Pastor’s Blog

I am in the middle of a sadness right now that I can’t seem to shake.

Its raining. Its grey. Its Monday (that’s not really a good one for pastors, though considering so many of us take that day off, if we take a day off).

I’ve done my usual this morning: read the Times, the Daily News, the NY Post, Drudge Report, Google News. They all pretty much say the same things: Haiti (lots dead and extreme suffering), bombs in Baghdad, the John Roberts Supreme Court makes people irrelevant to the electoral process, Democrats are impotent and inept, Republicans are channeling Nancy Regan, “Just Say No!”

But this sadness I feel isn’t really affected by the news, just affirmed by it.

The sadness is from weariness.

Yesterday I preached on the Luke 4 text where Jesus claims Issiah’s vision for freedom and release.  I said this proclaimed claim of sight for the blind, release for the captives, good news for the poor is real even if we cannot see it, touch it, feel it, internalize it, or find evidence of its full reality.

Think for a moment: Haiti, among the poorest of the poor, has been the recipient of bad news for a really, really long time. Our fellow citizens, who have made good choices, obeyed the law, have been good and faithful neighbors always, are still suffering because they are drowning in medical bills they cannot pay for illnesses that are not covered by the insurance they bought and paid on for decades.

Its just not right. And, try as I might, pray as I do, fighting the good fight, I become weary and sad that we, as a people, seem unwilling to move ourselves forward. We want scapegoats (Pat Roberts: the Haitians made a pact with the devil to win their freedom from slavery & have been paying for it ever since), hoarding (i.e. blame the welfare moms), revenge (Texas executions). We just seem to be unwilling to move beyond fear.

After Jesus’ first sermon, he went on to point out how God’s grace and mercy had been given to non-Jews, a leper and widow who didn’t deserve these gifts, people who were not to be trusted, given anything and certainly they were undeserving of God’s attention.

The people listening to Jesus were so filled with rage that they wanted to kill him, throw him off a cliff. We’ve seen barely restrained rage of late. Tea Party folks depicting Obama as Hitler. Men showing up to rallies with their guns, loaded, fully on display. All legal, of course, but not all right.

Closer to home, my home, people I have cared about, as a pastor and others as friends, just disappear. Some have died and others just leave and I am left without answers. Each person’s departure compounds the others.

And, sometimes in the midst of this sadness, I return to the basics of faith, those things I’ve known for a long time: prayers, songs, scripture. And I am drawn to something I’ve know for a much shorter time comparatively: no matter how I feel, God is still working, making all things new. God’s success is not stunted by my feelings no matter what they are.

Thanks be to God.

My daughter, who is 7, asked me yesterday if everyone dies. I responded to her question with a question? “Why do you ask?” This is a great way to delve further into the unconsciousness of the questioner. Its also a way to avoid directly answering difficult questions.

My daughter said she had been thinking about her Yia Yia (Greek for grandmother) who passed just over two years ago. She didn’t say it directly, but I could tell she was trying to figure out this thing of death and her parents. I remembered my growing awareness as a little girl that some day my parents would die.

We were quiet for a while. I said to her, “Remember, Jesus made us a promise that we will be with him and with everyone else who dies.” Zoia said, “Oh, Mama, I don’t believe that. I KNOW that!!! I KNOW Jesus said that!”

There are days I wish I had the faith of a seven year old. The faith of a child who is so innocent and still unaware of the grey areas of life. Faith that easily accepts as true all that Jesus promised. Faith that has not yet been challenged, maybe even broken, by the reality of evil incarnate.

Today is the feast of the Epiphany when the Magi are led to the baby Jesus and his parents. Their discovery helped to make known that God had sent a savior. This Sunday coming we will celebrate the baptism of Jesus. He was about 30 years old when he was baptized. So, in less than a week we age Jesus from about the age of 2 to 30.

The version of Jesus’ baptism we will read focuses not so much on the act of water being poured over Jesus than over what happens after that, the Holy Spirit rending the division between heaven and earth as a voice proclaims “You are my beloved.”

The gospel of Luke is interested in what happens after the baptism.

