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The Greatest Gift

The Highest Gift

1 Corinthians 13

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational Church

2 February 2024

            One of the most astonishing things about newborns is that they are able to imitate the facial expressions of their caregivers.  One reason this is astonishing is that newborns have never seen their own face.  Which is evidence that newborn human babies arrive with the capacity for empathy.  They almost immediately understand that they can imitate the looks and the feelings of their adult caregivers.  And almost immediately they learn that they can use their own facial expressions and feelings to compel those caregivers to attend to their needs. 

            We are so used to these behaviors in babies that we probably haven’t taken the time to realize how astonishing it is that the newborn brain functions in this way, has these incredible skills from the beginning.

            And, of course, we now understand how important that early care-giving is.  A child who receives care, attention, touch, affection will development attachment, leading to empathy, and ultimately love.

            By one a child assumes that their mind operates similarly to the other minds they encounter.  By two or three they have developed a basic understanding of empathy, understanding that others feel similarly to them.

            And that’s when children are ready for the next stage of moral development—understanding rules—taking the way you want to be treated and extending that to everyone.  If morality only operated from empathy, then we would have a rather small sphere of ethical action.  We also have to learn how to treat people well even when we don’t feel it.  As Allison Gopnik, who had studied and taught this child development, points out, “Simply relying on immediate emotion isn’t going to work. Somehow we need to extend that emotion to people we aren’t close enough to see and touch.  We need to care about people we don’t know.”

It is so much easier to mature and grow in love if we have the grounding early in our lives of being well cared for.  From that stable base of care and affection, we can expand our moral consciousness, ever-widening the circle of concern, to the point that we can extend the ethics of love to all people.

This is the goal of the human life.

James Fowler, in his classic work Stages of Faith, writes about the levels of development we pass through as we grow and mature.  In the higher stages, we become more open to other people and other ideas and do not see them as a threat to ourselves and our beliefs.  The highest stage of human development, stage 6, he calls “universalizing faith” and claims it is quite rare, found in heroes like Gandhi, King, Mother Theresa.  These are the people who express a universal love for all humanity and are willing to sacrifice themselves for that love.  They have an openness to all people and, quite simply, appear to be, as Fowler writes, “more fully human than the rest of us.”  He believes such people embody the future which we long for.

I believe this is the sort of love Paul is praising here in First Corinthians.

He ended chapter 12 by writing that he was going to tell them about the highest gift.  This directed to the people in that congregation who felt they should be developing the “higher” gifts, out of some bent desire to feel superior to other people. 

Paul has been at pains in this letter to knock some sense into those folks.  The church is a radically egalitarian community.  No one is superior to anyone else.  In fact, the folks that seem, by normal human standards, to be less important, are in the church, MORE essential.  So no Christian should lord themselves over another or mistreat anyone who is vulnerable.  Those are affronts to the Body of Christ.

And, if you actually want to be more spiritual, to pursue the highest gifts, then you need to be pursuing this universal, unconditional love.  Because not only is that the most important gift for building up the common good of the church, it is also the goal of what the best human life is.  It’s the kind of life Jesus modeled for us and invites us to follow.

Of course, reading 1 Corinthians 13 today, one can’t help but compare and contrast with the current administration and the actions they’ve taken over the last two weeks, so many of which have been devoid of mercy and compassion.  And you’ve already felt these decisions beginning to harm your friends, your family, your own lives.

It is important for us to gather in church and hear that we have not mistaken the Christian faith, we have not misunderstood morality, we have not been fools—unconditional, universal love and its expressions in grace, mercy, and compassion are what God expects of us, are what the best human life should aim for.

But this moment also means that we have to double-down on love.  We have to continue our own spiritual and emotional growth and maturation. 

So, what is God calling us to?

First, we should remember that this love talked about here isn’t a feeling.  Or isn’t just a feeling.  It is, as New Testament scholar Anthony Thiselton describes, “an attitude and habitual practice for everyday life.”

