Thoughts and Prayers?

Here we go again.  

Another mass shooting.  

Another round of “thoughts and prayers.”  

I’m not denigrating thoughts and prayers – I want to be more thoughtful and prayerful.

But…

We’ve been “thinking and praying” since Columbine and the problem seems worse than ever.  

Just look at the ever-increasing numbers of mass shootings in the U.S:

• 2019: 417
• 2021: 693
• In 2022?  There have been more mass shootings than there have been days in the new year – over 200.  

“Thoughts and prayers” don’t seem to be working.  I wonder if God is telling us what he told the people of Judah through Isaiah: 

I cannot bear your worthless assemblies…

When you spread out your hands in prayer

I hide my eyes from you

Even when you offer many prayers

I am not listening. 

Why is God not listening to the prayers? Glad you asked:  

Your hands are full of blood!

Take your evil deeds out of my sight; 

Stop doing wrong

Learn to do right; seek justice.

Defend the oppressed…  (Isaiah 1:11-18)

That’s like God is saying that to the U.S. today – “Hands full of blood”!

The emptiness of thoughts and prayers spread to the northern kingdom of Israel too. Speaking on God’s behalf, Amos writes: 

I get no pleasure from your religious assemblies…

Take away from me your noisy songs…

Justice must flow like torrents of water,

Righteous actions like a stream than never dries up (Amos 5:21-24)

Have the emptiness of “thoughts and prayers” spread to the United States?  I think so.  

Maybe we need to respond with “thoughts and prayers and…action.” What a novel idea!  Father Rohr gets it.  He named his organization “The Center for Action and Contemplation.”

*Contemplation helps us see the world through the eyes of God – seeing God and reflecting God.

*Action is…well, ACTION.  It’s getting off our butts, or knees, and doing something.

Father Rohr says the most important word in the name is neither “Action” or “Contemplation” but, “and”.

It takes both. 
Let’s do both. 

“Faith, by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”  James 2:17   

Maybe there wouldn’t be so many deaths if our faith was not dead.  

One Religion

“So, if we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion, one, one, one nation under God and one religion under God.  Right? All of us together. Working together.”  

These are the words of Michael Flynn spoken in an address at the ReAwaken America tour which stopped at John Hagee’s church in San Antonio, Texas the weekend of November 14-15.  

“One religion” is not a surprising concept to me.  Michael Flynn is not the first person I’ve heard give voice to that view.  I heard it in the 70s and 80s from the Moral Majority and preachers who were sucked into that movement – I was one of them.  

I heard it from myself.  

I don’t talk that way anymore.  I don’t think that way anymore. 

Why? 

History.  The Constitution.  My evolving understanding of Jesus.  The Handmaid’s Tale (The US is not Gilead).

What religion is Flynn proposing the US should officially adopt or enforce?  I think we know the answer.   

Now, imagine if a Muslim or Jewish American leader made the same comment that the United States should have one faith, and that it should be Islam or Judaism.  The outrage from the religious right would be deafening.  But, strangely, I haven’t heard a peep of criticism from the religious right for these comments.  

Here’s where I am today.  

The Dalai Lama describes his religion in this way:  “My religion is kindness.”  

Ok, if that were the religion referred to by Flynn, that might be ok.  One religion of kindness.  All of us together.  Working together toward  kindness.  

That’s golden.  In fact, it’s the golden rule we’ve all learned: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  

Yeah, we must have that religion.  

COVID-19 and Palm Sunday

Happy Palm Sunday

Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, riding on a donkey.

Pilate has also arrived, riding on a war horse.  

Two leaders. Two different ways of leading. 

Two animals. Two different images.

When writing about this event, Matthew reflects on Zechariah 9:9:

“Say to Daughter Zion (Jerusalem), 

‘See, your king comes to you,

Gentle and riding on a donkey,

Even upon a colt, a foal of a beast of burden.

“Gentle?”  

“Riding on a donkey, even a foal of a beast of burden”?  (No, the Rolling Stones are not the originators of the phrase.)

What kind of King is this? 

Where’s the display of power? 
Where’s the “Hey, I’m a big deal!” attitude? 