Think of it this way. Parents, after having paid thousands of dollars to have their offspring educated at colleges or universities want to know “What are you going to do now?” Now that you have this degree, what are you going to do, when are you going to move out so that we can put a hot tub in your room, etc. etc.

It was during prayer, after the baptism in Luke’s gospel, that the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus and the voice from heaven spoke. It was after that that Jesus began his public ministry.

It is during prayer today, as we remember our baptisms, as we allow the still small voice of God to speak amid the competing noises surrounding us, as we seek first the Kingdom of God, that the power of the Holy Spirit can come upon us and that heavenly voice speaks to us reminding us that we, too, are God’s beloved.

When Zoia asks me about death, it scares me. There are so many of my friends who have died and some family members whom I miss so much. My body aches with grief still over some of their deaths. It scares me to think of anthing happening to my dear friends and family.

This side of heaven death is permanent. It cannot be negoiated with. It cannot be changed. It cannot be fixed. Ultimately, we are completely powerless against it.

“I will be with you always.” “I am the way and the truth and the life.” These promises of Jesus hold me fast even when the ugly reality of the world screams brokeness and disbelief. These promises of Jesus hold us when we run, blinded by barriers real or imagined. These promises of Jesus do not depend upon my perfect belief.

These promises of Jesus are real because of what Jesus did after his baptism when he healed, fed, prayed and taught. They hold power because he walked with the outcast, the ignored, the dirty. The promises overwhelm death because he rose from the dead.

I already dread the day when Zoia will start having sleepovers with her friends, go to sleep away camp and to college. Someone asked her last summer is she was going to go to sleep away camp. She said “No, my Mama couldn’t handle it.” She was right.

I don’t like it when people go away, fade away, disappear, die. I want to hold those whom I love close.

This side of heaven, between our baptisms and the day when Christ will come again, his promises hold onto us. This side of heaven, we will walk by faith, somedays with strength, others with difficulty.

But, this side of heaven, each day we live, we have the opportunity to pray and hear that voice that comes through it all whether we are conscious of it our not: “you are my beloved.”

This is a video I made at NY City Hall last week. Its a new campaign to get people to talk about HIV/AIDS. The info about the campaign is listed below.

Its great to know your HIV status, take a friend with you to get tested, be safe. Talk with someone who understands when you have questions.
www.facebook.com/italkbecause
www.twitter.com/italkbecause

Why talk about HIV/AIDS to the people in your life? We know that open and honest conversations can prevent new HIV infections and reduce the stigma attached to people living with HIV/AIDS. Today, over 100,000 New Yorkers are living with HIV/AIDS, and thousands dont know that they are infected.

And because every 9½ minutes an American is infected with HIV, we need to educate ourselves and others about the virus.

Join the conversation. Film and upload your own testimonial. Share why you talk about HIV/AIDS to the people in your life and why this is important to you.

1. Begin your video with “My name is _________ and I talk about HIV/AIDS because…….”.

2. Upload your video to YouTube

3. Email the URL of your video to: italkbecause@gmail.com

This project is a partnership of the New York City Council, Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, Gay Mens Health Crisis, Harlem United, Visual AIDS, LIFEbeat, The Asian & Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Bronx AIDS Services, Latino Commission on AIDS, Gay Men of African Descent, Bailey House, Citiwide Harm Reduction, The Women’s HIV Collaborative, AIDS Community Research Initiative of America (ACRIA), Hispanic AIDS Forum, Fortune Society, Village Care New York, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, New York State AIDS Coalition, Community Health Action of Staten Island.

To find a testing location near you, or to join the fight against HIV/AIDS, the following resources are available:

To find a testing center near you: www.hivtest.org

I wrote this column as a response to President-elect Obama’s invitation to Rick Warren to pray at the inauguration.  I think it is fitting to rebroadcast it as we continue to hear about the Ugandan “Anti-Homosexual” legislation, inspired by Americans, fear exported beyond our boarders through the likes of men such as Warren. The good Rev. Warren has refused to condemn the legislation he helped to inspire. So a look back to those innocent December, 2008 days. Enjoy!