Yes, love arises for us foremost and most powerfully in feeling.  The feelings we have for our children, our spouses, our closest friends.  But mature love must expand beyond immediate feeling and begin to encompass everyone we encounter and ultimately those we never meet.

And the only way to do that is to make loving actions a part of our daily habit and routine.  Which is something you have the power to do, regardless of what’s happening on the news.  Every day you can be kind.  You can be empathetic.  You can reach out in care and concern and support to someone who is vulnerable and hurting.  You can be generous with your time or money.  You can offer to help.

Make these sorts of actions our daily habits, and we will continue to grow and develop into more loving people.

We also can’t be consumed by rage.  This week I read the book Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times by Elizabeth Oldfield.  My UCC colleague John Allen, who is a pastor in Maine, highly recommended the book, and now I’m passing that recommendation on to you.  It would be great book for you to read, right now.

In one early chapter she explores how appealing wrath is, but how we must learn to confront our rage with the skills of peacemaking.  I liked how she described this emotion—“wrath, in the form of self-righteous rage and contempt, is a compelling, borderline pleasurable emotion.”  Admit it, you’ve felt that.

She says wrath often helps us to avoid the fear, guilt, or overwhelm that we are actually feeling.  Wrath helps to distract us from those other negative thoughts, partly because it feels more powerful.  She also points out that wrath is addictive, like a sugar-high.  And that we can also use it to bond with other people in “our shared contempt.”

Any of that sound familiar?  Yeah.  She’s on-the-nose that that is one of the sins holding us back from experiencing the fully aliveness that God dreams for each of us. 

She is quick and careful to separate anger from wrath.  Anger can be healthy, effective, and required.  But wrath is that feeling that ultimately disconnects us from other people and from who God intends us to be.

So Oldfield invites us to engage in spiritual practices to confront our wrath so that we might grow in peacemaking, which is clearly one aspect of the love we are talking about today.

One practice she recommends is to make two lists.  One of the types of people you are most comfortable with and the other of the types of people you are least comfortable with.  And then to get really specific in writing down why.  Why one type of people makes you comfortable and another uncomfortable.  And she gives the instruction that you can’t write down an attribute of theirs, you have to make it about you.  What has happened in your experience that makes you feel that way?  What is it that you feel?  What is it that you fear?

And she points out that “if your list isn’t slightly painful, you’re probably not being honest.”

What’s the purpose of this exercise?  To better understand our feelings, particularly our fears.  And with a better understanding, then maybe we are less likely to get caught up in fight-or-flight mode.  Because when we are in fight-or-flight mode, we can’t summon empathy.  We can’t calmly stand-our-ground and speak truth in helpful ways.

Our turbulent times require more love.  We can’t just criticize the lack of it in other people.  We also have to focus on our own spiritual and emotional growth and maturation.

Which we can do, because we are powerful people, filled with the Holy Spirit.

In the passage we read last week, Paul contrasted weakness with the normal ways in which humans think of and use power.  And he’s rather critical of the ways humans normally use power.  Paul writes about how God works differently, using what humans consider weakness in order to achieve God’s purposes.  And love is the most important way that God works.

Which really means that love is powerful.  Not powerful in the way humans might ordinarily think of it.  But truly powerful because that’s the way the God who created the world works.  And that’s the way God designed the world to work best.  So when humans operate from love, they tap into the deepest source of real power.

I think many of you, right now, are feeling powerless.  But you are not powerless. 

Listen to these words from the feminist theologian Meggan Watterson:

The good news . . . is that true power rests within us. . . . no one outside of us can keep us from finding this power.  Because it’s not a power over us or outside us.  It’s a power that rests within us, and we can rest in it, be led by it, and be carried by it.

            And what is this power?  You’ve guessed it already.  She answers, “It’s a power that’s the opposite of power.  It’s love.”

            Later she adds, “the love that’s hidden within each of us is the only power that can save all of us.”