It’s not there.  We won’t “see” that in Jesus. In Jesus, we “see” a different way to live and to lead.  Jesus is reframing power. Oh, yes, Jesus has power.  “All power (authority) has been given to me (Matthew 28:18),” Jesus tells his disciples.

But this Jesus kind of power is “seen” not in the person who is served but in the person who is serving (Matthew 20:25-28).  

Wanna see power today?  Look at  the 1000s of medical personnel serving us, “giving their lives as a sacrifice” in this war against COVID-19.  

That is power on display.  

On this Palm Sunday, the beginning of Passion Week, we thank them for their passionate and sacrificial service.

 

When Religion is Used to Discriminate

Pride Month came to a sad end with a ruling from the Supreme Court allowing businesses to refuse services to LGBTQ+ individuals based on religious objections.  

We’ve seen this before – religion being used as an excuse to discriminate.   

In 1968 the Supreme Court heard a case from South Carolina in which a white supremacist, Maurice Bessinger, who ran a chain of Piggie Park Bar-B-Q restaurants, refused service to a black man, John W. Mungin, because he believed the races should be strictly segregated. Mungin claimed the action was in violation of the recently passed Civil Rights Act (1964).  The store owner invoked a higher law – God’s – or, should I say, “His view of God’s law.”?  

Here’s what Bessinger’s lawyers wrote in answer to Mungin’s complaint: 

 “Bessinger believes as a matter of faith that racial intermixing or any contribution thereto contravenes the will of God.” 

Does anyone really think now that Bessinger was right then – that following God allows us, even compels us, to discriminate against other races? 

Yes, sadly, some do.  

Gladly, most don’t. 

1968 was 55 years ago.  The Justices in that case, unanimous in their ruling against Piggie Park, called the religious freedom defense for the race-based denial of service, “patently frivolous,” and ordered Bessinger to pay Mungin’s attorneys’ fees. 

We obviously have a different SCOTUS today. 

But we have the same prejudices – just toward another group.  

In 2078, 55 years from now, will Americans look back on today’s court decision, on today’s anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes and wonder, “How could we have thought that?”

We got the Bible wrong in 1968.

We got God wrong in 1968.   

Maybe we are getting them wrong today.   

Fr Richard Rohr explains that the core and call of religion (re-ligio) is to “re-ligament” us.  Instead of using religion to divide and discriminate, let’s use it in these “United” States to actually unite, providing “liberty and justice for all.”  

When Nature Calls…

…at an awkward time…

Do you answer? 

Do you put the call on hold? 

But what if nature won’t be placed on hold?

What do you do?  

Nature gave me a call last Sunday during the Sunday morning service a few minutes before it was time for me to step up on the platform and deliver the weekly sermon.  

I tried to ignore the call knowing it would call back later.   But Nature would not wait.  

Didn’t Nature know what time it was and where I was?!

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says there is a time for everything.  Really?  Is this the right time?  

“I think I can make it back,” I whispered to Denise, my wife, sitting beside me, and tried to walk nonchalantly from the front row to the hallway restroom. 

I should have run. I didn’t make it back in time.  I stepped out of the restroom and didn’t hear the video or the special song that was set to play before I taught.  Uh oh.  

Opening the auditorium doors, I saw Dense on the platform trying to cover for me.  

I should have let her have the stage! 

I felt like Doja Cat.   ​​When Doja Cat and SZA won the Grammy in 2022 for Best Pop Duo Performance for “Kiss Me More,” Doja nearly missed it. The star was in the middle of a bathroom visit when her name was called and she barely made it to the stage before it was time to get to the next category. 

When nature calls you, you listen, even if it means missing your very first Grammy win or a sermon.  

The folks that gathered at The Venues Church Sunday totally understood.  

The Venues is a safe place to be human.  To be you.   

It was good for a laugh.  

The lesson?  Maybe when Nature, when God, when Love calls, we listen. 

When creation speaks, we listen. When others speak, we listen.  

Listening.  Father Rohr writes, “Perhaps one of the most precious and powerful gifts we can give another person is to really listen to them, to listen with quiet, fascinated attention, with our whole being, fully present.”