I Agree with Warren

Thursday, December 18th, 2008
I have to express my opinion regarding Obama’s decision to have Rev. Rick Warren deliver the invocation at the inaguration. I feel compelled to comment on the 2 things I know, thus far, that Rev. Warren has said that I agree with.

The abortion holocaust. We have too many for no good reason. I agree. This is what I propose to end abortion on demand tomorrow: chemical castration of all males who reach puberity. Once a male becomes legally married to a female, then the chemicals are removed, his body returns to its functions, and the possibility of having sex with his wife & making a baby with her in the bonds of marriage ensues.

As a side benefit, the number of rapes would probably drop. Male on Male violence would drop. We would probably not have the same level of football, baseball, etc., but I think Pr. Warren is willing to make this sacrifice on behalf of all males born into the USA to stop the holocaust of abortion.

A second idea: hold boys and men responsible for their sexual activity. A female, if she chooses not to have an abortion, but carry the pregnancy full term, can only be pregnant once every 9 months. A young guy can get 1, 2, 3 females pregnant a day! Well, it seems Chemical castration may be the only way to go!

Chasity belts for boys/men. The can urinate, but nothing more. They won’t need to do more than that until the blessed day of Holy Matrimony anyway.

Oh, and changing the legal defination of marriage from between men and women for only 2% of the American population. You know, Pastor Warren, blacks make up about 12% of the population. Since many of them lose the privilage to vote after serving time in jail, then it will probably be easier to take away the right of marriage from the remaining, what 10%? And Latinos. Their numbers are growning. If we can strip them of their rights, you know, the ones who are here legally, we’ll just throw all the others out, then we won’t have to worry about them joing up with other minority groups, consolidating power and taking away the rights of the new numerical minority. That would be us whites.

What percentage does a group have to reach in the United states of American to qualify for rights? Let me see if I can recall that lesson from 6th grade: “equal protection under the law;” “life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness.” I can’t seem to remember what percentage of the population the group had to have reached to get their rights.

Well, Pastor Warren must know, he said that since glbt people only make up 2% of the population in the US, we have not apparently reached that magical number.

Somewhere in the very back of my dreams, I had hoped Obama would remember meeting me Dec. 1, 2007 at the Heartland Presidental forum and would have been moved to invite me to deliver an invocation. I did it that day and have also delivered one for the New York City Council.

But, being lesbian, partnered, out, with a child, probably disqualifies me from any number of things.

I certainly hope Rev. Warren doesn’t wear a suite of mixed cloth (polyester/cotten blend) or some such thing, because Leviticus is VERY clear that is a no no. I pray he doesn’t eat oysters, shrimp, lobster prior to the event, because that in an abomination in the eyes of G_d.

I do not like abortion. I teach that sex is best within a marriage. I do believe a democracy is best judged by how well it extends equal rights and responsibilities to all its citizens, not just the well liked, rich, powerful. Democracys are strongest when we realize the protection of the rights of the least and last are essential to the well being of everyone.

I was 22 years old when I did CPE, Clinical Pastoral Education. In the Lutheran world, all seminarians have to complete CPE as part of our overall training. For mine, I served as a chaplain at the Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, NY. I was assigned the CCU, a medical/surgical floor, NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) and obstetrics/ neonatal floors.
The floor I spent the most time on was the NICU and obstetrics/neonatal (let’s call that ob/ne).
By far, the worst day was when I was called to the nursery to be with a couple as they were to be informed that their baby, healthy, full term, beautiful, had died that morning. She drowned on her burp-up.

I got lost on the way to the floor. I had been there dozens, maybe hundreds of times by that point. I couldn’t remember what floor I was supposed to go to. I couldn’t make my way coherently through the halls. I was lost in a place that was so familiar to me.

I knew the baby who had died. I sang her in the nursery the night before as I had done with dozens of other babies. As the chaplain, I was welcomed to do this, especially with babies who had been abandoned, who had not be held, or sung to.

I knew the baby. She was now gone. The permanency of death forever unassailable this side of heaven. I could not figure out where I was or where I was supposed to go.