            You are a beloved child of God.  You are created in love.  And you are redeemed by-and-in the love that Jesus Christ demonstrated.  A love so powerful that it defeated death and through it we have the power of resurrection.  And that you-are-risen love fills every cell of your body because you are a vessel of the Holy Spirit.  Which comforts you, advocates for you, and gives you the skills and talents you need to live well and fully.  And you’ve been called into the beloved community of the church, where you are not alone, but where your gift is shared with my gift and everyone else here’s gifts, and together those gifts are multiplied to become part of God’s mission to heal humanity.

            No one can take any of that from you.

            So here is what you are capable of:

You can be patient, kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  You don’t insist on your own way; you aren’t irritable or resentful; you don’t rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoice in the truth.  You can bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things.  Because the love that empowers you never ends.


At That Time

At That Time

Jeremiah 31:1-14

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational Church

15 December 2024

            Earlier this week, the Rev. Becky McNeil, who used to attend our church here but now lives happily in retirement in Trinidad, Colorado, posted to Facebook a column John Pavlovitz had written for his blog on the negative mental health impacts of staying up with the news these days.  Pavlovitz begins:

Growing up, I was taught that knowledge was power.

I used to agree.

Now, I'm beginning to believe differently.

Now, I think it's a pain in the ass.

Right now, knowing is actually the problem.

            He continues detailing his daily stress from reading the news, before concluding, “I think responsible people of empathy are suffering from information-poisoning right now.”  And in that environment, he’s finding it more difficult to be hopeful.

            I was on a panel this week of queer clergy persons speaking to a diversity training at the Omaha Chamber of Commerce and the organizer’s last question to us was “What is something that makes you hopeful right now?”  It took us a moment to arrive at good answers.  So, I understand Pavlovitz’s feeling.  A feeling that’s likely pretty widespread.

            But while he admits that being aware is affecting his mental health, he also knows that trying to exist in blissful ignorance is not the solution.  That choice, while protecting ones mental health in the short-term, only contributes to the long-term problems facing society. 

            Instead, he decides:

If there's a way forward, it isn't in knowing less, and so I'll keep reading and learning, while trying to be wise in how and when I absorb the news so I can minimize how much turmoil it creates within me. We all need to selectively expose ourselves to media, having the discipline and restraint to know the difference between awareness and self-harm. There are ways to be blissful without being ignorant, and we all need to seek that balance.

            Which isn’t some grand insight, genius solution, but probably the best answer one can give.

            So, why bring this up today of all days—Gaudete Sunday, our annual excuse to be gaudy on the Sunday of the liturgical calendar devoted to joy?

            Well, the short answer is that if we are to find any comfort in joy, if our sorrows are to be turned into joy, as the prophet Jeremiah imagines, then we have to first start by acknowledging our current circumstances and the things that are troubling us.

            This is the great insight of the Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann, who writes in his classic little book The Prophetic Imagination that before the prophet can lead us into imagining a new and better world, the prophet first has to speak the truth about what’s going on and invite us to lament for our sorrows.

            And in this way the prophet works counter to what Brueggemann calls the “royal-consciousness.”  According to Brueggemann the ruling authorities generally don’t want people to lament their current circumstances, and so they often keep them distracted with other things.  Roman emperors used gladiatorial contests for this.  Lots of rulers throughout history have distracted people from their own failures at governance by starting a war somewhere.  These days in the West sometimes the distractions are far easier, coming in the form of easily consumed, saccharine popular culture. 

            The point of these distractions is to numb people.  Brueggemann writes that the prophet must break through the numbness and get people to genuinely feel.  The prophet must bring to public attention what is troubling people, the real fears and sorrows of the time.

            And no prophet is better about that than Jeremiah.  Today’s beautiful vision of the redeemed future is actually not a typical passage from the Book of Jeremiah.  Jeremiah is most often sad, angry, even bitter.  Brueggemann describes it as a “ministry of articulated grief.”  When you read this book, you feel the deep emotions of the prophet.  Which is exactly what the prophet wants to evoke in you.

            Only when the prophet can break through the numbness and get us to genuinely feel, can we then begin to imagine something new.

