inner green slime!  Continue to speak truth to power.  Do not let them poison your spirit like so much biocide poured down the fracking drill hole meant to kill all microscopic life-forms that may gum up their works.  Continue to grow and wrap yourselves around their machines like seaweed in their gasoline engine.  Green slime?  You betcha!

Book Review: Downriver by Kelly Garriott Waite

Reviewed by:  The Rev. Leah D. Schade

Available on Amazon for Kindle download, $.99. http://www.amazon.com/Downriver-ebook/dp/B00BL7VFE6


Waite’s e-book is a series of six vignettes that give us brief yet compelling glimpses of life in America moving between rural and suburban landscapes and communities.  I have lived in both places and found myself nodding in recognition of the details in these tiny portraits.  Waite beautifully captures a child’s perspective on a farmer-neighbor’s death, the twang of conversation between two old friends reminiscing, and the humorous family drama of a canoeing trip.  

The opening piece “Fractured” is a taut short story about friendships, farms, communities and cows negatively affected by the shale gas industry.  While the story is realistic fiction not based on actual events, the circumstances of a farmer faced with the decision to lease his land to drilling or face the demise of his farm is all too common in Pennsylvania and Ohio.  The tragic irony is that his decision results in more loss than he, his wife, or his friends could have ever anticipated . . .

Read the rest of the review here:  http://ecowatch.com/2013/downriver-fracking-and-consumerism-eroding-rural-communities/

The Trickster Community of Riverdale: A Sermon for Pentecost

The Rev. Leah Schade

Text: Acts 2:1-21

Click to view sermon: 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbNYzN_Nl04&feature=share

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” That quote, one of my favorites, is attributed to the anthropologist Margaret Meade.  And our passage from Acts about Pentecost is a great example of this quote. 

They were just a handful of bedraggled disciples of a rabbi who had been crucified as an enemy of the state.  But after encountering the risen Christ, that “trickster” we talked about on Holy Humor Sunday, and seeing him ascended into heaven, the disciples were told to wait in Jerusalem for the gift of the Holy Spirit. As they waited in that upper room, the Trickster Christ had yet another surprise for them.  The wind from God swept across them, dropping little flames of fire over each of them.  They were whipped into such a frenzy of laughter and joy, people thought they were either drunk or crazy.  That’s what the Holy Spirit does – lights a fire in people’s souls.

And when those little sparks get out into the world, watch out!  The fire of justice and God’s love through Jesus Christ swept across the land and burned in the hearts of hundreds, thousands who longed for God’s power to do something in their lives, in their world, to make a difference, and start a world-changing revolution.  

So what surprises is God doing among us today?  And what does it look like when the Holy Spirit shows up and creates new hope, new community, and new joy with a small group of citizens? Let me tell you a story about where I saw the Trickster Jesus surprise me and a whole community of people with Pentecost joy.

Once upon a time in the not-too-distant past there was a little village nestled snug along a wide and winding river.  

The villagers shared their land with deer and foxes, bear and geese, and, of course, the creatures that dwelled in the waters of the river.  Children rode their bikes down the lanes that ran between the grassy lots of the houses.

 

Neighbors visited each other in the evenings and had barbeques and picnics in the warm summer evenings.  The villagers were humble, hard-working people, but they did not have much money.  Their houses were not-so-very-big and made of metal.  But many of them decorated their porches with flowers and flags, and everyone trimmed their small, rectangular houses with colorful lights every Christmas.  The neighbors felt safe in their little village.  Everyone looked after each other’s children. And there was always someone looking in on the elderly neighbors, who always knew there would be a family to welcome them to their Thanksgiving table.

 

The villagers were not perfect people.  But for thirty years, the families lived in the village in peace, grateful for the beauty of God’s creation around them and good friends and neighbors they could count on if there was ever a need.  No matter how hard life would be at their jobs or at school, they always knew they could look forward to coming home to their little village nestled snug along the wide and winding river. 