So much hope, when the baby is wanted, is invested in a pregnancy. When my partner was pregnant, we worked to make our home ready for our not yet there daughter. We painted her room pastel colors, we got carpeting in the bedrooms, we walked the IKEA maze, we went to prenatal check ups, sonograms (I cried at every one of these), baby care classes. We read lots of books, talked with other parents, bought everything we could possibly imagine we would need. We ate healthy, we got a new mattress for ourselves (futons are not really that comfortable.).

We invested our hopes, dreams, happiness, fears, treasure………..we invested the totality of ourselves into the not-yet-born-baby. We were about to be renamed Mommie & Mama. I understood the significance of God renaming people in a very existential way after Zoia was born.

Advent is our holy time of preparation. It is when we get ready to be called into a fuller name given because of this one called Jesus of Nazareth. It is through him & the gift of the Holy Spirit that we have come to be made into the sons and daughters of the King, heirs with Christ, children of the promise. It is because of the baby, born so long ago, that we have this season of HOPE.

I really had no idea of what I was doing when I was a 22 year old chaplain. Somehow, God worked through me. I cannot remember one thing I said to the people I tried to minister to at the hospital. I do remember praying………..a lot.

It was hardest when a woman lost a pregnancy. Worse than any murder or even tragic illness. The hope invested in a baby can be so complete.

And so, I would go to the nursery, especially to see the babies who had no one to visit, no mother to hold them, no father who would rescue them, no champion to protect them. And I would pray, and sing, and rock these unclaimed babies.

And I would marvel, that God would be so foolish, so clearly shortsighted to invest the hope of salvation, the redemption of all that God had made, in someone so clearly fragile, and weak and small as a baby.

Advent. A season of hope and pregnant possibility. The season of light and illumination. “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not understood it.”

This is an article I was a part of in Susan Hogan’s blog/ELCA news site. Its about 3 Lutheran pastors serving in the post-Church Wide Assembly world of Lutheranism.

There is a physical weight I feel when I receive bad news. When my brother called me Christmas Eve 3 years ago to tell me my childhood friend, Cheryl, had been shot by the police I felt this heaviness. When the call came at 4 in the morning from my beloved that her mother had passed in her arms, it felt like soaked quilts shrouded me.

Last November, I had very, very mixed feelings. Barack Obama had just been elected president. We, as a people, voted in the what the majority believed was the better candidate. And in that vote, we made history by also electing our very first black president. Elation followed.

California was instrumental for Obama’s election. With their huge electoral college numbers, he had to win that state. And win, he did. The turn out was huge, the number of first time voters was enormous, the number of people of color voting was tremendous.

Part of the reason the turn out was so high in California was attributed to Proposition 8. Prop 8 took away the right of gay and lesbian persons to marry each other. The wet, soaked quilt put a damper on my elation.

Last night, voters in Maine voted to make pot more legally accessible. They also voted to take away the right, granted through the legislature and signed into law by the governor, of gay and lesbian people to legally marry each other. So, to recap, gay people may now get stoned, legally, but not marry. The majority of Maine voters think the government should have less say as to whether or not you are capable of paying attention and craving all the food in the refrigerator, but two law abiding, tax paying, citizens may not marry because THAT would do damage to the community & families. I mean, think of the children. They may get stoned, but not be gay.

Our democracy, on paper, says we are all equal, we have equal access to life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness. Our rule of law is supposed to be blindly, that is equally, applied, to all people without regard to status, gender, education, etc. etc.

I hear the rhetoric of the right saying we need less government. I happen to agree that government should only do what the people cannot do for themselves. For instance, I cannot pave a road, fix a stop light, run the libraries, the public educational system, the public university system…….these things are way too big and beyond my competence to make happen.

But, government does need to exist to do things like regulate greed (remember Enron and Madoff?), pave the roads, deliver most of the mail, run the military, fly to the moon and beyond. We do not need to make laws that prohibit the rights of some citizens that are enjoyed by the overwhelming majority of other citizens i.e. the right to take legal responsibility for each other through the legal obligations and rights of marriage.