            I think this partially explains the cultural experience this country has gone through the last two weeks after the assassination of the United Health Care CEO.  The moment shattered the status quo and broke through the numbness.  People have used this opportunity to express their real anger and hurt from the way health care is managed in this country.  They employed sarcasm and dark humor to great effect.  And the more elites scolded people for not having the “right” reaction to the murder, the more upset people got.  This should become a moment then to address the real issues that have been revealed—the epidemic of gun violence, the injustices of the health care system, the feeling of masses of people in this country that they are not heard or seen and that the system is rigged against them. 

            For Walter Brueggemann, the lesson of the prophets is that newness only comes through weeping.  He writes, “The riddle and insight of biblical faith is the awareness that only anguish leads to life, only grieving leads to joy, and only embraced endings permit new beginnings.”

            This vision of the prophet of Jeremiah that we read today is part of a section of Jeremiah called by scholars “the Book of Consolation.”  After all the grief, sadness, anger, and bitterness of earlier parts of Jeremiah, now the prophet turns to consoling.  And what a beautiful vision it is.

            Terence Fretheim, another great Bible scholar who was one of Jim Harmon’s seminary professors, describes this passage:

The return to everyday life of the village, with its familiar tasks and joys, are given special attention.  God is imaged as a loving, nurturing parent (both as father and mother), comforting those who sorrow and caring for the needs of a bruised community.  It is as if God is finally able to get back to doing what God has always wanted to do for this people.

            Our Advent series this year is focusing on an aspect of the vision of God’s deliverance that we find in the Hebrew prophets—it’s everdayness in the here and now.  When the Hebrew prophets imagine what God’s redemption of the people will look like, it is not a militaristic triumph.  It is not a powerful hero leading the people into a new golden age.  It is not some impossible to believe utopia.  It’s radicality is in how mundane the visions are.  Such as last week in the passage we read from Zechariah where he imagines old folks sitting in the public square and children being free and safe to play.

            What does Jeremiah imagine that God’s steadfast love and deliverance will bring the people?  That they’ll go dancing with their tambourines.  That they’ll plant vineyards and get to enjoy the fruit of their labor.  That the children and the disabled will be gathered together.  That people will join together in singing over the harvest.  That young people will make merry with one another.  That priests will be able to eat enough to get fat.  But most importantly, sorrows will be consoled.  After the tears will come the joy.

            What is being imagined is a new creation, built on God’s love for the people.  And one that invites the people themselves to participate in what is being created and built.  Terence Fretheim proclaims: “Their lives will become like a watered garden, flourishing and fruitful, and they will never (!) languish again.” 

            Now, to return to Walter Brueggemann’s analysis of the prophetic imagination.  After the prophet has broken through the numbness and gotten people to feel, then they can finally move toward something new.  Brueggemann calls this “prophetic energizing and the emergence of amazement.” 

            He writes, “It is the task of prophetic imagination and ministry to bring people to engage the promise of newness that is at work in our history with God.”

            The ruling regime wants to inhibit the imagination from dreaming of new, different, better things.  The prophet wants to expand our horizons and get us dreaming, imagining, envisioning all sorts of ways that everything can be better.

            What if guns weren’t so easy to get?  What if young men were formed in different ways that helped them avoid turning their anger into violence?  What if we didn’t have a for-profit health care system?  What if people could receive the care they need without all the forms, phone calls, and bureaucratic headaches that pile on the stress and despair?  Are any of these really that difficult to imagine? 

            Here’s Brueggemann again, “The task of prophetic imagination and ministry is to bring to public expression those very hopes and yearnings that have been denied so long and suppressed so deeply that we no longer know they are there.”

            What breaks through the despair and provides us hope, according to Brueggemann, is “the language of amazement.” 

            And here, I think, is the purpose that these joyful visions of ordinary life serve.  We can imagine these worlds—where the old folks have a chance to rest, where public spaces are safe, peaceful, and beautiful, where children have the freedom to play, where abundance is shared more equitably, where people receive the care they need when they are hurting, in pain and despair, where youth can make merry with one another, where people sing and dance because they are happy, where we can do the work we find meaningful and enjoy the fruits of that labor, where we all come together to celebrate the achievements of our community.  

