From Other to Another

Jesus weeps. 

We all weep because of the two recent, horrific mass shootings, one in California and the other in New York, where people were murdered because they were the Other.

In one incident, victims were targeted because of their political ideology; in the second, because of the color of their skin.  

Both instances stand in direct opposition to the teachings of Jesus. 

Jesus, God as a human being, came to us, the Other, and loved us, even sacrificing his life on the cross to show us that love is more powerful than the hate and violence that nailed him there.

On Sunday at St. James Episcopal Church, Springfield, I heard a powerful sermon by theologian Dr. Chris Dodson based on Peter’s vision. In it a piece of sail cloth descended from heaven. It teemed with all manner of unclean creatures, which faithful, law-abiding Jews were forbidden even to touch, because these animals were deemed to be the Other.

And yet, in the dream, God tells Peter to take up and eat, because there is no Other in the eyes of our loving, creator God, and in a further message from God to Peter, the Gentiles or non-Jews, who were once anathema to the faithful, are to be welcomed fully as members of Christ’s body.

For me, the message of Jesus’ Gospel is that God loves everyone. No exceptions. 

And his ministry, which is described in the Gospels, shows him always reaching out in saving love to Others: foreigners, tax collectors, sinners of all kinds. 

In Christ the Other is simply Another—another fellow human being; another child of God; another brother or sister in Christ; another to be loved. And love is doing the best for the full flourishing of An-Other. 

Hymn 529 from The Episcopal Church Hymnal puts it this way: “In Christ there is no east or west. In him no south or north, but one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide world.”

Christ suffered for all. He died and rose again from the dead for all. And through us, his followers, and our ministries, he serves all, alive in us and through us in our acts of unconditional love. 

I give God thanks for communities of faith, agencies and ministries throughout America and worldwide that express God’s love—welcoming, respecting, valuing and serving all human beings. 

Jesus weeps at the hatred and violence in the world, and he suffers with the victims, but he rejoices when we love, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, tutoring a struggling student, supporting the vulnerable young and elderly. 

In these tangible acts of service, we advance  God’s kingdom of love and light against the forces of evil, sin, darkness and death. And with them, more of God’s kingdom emerges in this world. 

Thanks be to God. 

Creating the Beloved Community

What kind of community do we want Springfield and Greene County to be for us, our families and future generations?

The release of the 2021 Community Focus Report in October raises this question for me, as do two other recent events.

The report notes the negatives and positives of life here. 

Negatives include: labor shortages, low wages, persistent poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, low voter participation, misinformation spread and received uncritically over social media, lack of affordable housing, slowing population growth and violent crime.

Positives include business development and strength, civic engagement, volunteerism, non-profit support, improved voter outreach and education, a spirit of collaboration and high-quality education.

We should celebrate the positives of life here, but, in the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “the fierce urgency of the now” demands that we act to address the negatives.

With the report as our guide, we can do so by forming a clear vision of what we want this community to be and then creating a plan to achieve it.

The cost of doing nothing is too high; the danger of caring only about meeting our needs and ignoring those of others, too great.

I saw that danger recently in what Fox commentator Ann Coulter, a provocateur of the extreme right, said during her talk at Missouri State University. (I support the university’s commitment to free speech, even the repugnant variety.)

Appealing to fear, anxiety and prejudice, she scapegoated immigrants and refugees. She falsely said they were taking jobs away from Americans—meaning, I believe, white, male, native-born, Christians ones. She referred to George Floyd, the black man murdered by a white police officer, asserting, without proof, that violent crime had increased because of Black Lives Matter. She said being opposed to racism was “the basis of all terrible ideas.”

Coulter’s vision of the community she wants for us and for America is a nightmare. It is hell on earth. 

In contrast, the day after her MSU speech, I attended the groundbreaking of the new Islamic center, the American Momen Park and Mosque, here in Springfield.

Despite strong thunderstorms, city officials, civic and religious leaders, Muslims, Christians, Jews and people of other faiths gathered in a field and celebrated one of our strengths as a community: our diversity, inclusivity and respect for people who are different from us.

Muslim spiritual leaders, drawing from their sacred scriptures, affirmed their faith in the God of creation, the oneness of humankind and their commitment to the love of neighbors and living in peace with all people and creation itself. 

One speaker, who had lived in other countries, said the welcome he and his family had received in this country surpassed that of elsewhere. Our hospitality to newcomers, he said, helped make America great.

I was inspired by the groundbreaking, glimpsing God’s kingdom there, the Beloved Community, as Dr. King described it:  One human family; united under one God, albeit understood and worshiped differently by us; animated and empowered by the spirit of God for the works of love, doing only good to others, regardless of color, religion, country of origin. 