To be blunt, I am pissed at Maine. The whole place.

My church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in August voted to change our policies about gay pastors with families (we’re allowed now) and that congregations may now honor/celebrate publicly accountable, life-long, monogamous, same-gender relationships. Following that decision, there have been congregations voting to leave the ELCA, the formalization and greater publicity of LCMC which opposes these decisions, redirection of offerings to the ELCA in protest of our decisions. There is the very real threat of schism.

I feel the soaked quilt on me again. This is not supposed to be the way it is, not in American. We are supposed to be a free people, not running about working and giving lavishly to make sure some of our citizens are second class. We put an end to slavery, we recognized the wrong of putting our own Japanese citizens in prison camps, we ruled separate but equal was a cruel fantasy, we stopped miscegenation laws with the best named law suit ever, “Loving vs. Virginia.” Lawrence vs. Texas decriminalized gay people.
I think it is the antithesis of what it means to be an American, a Christian, a Lutheran, to work for the dehumanizing of people.

Jesus gave the dehumanized their humanity back. When the woman cried on his feet and dried them with her hair, he asked “Do you see this woman?” That is the dumbest question ever. Of course they saw her, how could they not? She crashed a party she was not invited to, she acted completely inappropriately. She SHOULD have been ashamed of herself.

But, Jesus saw her, he beheld her, he saw more than the others did. He invited them to look again and see something new. He was always doing this by inviting the children to come to him, talking to a foreign woman at the well, touching lepers. Jesus just did not get that some people are better, more human, than others and these “others” should be ignored, kicked when out of place, stoned, Perhaps, beat them and tie them to a fence and allow them to die, just for being, well, not us.

Jesus was killed not because he was “meek and mild,” but because he broke all the rules, threatened the powers that were, touched the wrong people and ate with known sinners.

Every Good Friday, even after 15 years of living through Good Friday services as a pastor, I still feel that heavy, soaked quilt hanging off of me as I watch the altar being stripped, the lights diminishing and hear the words “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”

We don’t get to Easter without Good Friday. We don’t get the good news until Jesus defeats the death, damnation, the devil and all the devil’s empty promises. We don’t get to heaven without going through a bit of hell.

Someday, gay people will be boring, common, everyday neighbors. Someday, the best of our democracy will be applied to us. Someday, our baptisms will be just as valid as others. Someday I will not feel like a wet, soaking quilt has been placed over me by my fellow citizens. Someday, but not today.

Its raining. Its grey. Its wet. It is a wonderful day to nap.

It is not the best day to begin Major League Baseball’s most important event: The World Series. (As a side note, I have always wondered how we so mindlessly call events that happen exclusively in the US “World” anything. If the rest of the world isn’t part of it, then should we call the event “US Series or Chapmions?”)

I have begun making snarky remarks on my Facebook status updates regarding the superiority of the NY Yankees. I graduated from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia with my doctorate last year, but I live in the Bronx. Geography wins.

So, tonight in less than desirable conditions, the Phillys and the Yankees will begin their battle. Thousands and thousands will fill the new stadium. A few thousand will gather in the bars around the stadium to watch the game on tv and drink far less expensive beer. In sports bars around the country (and world? maybe we can justify the name that way) thousands will gather in their jerseys and hats to eat, drink and urge their team toward victory. The troops serving in our two wars will walk with their weapons to watch the games via satellite.

The players will be surrounded by loud, excited, shouting, praying stomping, clapping, sweating, engaged fans. When the Yankees take the field, the love will be loud. When the Phillys come on, Bronx cheers for all! This will, of course, be played out in its opposite in Philly.

This Sunday coming we will hear about another stadium, filled with loud, excited, shouting, praying, stomping clapping, sweating, engaged fans.  “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely,* and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, ²looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith…….” (Hebrews 12:1-2a)

The writer of Hebrews uses stadium imagery and puts us in the middle of the scene where those seated above us are cheering us forward, urging us toward victory by following Jesus who runs with us.