            These are not impossible to imagine.  That such a world feels impossible is a result of how we’ve been distracted and numbed and trained to limit our vision for what is possible.

            But what’s best about these visions of ordinary life is that they are joyful.  They’re just . . . fun.  God invites us to have fun.  To enjoy ourselves.  To enjoy each other.  To enjoy our blessings.  This isn’t rocket science.  We ought to be living lives of delight. 

            Do not let fear, anger, the bad news rob us of what we deserve as God’s children—JOY!


Support 439, Oppose 434

Welcome this afternoon to First Central Congregational Church.  I am the Rev. Dr. Scott Jones, Senior Minister of this congregation.  We are one of the oldest Protestant congregations in this city, and have resided in this spot in the Blackstone neighborhood for 101 years. 

Today we religious and faith leaders are here to support ballot measure 439 and oppose ballot measure 434.  We do so as people of faith, because we are people of faith.

My own tradition, the United Church of Christ, is descended from the Pilgrims and the Puritans who came to this continent seeking freedom and autonomy, and our denomination has long supported reproductive justice and the freedom of people to choose their own health care,
including the right to an abortion.  In 1971 we called for all legal prohibitions to end, and for abortion to be removed from the category of penal law.  We declared that “voluntary and medically safe abortions [should be] legally available to all women.”

And so, as a Christian and as a pastor, I oppose ballot measure 434, which would give politicians control over personal medical decisions and force women to carry pregnancies against their will.  This ballot measure disrespects the fundamental freedoms we are entitled to as children of God--the very liberties that my religious ancestors fought and died for.

And, as a Christian and a pastor, I support ballot measure 439 which will end the current abortion ban and align with the doctrinal teachings of my Christian faith.  We should respect women and doctors, giving women control of their own medical decisions and letting physicians fulfill their vocation to care for the health and well-being of their patients.

In the United Church of Christ we proclaim that all Christians should “work toward a society where a full range of reproductive options are available to all women regardless of economic circumstances.”

So as a Christian and a pastor, I encourage you to oppose ballot measure 434 and support ballot measure 439.


Zealots

David von Drehle's column in today's WaPo attacking the anti-IVF zealots is worth a read.  He states unequivocally (and from personal experience), "the perverse result is that the supposed champions of families and babies are targeting the very families that want babies the most."

The column concludes powerfully:

I don’t think any people alive care more about the miracle of conception, the viability of a fetus and the gift of life than IVF patients. No one suffers more acutely or weeps more bitterly over unborn babies; they are, after all, holes at the centers of our lives. How can a person of faith fail to see the creative power of God in the intelligence that makes such reproductive technology possible? What crabbed theology sees God at work in sperm and eggs and reproductive organs, yet finds only sin in the brains of scientists and doctors? Lord save us from the zealots.


Hermeneutic Labor!

I've often talked and taught about hermeneutics in my role as a pastor, but was pleasantly surprised to see the term appear here in an article on dating, and the coining of a new term "hermeneutic labor"!

P. S.  I can also talk about emotionally stunted men, but we'll save that for another time.

The academic paper on Hermeneutic Labor is worth a perusal too.  

Hermeneutic labor is the burdensome activity of: understanding and coherently expressing one's own feelings, desires, intentions, and motivations; discerning those of others; and inventing solutions for relational issues arising from interpersonal tensions. 

***

Related to emotional labor but distinct from it, hermeneutic labor is the burdensome activity of a) understanding one's own feelings, desires, intentions, and motivations, and presenting them in an intelligible fashion to others when deemed appropriate; b) discerning others’ feelings, desires, intentions, and motivations by interpreting their verbal and nonverbal cues, including cases when these are minimally communicative or outright avoidant; and c) comparing and contrasting these multiple sets of feelings, desires, intentions, and motivations for the purposes of conflict resolution. Hermeneutic labor is related to emotional labor because it works on the emotions—and, more broadly, the emotional domain of interpersonal life. Yet it is distinct from emotional labor because it pertains to explicit processes of interpreting emotions (as well as desires, intentions, and motivations) through cognitive processes, such as deliberating and ruminating. 