Until one day they came home to find letters posted on all their doors.  The letters told them that the land underneath their homes had been sold, and they had to move away.  A large company was going to tear down their houses and put in big buildings with big pipes going down to the river.  The pipes would suck out the water, take it up to the mountains, and shoot it down into the ground to break the rocks deep below.

The villagers were very upset.  They could not understand why their village was the place where the big buildings and pipes had to go. “It’s not fair,” they said.  “What will happen to the deer and foxes, the bears and geese?  What will happen to the river?  What will happen to us?”

Some of the villagers moved out right away, stripping the metal from their houses to sell for a little bit of money. 

 In just a few weeks, the village was like a ghost town. 

The families scattered to the surrounding countryside, leaving the village scattered with broken furniture, broken toys, and broken houses.  

Some of the families took their homes with them, leaving behind  porch steps leading to nowhere. 

The old men no longer walked the lanes waving to their neighbors.  The few children still left were too sad to ride their bikes any longer.

But some of the villagers remained.  They did not want to move.  They wanted to stay and protect their homes and the river.  They sent word far and wide asking for help, for people to stand with them as they stood up to the company.  On the day before the bulldozers were to come, people arrived from all over the land, answering the call of the villagers.  

I was with them.  You should have seen their faces when we arrived.  They were so happy that we had come to be with them. We set a little table with thirty-two candles – one for each of the families who had lived in the village.  

We read words from the Bible and other holy books about God’s love for the people and the land and water.  

We prayed for justice and hope.  

We cried with the villagers. 

 

We filled bowls with water from the river and blessed them.  

And then we held hands and promised to help the villagers.  

As the sun set and the summer air cooled with the mist from the river, I said good-night to the villagers.

But the next day when I came back I got a big surprise!  The helpers had taken all the broken pieces left in the village and made big walls across the road to block the bulldozers from coming in.  

They created huge signs from old boards and bed sheets that said:  “This is our community!” and “We are Americans!”  and “This is a beautiful place!  People live here!”  

The porch steps had been moved to the center of the wall and the villagers stood on top, holding signs for all the cars and trucks passing by on the highway to see.  

“Save our homes,” the signs read. 

People driving by waved and beeped their horns.  Even truck drivers who fractured the rocks honked their horns and waved.

For twelve days the villagers and their helpers kept the bulldozers away. They pitched tents and ate meals around campfires.  

When it rained, they huddled in the abandoned homes to stay dry.  They held circle meetings on the grass by the river to decide how to share chores and help the villagers. 

They played with the children, brought instruments and sang songs, and created a whole new village out of the old one.  

People from across the land sent food to the helpers.   Even our church sent supplies – paper towels and cleaning supplies, food and drinks.  

The villagers were so happy and grateful that we were helping them.  

They were filled with joy, even though they were surrounded by so many broken things.

One of the villagers who had moved away even came back and took the roof off of his old home to make a big, colorful mural. 

They got some paint, dipped their hands into the cans to make handprints across the mural and wrote words to describe who the villagers were:  mother, truck driver, school bus driver, veteran, all painted in colors of the sky, purple and yellow flowers and green grass. 

  

The village was called Riverdale.  And it was exactly one year ago in that little mobile home park, surrounded by the remnants of a crucified community, that I began to see what resurrection looks like, and what happens when the Holy Spirit fills people with new hope.  I saw a gathering of people around the foot of the cross, with nothing but death and destruction around them, proclaiming that hope is not dead.  They were not all Christians.  Most of them did not go to church.  Most of the activists had no religious affiliation at all.  But what I saw at Riverdale was a resurrection community, a Pentecost community, filled with the Holy Spirit.  I saw the risen Christ, like the trickster he is, jumping out of the tomb yelling:  Surprise!  You can’t keep hope down.  You can’t kill the love of God. 