I am often asked by current, former, lapsed, questioning Roman Catholics if Lutherans pray to the saints. I am mindful of Elizabeth A. Johnson’s beautiful line of thought in her book Friends of God and Prophets. She writes of how God gathers us all, known and unknown, powerful & invisible, the remembered and forgotten, into the Communion of Saints. (you may recall saying that a few times in church during the third section of the Apostles’ Creed).

It is here, where none are lost to God, that the stadium of fans, cheering us on, come from. It is here that the saints and the heavenly host, angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim surround the heavenly throne of God and cheer us on. They are not dead, but alive in Christ. We can ask them to pray for us as we would ask a fellow earth walker to pray for us.

And, they cheer. In their jerseys, depicting their favorite team, those robes made clean by being washed in the blood of the Lamb, they cheer us as we enter the stadium, running the race, running with Jesus. When we fall or stumble, the cheer louder, when we think we can’t go on, they will us forward. When we cross the finish line, or make than walk off hit, they meet us in the victory celebration.

This stadium really is the World Series and we know who wins.

I was asked recently if I am Amish.

Back when it was warm (remember then?), I was sitting on the front steps leading into my church. I was holding court with a bunch of the men from the neighborhood, telling stories, keeping up on neighborhood news, and making political pronouncements. It felt kind of like back home, sitting on the front porch of my great grand parents’ house listening to my dad and my great uncles telling stories, making all manner of pronouncements, retelling memories.

But on this day, one of the men asked me if I’d seen some television show. I said, “I don’t have a tv.”

Everything stopped. They all stopped talking and just looked at me, like the way one would stare, with sadness and a little horror and a feeling of “I’m so glad that’s not me,” while driving past a wreck.

Then, they all began talking at once. “Mommie, do you need some money?” asked one as he pulled out his wallet. “Did your tv break and you just didn’t get another one yet?” “Did you pay your cable bill? “Are you still living at home, did you move into a shelter? Is everything ok with your family?”

I listened in unbelief. I didn’t need money, the tv we have is used only for watching dvds we get for free from the local library, we no longer have a cable bill and yes, we all still live at home and my family is safe.

“We got rid of the cable 3 years ago and where we live, there is no reception without cable.”

Suddenly, the men started yelling to other men on the street, in Spanish and English, to come over to the freak show, to talk with the woman who doesn’t have a tv.

I was peppered with questions like “What do you do with your time?” “What do you do with your wife if you’re not watching tv?” “What do you do with your kid?”

I said we read books, play games AND, talk with each other. They all shook their heads in disbelief. Each one of them said they could not live that way.

Then, one man happened upon why this fate had befallen me. He had the answer to this enigma wrapped in a mystery. “You are Amish. They are the only people who live this way.”

They all shook their heads in agreement with his clear and apparent wisdom.

I could not stop laughing. Some of these men have known me for more than a decade. They have all seen me walking around in clerics, they have all seen me in my robes, chausibles, accompanying caskets to hearses, posing with couples after weddings, standing on the same steps we were sitting on while clearly performing the work of a pastor…………a Lutheran pastor. The Amish would never, ever dress that way.

Jesus and St. Paul urged the followers of Jesus to be notably different from the rest of the world, from the people around them. There was supposed to be something distinctive and different about them. “In the world but not of the world” is the most common phrase I’ve heard.

Pamela and I did not make a decision to get rid of cable. It is the happy result from an advertised plan for FIOS that we signed up for, but which was not actually available where we live. In the 2 days we were without tv, after this non-FIOS coming to a tv near us discovery, we realized that our daughter was happily reading and we were all spending more time together and watching less horror tv (i.e. the nightly news).

Our decision to go without tv had nothing to do with religious conviction. It had nothing to do with commands or pronouncements from Jesus or St. Paul.

On Friday mornings, Pamela & I are home alone. We don’t, for a small window of time, have anywhere we must rush out to before 8am. So, we do morning prayer every Friday morning. It is a time when we can check in, reconnect, and hear the Word together. If we had a tv, we’d probably just turn it on instead and watch the news on a multitude of channels.

Instead, we tell stories, listen to each other, make our pronouncements, pray.

I’m not Amish. But, I do think they may be onto something.