Daily, people of faith, among others, are working for just this kind of community in Springfield, Greene County and on earth. In the fierce urgency of the now, please join us in this holy work

Sowing seeds of good

I am grateful for how Springfield’s religious leaders are responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

To paraphrase Jesus’ agricultural parable of the wheat and weeds in Matthew 13: 24-30, they are sowing good seeds—of love. 

During July and August, as the Delta variant infected hundreds of our citizens, filled our hospital ICUs with children and adults and led to further deaths, local pastors of several Christian denominations and leaders from other faith traditions loved their neighbors as themselves, and they called upon others to do the same. 

These leaders maintained Covid-fighting protocols, including masks for all, so their congregations could continue to worship and participate in other activities safely. Clergy were vaccinated and were masked in public settings, including while leading services and visiting members.

And they urged their members and the public to get vaccinated. Significantly, pastors of some large evangelical congregations in the area publicly supported vaccinations, a development that was covered extensively by local media.

This summer, more than 200 clerics in Missouri signed a statement communicating the facts about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines and promoting them as a way of keeping people safe and healthy and slowing the spread of the virus. (According to the latest study, the unvaccinated face a risk of infection 11 times greater than that of the vaccinated.)

In response, more people were vaccinated, increasing the number of the fully vaccinated locally. We are now close to 50 percent of the population as we advance toward the goal of mass immunity, estimated at 70 percent.

Aiding the effort, congregations hosted vaccination clinics, Christ Episcopal Church was one of them. Working with the Springfield Greene County Health Department, the church made vaccinations available at its quarterly community dinner. About a dozen people received shots, a small number but still a success. 

While many people sowed good seeds, sadly, a minority of others sowed evil ones. Influenced and manipulated by politicians, media personalities and charlatans, and often driven by a distorted sense of personal freedom and disregard for the vulnerability of others, they spread lies, disinformation and conspiracy theories. They threatened local hospital personnel. They disrupted City Council and School Board meetings. Wearing Stars of David, they desecrated the memory of the real Holocaust.

Meanwhile, businesses lost customers and revenue; teachers and students feared infection in classrooms, disrupting education; ICU beds filled with unvaccinated patients. And people died. 

The sowers of evil seed must be challenged with the truth— not in a spirit of anger and hatred, but in one of divine compassion, for only good overcomes evil. So confronted, in love, perhaps they will recognize the harm they are doing to this community; will understand that with their freedom comes responsibility for the welfare of all others; and will choose to work for the good of Springfrield and its citizens.

At the same time, people of faith and goodwill must continue to urge others to get vaccinated, to wear masks and to comply with all health and safety protocols as expressions of the love of neighbors that Jesus taught and lived. 

And as we sow seeds of love, we will produce a harvest of good. Our city and county will become a community where students can learn safely, where businesses can function fully, where houses of worship can thrive, where hospitals can treat more than unvaccinated patients and where life flourishes. 

The Rev. Kenneth L. Chumbley, retired September 1 after serving nearly 26 years as Rector of Christ Episcopal Church. He was one of the signers of the clergy statement urging vaccinations.

Americans must commit to democracy

In his Inaugural Address on January 20, President Joe Biden said, “Democracy prevailed.”

President Biden was referring to the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol in Washington D.C.

As I watched the TV coverage of that horrific attack upon American democracy, I thought about Frank Staab.

Mr. Staab, a retired FBI agent, taught American history and government at St. Francis DeSales High School in my hometown of Louisville, Ky. 

He introduced me to the U.S. Constitution, our system of representative democracy, the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship and much more. 

Inspired by his class, I registered to vote (and for the draft) at age 18. I was eager to participate in the democratic process. 

And because of him, among others, I majored in history and minored in political science at the University of Louisville.  I joined a campus group affiliated with a political party; and, in 1972, for the first of many times that followed, I volunteered in the presidential campaign. I cast my first vote in that election. I have voted in every election since.

On January 6, 2021, the day this Republic was nearly overthrown, I thought of Frank Staab, who would have been appalled, because this attack, spurred by a lie, revealed an ignorance of and contempt for democracy and an alarming desire for autocracy.

Every democracy, including our own, is imperfect, but as Winston Churchill said in a speech to the House of Commons in 1947, it is better than all the other forms that have been tried. 

We Americans, whatever our political party, must work together to strengthen our democratic institutions in order to preserve them. 

Long before the January 6 insurrection, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences made a proposal to do so. “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century” is the work of a commission of distinguished scholars, elected leaders and citizens. Common Purpose is available at www.Amacad.org. 