***

According to hermeneutics, the work of interpretation is a complex and learned skill, one element of which is understanding one's own prejudices as one investigates various layers of meaning. This requires skills in self-reflection, as well as nuanced and often intimate acquaintance with the meaning of cues from others. Hermeneutics recognizes that communication happens within a world of interpreters with cognitive biases, and thus encourages actively resisting the illusion that individual expression will be transparently received as intended by the person(s) to whom it is expressed. “A hermeneutically trained consciousness” must be sensitive to alterity (Gadamer Reference Gadamer, Weinsheimer and Marshall2004, 271).

***

The skills involved in emotional labor come into play primarily in rapid responses to dynamic social situations with other people in real time. By contrast, hermeneutic labor primarily involves patient, deliberative reflection, and is generally undertaken in solitary rumination and/or in conversations outside of the situations on which it labors, as in conversations with friends or counselors. Hermeneutic labor reflects on social encounters after they occur, and prepares plans for future encounters. This may include reflecting on how they made one feel—and whether that feeling was appropriate to the situation—as well as reflecting how others may have felt in the situation, and whether one should respond to others differently in similar situations in the future. It also often involves attempts to infer another's mental and emotional state and make judgments about their personality by synthesizing multiple impressions one has received from another person over time. Emotional labor is the nurse extending a warm smile and squeeze of the hand as an elderly patient recounts a story from their past that the nurse has heard many times already; hermeneutic labor is the nurse wondering on the ride home whether her response was appropriate, and whether next time she might be able to tell the patient that she's heard the story before without hurting the patient's feelings.


An Ending & A Beginning

And Ending & A Beginning

Luke 21:5-19

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational Church

13 November 2022

            Today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel is noticeably different from everything else we’ve read this autumn.  It isn’t a parable.  It isn’t really a story about Jesus.  It is Jesus giving answers to questions about end of the world.  Particularly here about the end of the Temple and how that relates to the end of time and the coming reign of God.

            This sort of discourse is known as “apocalyptic.”  The common understanding of the word apocalypse suggests catastrophes at the end of time.  But the literal translation of the Greek word into English is “unveiling.”  Apocalyptic discourse, then, lifts back the veil to expose what’s really going on—how history and the cosmos really function as a contest between good and evil.

            So, with those words of introduction, let’s listen to Jesus:

            Luke 21:5-19

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”

They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?”  And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’  Do not go after them.

“When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.”  Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

“But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.  This will give you an opportunity to testify.  So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.  You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death.  You will be hated by all because of my name.  But not a hair of your head will perish.  By your endurance you will gain your souls.

For the Word of God in scripture,

For the Word of God within us,

For the Word of God among us,

Thanks be to God.

            A month ago Katie and I were in Sioux City, Iowa for the Joint Annual Meeting of the Nebraska, South Dakota, and Iowa Conferences of the United Church of Christ, our denomination.  This was our first in person gathering since June 2019, so there was much warmth, joy, and celebration as we actually saw people in the flesh, rather than a Zoom box.  We got to hug and shake hands and share meals and drinks and laughter.  And you could just feel the strengthening of connections, the relaxing of tensions, the sense that we had come through some difficult days together.

            As usual, a table with books for sale was there in the exhibit hall.  I’m a sucker for such a thing, of course.  And I walked away with a small stack of books, including some new children’s books for our children’s library here at church.

            One volume I was deeply interested in, and have already read, is a collection of essays by prominent theologians entitled Doing Theology in Pandemics: Facing Viruses, Violence, and Vitriol

            In her foreword for the book, Pamela Lightsey states, “This book makes clear that a pandemic is a kind of apocalypse—a revealing.” 