Listen with an open heart.  No judgment.  Just openness.  

Thank-you Venues community for listening and not judging.

Let’s Not Stop With a Quote

We heard a lot of Martin Luther King, Jr quotes in sermons on Sunday and in speeches on Monday.  There is a reason that Dr. King may just be the most quoted person on the planet.  His words lift us up, challenge us, calling us to be our better selves.

Sit back and read these words.  Let them soak into your spirit.  

• “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: Only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate:  Only love can do that.”
• “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”
• “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” 
• “All we say to America is, ‘Be true to what you said on paper.’ …”
• “Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think…The greater the lie, the more readily will it be believed.”
• “I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.”  
• “If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.”
• “Everyone has the power for greatness, not for fame but greatness, because greatness is determined by service.” 
• “Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.”

Today is Tuesday.  MLK Day is behind us.  

What will we do with these quotes?  Save them til MLK Day 2024?   

How about this:  Put the quotes into practice?

Living in the Now While Waiting for the Biopsy

I found another spot.  On my way to conduct a funeral Friday afternoon, I glanced in the rearview mirror while at a stop light to make sure I didn’t have anything unsightly on my face, nose, mouth before arriving at the funeral home.

That’s when I saw the spot.  A white mark on my upper lip.  It wouldn’t wipe off. “Rats,” I said to no one in particular.  I’ve seen that kind of mark before – on my arm.  

15 years ago. 

Melanoma.  

The light turned green so I drove on.  At the next red light I took a selfie and sent it to my friend and Dermatologist PA and asked, “What do you think?”  She replied within 5 minutes.  “Come in Monday.”

I went in.  I came out with a biopsied, bandaged upper lip.  

I’ve had two previous melanomas and one squamous cell carcinoma (the wound from that surgery is still healing).  

Now, I wait.  What will the biopsy show this spot to be?

I know the principles of living in the now.  But I don’t know how to live those principles all of the time. Sometimes I do it. Sometimes I don’t.  Right now, for me to live in the now, is a choice. 

It has yet to become an automatic response. 

The “right now” is this:

• I don’t know the nature of the spot. That’s the fact.  So why worry about something that may not be?  Why let a fear of tomorrow rob me of the fun I can have today?
• I feel good. At least until the anesthesia wears off!  
• I have great care from the dermatology team.
• I have this moment.  Right now.  That’s all I’m guaranteed. So, I will make this present moment, standing here typing and drinking from a straw, looking at Denise across the room, the best moment ever. 

I will live by Calvin’s philosophy when he says to Hobbs, “We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are.” 

 

Men Behaving ….

After watching the video of Will Smith smacking Chris Rock after the comedian told a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, how would you complete the line: Men Behaving _________?

Some commend Will Smith for “protecting his wife,” calling what he did, “beautiful,” “manly.”

Some criticize Will Smith for “toxic masculinity.”

Some commend Chris Rock for showing restraint and maturity for not smacking back and for not pressing charges (at least not yet).  

Some criticize Chris Rock for bad taste in joking about someone’s health.  

What do you think?  What adverb would you use to complete the sentence? 

I think I’ll go with the title of the British sitcom – “Men Behaving Badly.”

And I think it applies to both men. 

I’m not saying they are bad men – just that their behavior was bad.  

Maybe both men need to take a step back for a little re-evaluation. 

Chris Rock:  I’ve always cringed at jokes that target health issues of people.  I just don’t see Jesus doing that.  Or maybe it was because I received my share of “teasing” as a kid for my speech impediment.  

Will Smith: Well, what he did was assault.  I wonder if we have fallen asleep to basic standards of human decency and civility.  Our leaders have been openly cruel and mean and in so doing have given us permission to be and do the same.  This is where we are. 

In his speech after receiving the Oscar for actor for his role in “King Richard” (Loved that movie!), Will said, “I’m being called on in my life, to love people and to protect people.” And then he said this: “Love will make you do crazy things.”  

Will Smith, Nope.  Just ask a victim of abuse whose abuser uses that same line.  

We all can do better.  And hopefully, when we know better, we will do better (Thank you, Maya Angelou).