“We on this bipartisan Commission believe that the profoundly challenging conditions of the twenty-first century pose an urgent threat to the future of our democratic way of life….” 

Referring to America’s three previous “foundings”—the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the civil rights movement—the  commission calls for a “fourth founding: rooted not only in the language of our Constitution and laws, but also in our expanded national creed of liberty and justice for all; 

“not only in the actions of government, but also in the commitments of citizens; not only in the reinvention of federal structures, but also in the devolution of power to local governance; not only in research and analysis, but also in love of country and one another.” 

The commission proposes six strategies to strengthen American democracy: broaden representation, empower voters, make political institutions more responsive; and educate and engage citizens; redesign social media platforms to support Constitutional democracy and inspire Americans to commit to it and one another. 

The commission makes 31 recommendations based on these strategies, including investment in civic educators and civic education for all ages and all communities.

As the Constitutional Convention concluded in 1787, someone asked delegate Benjamin Franklin what kind of government America would have. He answered, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” 

I am thankful for Frank Staab’s class. We need many more such teachers, as well as leaders and citizens committed to preserving this Republic. May democracy prevail in America always. 

God’s got our back

13 September 2020

Exodus 14.19-31

God’s got our back. I dislike cliches but use this one reluctantly for emphasis. God’s got our back and our front and both sides of us. He’s got us to save us from everything—the evil one, sin, death—that would deprive us of the fullness of life. Indeed, that would destroy our lives. 

In the reading today from the Book of Exodus, Yahweh God sends a series of increasingly devastating plagues against Pharaoh and Egypt. As a consequence, he reluctantly releases God’s people, the Israelites, from slavery. He has oppressed and exploited them to build his great kingdom. 

“Just go,” I imagine Pharaoh yelling to Moses “Get out and take these people with you.”

And Moses leads Israelites from slavery toward freedom and the fullness of life, and God is with him and them in power as a cloud in the day time, a pillar of fire in the night guiding them, protecting them, saving them.

But Pharaoh reconsiders his decision and leads his six-hundred chariots and their officers and his mighty army in“hot pursuit” of these former slaves. He intends to capture them and return them to Egypt or, perhaps, kill them trying

The Israelites look back in terror at that mighty multitude. They can’t go back, although they do contemplate surrender and tell Moses so. And they can’t go forward because of the Sea of Reeds. They are trapped. 

Shaking with fear, they complain against Moses: “Have you led us into the wilderness to die?”

And then God speaks to Moses, telling him, “Take up your staff and stretch it over the sea.” And he does. And walls of water rise, suspended above the sea bed. A path through the middle appears. And the Israelites rush toward the other side. 

They are within the grasp of the Egyptians, until their chariot wheels stick in the mud, the marching feet of the soldiers sink. And the Egyptians panic. 

Moses, at the command of Yahweh God, raises his staff and stretches it over the sea again, and the walls of water collapse onto Pharaoh and his charioteers and soldiers.

Exodus says that God throws them all into the water, and their drowned bodies wash up on shore.

In the wilderness and at the Sea of Reeds, God reveals his presence and his power as the cloud by day and the tower of fire by night. He does so to save his people from their enemies and to lead them to the fullness of life in the Promised Land 

The Israelites are in awe of the Lord. They  believe in him and in Moses, his servant leader. For now. 

In a metaphorical sense,  Pharaoh is in hot pursuit of God’s people today.

Pharaoh is the pandemic, with all the infections and deaths, with the disruptions to our lives—from business closures and rising unemployment, to growing homelessness and hunger. Pharaoh is racial inequality, protests, violence and destruction in our cities. Pharaoh is arguably the most divisive presidential campaign in history.

Many Americans are terrified by what is happening today.  Many of us feel alone, depressed, on the edge of despair. 

Yet, as the Exodus story reminds us, God loves his people and all people, and he is with us as the cloud by day, the tower of fire by night to save us, to heal all that is broken in us, in our country, in our world through the power of the Holy Spirit. To lead us through this sea of chaos to the promised land of life in its fullness. 

As I was working early Tuesday morning, Penny knocked on my study door. She asked me if she could share something that had happened during her devotional time minutes earlier.

She was praying from the daily service booklet of Iona Community, a Christian community off the coast of Scotland, of which she is an associate.

She prayed to the God of Life. “You are before me God, you are behind. You are around me God, you are within.” 

As she prayed those words, she said, she believed that God revealed to her that he inhabited her, that she and God were one. That he loved her. Would never abandon her. Would work in her for her wholeness, the fullness of life now and always, even eternally.

“I cried tears of joy,” she told me. 