When I stood with those villagers in that decimated mobile home park, I knew what most people saw was just a bunch of low-class “trailer trash,” as they were called on the blog sites in Williamsport.  I knew many people either pitied the residents for being caught in circumstances they couldn’t control, or thought of them as rabble-rousers, troublemakers, and trespassers.  Some thought the villagers should just get out of the way and stop making such a scene.

Funny, that’s the kinds of things they used to say about Jesus and his disciples.  That low-class carpenter’s son and his low-life fishermen rabble rousers, troublemakers and trespassers.  The religious authorities and the military police just wanted them out of the way.  Stop making such a scene!  So they crucified Jesus and figured the disciples would just scatter and fade away.

That’s what eventually happened at Riverdale.  On the twelfth day, men in uniforms came and put up plastic orange fences.  

Police came and told the helpers that if they did not leave, they would be arrested.

 

The villagers told the helpers they did not want them to go to jail.  So the helpers, with tears in their eyes and lots of hugs for the villagers, packed up their tents.

Today, the water withdrawal plant is being built, and the village of Riverdale is nothing but a memory.  

But it is the memory that invokes the Trickster Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  The Pentecost community of Riverdale that came from far and wide, just like all those people gathered in Jerusalem so long ago, they came to the site of the trashed park and planted themselves there for nearly two weeks. They were a sign to the world that God is alive and working for justice. 

What I saw was not a trailer park in Jersey Shore.  I saw the upper room in Jerusalem with the Trickster Jesus and the Holy Spirit moving among those gathered, breathing upon them, anointing them with tongues of fire  - laughing them into new life that can come only from the resurrected Christ.

A theologian named Sallie McFague puts it best:  “We must believe  . . . that life, not death, is the last word; that against all evidence to the contrary (and most evidence is to the contrary), all our efforts on behalf of the well-being of our planet and especially of its most vulnerable creatures, including human ones, will not be defeated.  It is the belief that the source and power of the universe is on the side of life and its fulfillment.  The 'risen Christ' is the Christian way of speaking of this faith and hope:  Christ is the firstborn of the new creation, to be followed by the rest of creation, including the last and the least. (Sallie McFague, The Body of God : An Ecological Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 191.)

Of course, nearly a year later, some will say, you were fools. A table full of candles is nothing against the glaring lights of industrialization.  

Barriers erected from trailer home refuse is nothing against the bulldozers.  Mobile home park residents chanting alongside protesters is nothing against the powers of the police.  What difference did it make?  You accomplished nothing.  You were fools.

And don’t they say that about us in the church?  You Christians are fools.  Jesus’ light is nothing against the darkness of evil.  So what if he was resurrected – what difference did it make?  The world is still much like an abandoned mobile home park with the waters of creation being sold to pad the pockets of the wealthy.  Hunger, poverty, disease, injustice, violence, war and death – those powers still surround us on all sides. 

And they would be right!  But you see the church with a Pentecost Spirit is not afraid of those powers.  Christians singing songs of joy, using water for baptism, 

gathering around a simple meal of bread and wine, being generous and offering compassion to our neighbors, standing in solidarity with those who are oppressed . . . these are what sustain us, surprise us with God’s grace blowing over us like the breath of the Holy Spirit, giving us the courage to stand against the authorities in protection of lives and homes and God’s creation.

So go ahead and breathe deeply of that Holy Spirit.  Dip your hands in paint and draw colorful murals.  Giggle at the stuffy big shots who think they can have control over God’s world and God’s water.  Smile when they come huffing and puffing with their big guns and bulldozers.

Because you know something that they don’t know.  The world may call us crazy, but that’s okay.  Because the Pentecost community, empowered by the Holy Spirit, will endure. And those little flames of justice dancing in cups by the riverside are just the beginning of God’s holy fire.  Amen.  

Riverdale Mobile Home Park directly under the rainbow, across Route 220. June 3, 2012. Photo by Kelly Finan

Thanks to Lynn Johnson (black and white photos) and Wendy Lynn Lee (most of the color photos), and all those who photodocumented the saga of Riverdale.