Yes, We Will All Die.

I have a funeral today, Wednesday, March 2, 2022 – Ash Wednesday.  This will be the third funeral I’ve conducted this week.  

I face death regularly.  It’s part of the job.  Some humorist has said that the job of the pastor is to “Marry and Bury.” It’s a life of dealing with the “wed and the dead.”

Ash Wednesday is a reminder of death. The ashes used on Ash Wednesday are meant to represent dust.  When receiving ashes on their foreheads, they hear the words, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19).  

Thanks, but no thanks, for the reminder.  We don’t like to be reminded of, to think about, death.  So we say just about anything to avoid saying the d-word:

• Kicked the bucket
• Six feet under
• Bought the farm
• Pushing up daisies
• Passed away
• Restin in peace

I get it.  Death is hard to face.  So to help us face it, we actually wear the reminder on our face. 

And that reminder is a good thing. Knowing that I will die motivates me to live a fuller life.  

After a funeral, I’m typically:

• more “alive” – more aware of the beauty of all around me and its fragility.
• more grateful
• kinder
• more affectionate
• more loving
• more here, now. 

My senses are sharpened.  Living with an awareness of death can make my living more loving. 

We don’t like to face death because we fear the loss brought by death. Yes, there is loss, but there is also gain.  “To die is to gain” (Philippians 1:21), Paul reminds us. It’s a trade. And it’s a trade up. 

So, I’m off to this funeral.  And I will return to a fuller life. 

A Lesson From My Mom on Martin Luther King Jr Day

As I celebrate the life of and lessons from Martin Luther King, Jr today, January 17, I am also thinking about my mom, whose 5th anniversary of her death is in two days, January 19 (I can’t believe it’s been 5 years). In the last 10 years of her life she and I had several conversations about social justice, as I was growing ever more passionate about the marginalized and justice issues. She expressed more times than I can count her regret over not participating in the march from Selma to Montgomery, March 7, 1965.

Her regret was deep, sincere, palpable.

In March of 1965 mom was a 31 year old mother of two daughters, ages 12 and 2, and one son, me, age 8, and a busy pastor’s wife of a growing Southern Baptist Church – which is a full-time, unpaid job. It’s understandable that she did not, could not, march.

“Phillip,” mom said to me, “I did not march. You can.”

Mom left me with a resolve to have no regrets…to do what I can to create a world driven by love and justice for all.

In response to Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech of August 28, 1963, Billy Graham said, “Only when Christ comes again will the little white children of Alabama walk hand in hand with little black children.”

Talk about a dream killer. If that’s true, why march? Let’s just sit and wait.

Mom didn’t believe that to be true. I don’t either.

I dream for a just, loving world. I will work to make the dream come true.

No regrets.

Thank You George Harrison

Yesterday, November 29 was the 20th anniversary of George Harrison’s death. The
Beatle had been suffering from a brain tumor and had been treated at a clinic in
Switzerland in the summer of 2021.

George was known as the “quiet Beatle” during his time with the Fab Four. Maybe the
press gave that name to him because John and Paul talked the most in interviews. I don’t
know. But, John and Paul as the song-writing super couple were the most visible of this,
my favorite band.

George brought to them and to us a deep spirituality – one of kindness.
Ringo tells about the last visit he had with George before his death. His visit was cut
short due to his own daughter’s health challenges: Lee Starkey was suffering a brain
tumor.

Ringo said in an interview:
“The last weeks of George’s life, he was in Switzerland, and I went to see him, and he
was very ill, you know, he could only lay down. And while he was being ill and I’d come to
see him, I was going to Boston, because my daughter had a brain tumor.”

When Ringo told George about his daughter, he said, “Well, you know, I’ve got to go, I’ve
got to go to Boston…and he (George) goes – it’s the last words I heard him say, actually –
and he said: ‘Do you want me to come with you?’”

What a friend.

After telling this story, Ringo wiped away a tear and said, “So, you know, that’s the
incredible side of George.”

George often said, “Everything else can wait but the search for God cannot wait, and
love one another.”

Words to live by.

George Harrison, you may have been “the Quiet Beatle” but we still hear you.