May we know the joy that God is the cloud by day, that tower of fire by night to guide us, to defend us and to lead us to the fullness of life. God’s got our back. Amen

Black lives matter to me, should to all

Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. George Floyd. Rayshard Brooks. These black lives, along with myriad others before them, did not matter to their white killers. Nor have black lives mattered much since the first enslaved people were transported to America in 1619.

Black lives did not matter during slavery; or after the Civil War; or during Reconstruction; or when the Klan terrorized and lynched black people. Black lives did not matter in the South of Jim Crow, that region of separate and unequal housing, education, health care and more. 

And I confess that black lives did not matter to my slave-owning forebears in Virginia and Tennessee. They regarded slaves as nothing more than property—good only for planting and harvesting and carrying crops to market, where people of color were also bought and sold. 

Black lives have mattered little to whites throughout American history, but they have always mattered to God, for, according to Genesis, God created all people, including those of color, and declared us good, each one of us made in the very image of God.

In his book “I and Thou,” the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber wrote that every human being is a Thou, sacred, and should be revered. No human being is an “It,” a life devoid of intrinsic worth. No person should be treated as less than fully human, less than a reflection of the Divine. 

Although black lives did not matter to my ancestors, they matter to me profoundly. 

I am a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, who embodies the God of love. And love, as Jesus taught and lived it, is the relentless pursuit of the greatest good for all people, including ones of color, for every person is a Thou.

After reading Colson Whitehead’s novel, “The Underground Railroad,” I felt convicted of my sin against people of color. No, I did not participate in the enslavement of black people, but I did benefit indirectly from that evil system, including wealth and privilege and power that are mine because of my race.

I am repenting of my sin and am amending my life, demonstrating by concrete action that black lives matter to me.  And so I am supporting St. Augustine’s University, established by the Episcopal Church in 1867. I invite you to consider giving to an historically black college or university. 

And, in the words of one of my baptismal promises, I am striving for justice and peace in other ways. With members of my congregation, Christ Episcopal Church, I participated in Roll on for Justice, a public witness against racism and for justice.

Black lives matter to God. They matter to me.  And hope and pray that black lives will matter to all of us and that we will show they do, that every person of color is a Thou, by our words and deeds of love. 

Locally, real leadership visible amid pandemic

This nation faces a deadly leadership crisis.

But not here.

One of the greatest blessings of life in Springfield and Greene County, MO is trustworthy, compassionate, capable leadership. This leadership is helping us prevail against the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As a member of the Have Faith Initiative, a group of local clergy from several denominations and religious traditions, I regularly see committed leaders work together to meet the challenges occasioned by the virus. 

And I am inspired and reassured.

Soon after the virus struck, the Community Foundation, the Community Partnership and the United Way, all blessings in and of themselves, organized the initiative to help coordinate the faith community’s response. 

During our weekly virtual meeting, we spiritual leaders hear from professionals in city and county government and public health. They brief us on the number of local and state-wide infections and deaths and the measures they are taking to mitigate the spread of the disease in the area.

The good news for us here—unlike many other Midwest communities our size—is that infections and deaths are decreasing. The chief reasons are: We are complying with the city and county stay-at-home orders. We are practicing physical distancing. We are washing our hands and wearing our masks. In these and other ways, we are loving our neighbors as ourselves, as our religious traditions teach.

As initiative members, we also assess community needs and seek to meet them. We are organizing and enlisting our congregations in food drives. We are providing temporary housing for our most at-risk homeless citizens. We are attending to the mental and spiritual welfare of nurses and pastors. And we are ministering to the faith community.

Amid this pandemic, I have been impressed by our clergy and by civil servants, including City of Springfield Mayor Ken McClure, Commissioner Harold Bengsch of the Greene County Commission and Clay Goddard, Director of the Greene County Health Department. 

I know that our leaders make public health decisions based on scientific and medical data and best practices for fighting the virus and that they strive daily to ensure our safety and health.

City and county governments, early in the pandemic, created a plan to counter the spread of COVID-19 here. They issued stay-at-home orders, closed all but essential businesses and prohibited large gatherings, including in-person religious services. And now, several weeks later, they are amending these orders as part of a careful, gradual reopening of businesses, houses of worship and other venues.

At our initiative meeting on May 7, Mayor McClure said, “I am very pleased by what is happening. We want to be able to continue the step-down activities based on the data.” 

When the time comes for Springfield and Greene County to reopen fully, we can be confident that our reopening will be at the right time—when it is safe to do so—because our community is well led. 

What a blessing.

If only we would see such trustworthy, capable leadership from state and federal governments before still more people become infected by the virus and even more people die.