            As I reflected on this idea and the ways it is fleshed out in the book’s essays, it became clearer that we’ve lived through an apocalypse in both senses of that word—a major catastrophe that ended the world as we knew it and a moment when the veil is pulled away and hidden truths are revealed.

            Think of what all was revealed.  The failures of governments and health care systems.  The health impacts of systemic racism.  The way different socio-economic classes were impacted.  How refugee meat packers and minimum wage store clerks died so that others could be safe and comfortable at home. 

How fraught and fragile our systems of childcare and education are.  How unprepared each of us was.  How at risk we were for mental illness, and how little prepared society was to support those needs.

How supply chains do and don’t work and what the impacts of those disruptions would be on normal life.  How workers had had enough and quit.  How sectors of our economy are now rapidly adjusting.

How much we can and cannot trust our family, friends, neighbors, or fellow citizens to put the common interest above self-interest.

And without all the normal escapes and distractions to occupy our attention, we were able to watch when George Floyd was murdered and so there was a massive uprising against police brutality and systemic racism, a major reckoning impacting every sector of society, and the ensuing backlash.

And in these years we’ve been compelled to pay more attention to the effects of the changing climate and how we’ve come so close to the brink of catastrophe so stupidly.  How governments seem incapable of effectively dealing with all of the major dangers we face.

And piled on top of all of that a rise in autocracy, a senseless and brutal war in Europe, and threats of more war in the Pacific.

“Permacrisis” was picked as the word of the year by a British dictionary.  I’ve also seen the word “polycrisis” recently. 

So, this reading from Luke, which a few years ago would have seemed to us kind of crazy, doesn’t sound so crazy anymore.

This summer, while on my sabbatical, I read a lot on how we as a community can be faithful and resilient as the climate changes and impacts everything about lives.  It was sobering reading, some writers more hopeful and comforting, and some less so.  The theologian Timothy Gorringe opened his book with the question, Is a dark age coming? And came to the conclusion: “I think we have to say that civilizational collapse is likely.”  His subsequent chapters do lay out what we might do to prevent it and what we should do to survive it, as faithful followers of Jesus.  His main advice is a “rigorous return to the traditions, practices, and virtues that Christians have nourished for so many centuries.”  For the small communities of the church to focus on being the church and doing what we do best because that’s what we can do “to keep human beings human in the dark ages already upon us.” 

He sounds a lot like the final verse from today’s Gospel, “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”  Vital to our faithfulness will be remaining grace, generous, hopeful, and joyful in these times.  That is the gift from God we give ourselves, our fellow congregants, and the wider world.

The great theologian Rita Nakashima Brock contends that what has happened to all of us is a form of moral injury.  Our moral consciences have become “ungrounded from our pre-catastrophe identities.”  And while she provides some insights in how to care for ourselves and heal from the trauma, she also believes this apocalypse is an opportunity to change things for the better, and we absolutely must take the opportunity.

“How do we feel our way through an apocalypse?” asks Cody Sanders, the American Baptist chaplain at Harvard.  Because we’ve been living through the end of the world as we knew it, Sanders says we have been overwhelmed by fear, anger, and sadness.  All of these are appropriate emotions, but he worries that they might become pervasive moods.  In order to avoid that, we need to care for ourselves and one another.  We need to care for these emotions.  How?

First, he gives us a dose of reality—this “Isn’t the first ending the world has faced, and there are many endings yet to come.”  Which is the value of reading this crazy passage from the Gospel of Luke.  Jesus’s listeners did live through apocalyptic times, when the Temple was destroyed, and then a generation later Jerusalem itself was laid waste.  Christians lived through the fall of Rome and the sacking of Constantinople.  My grandparents and great-grandparents dealt with world wars, the Great Depression, and the Spanish flu. 

In other words, we’ve been through these times before.  And we can look to the past for wisdom and guidance.  And be reminded that the world can be made otherwise, that we can create a better world, that times like these are also vital opportunities, and, thus, periods of hope and growth.

So, we need to cultivate other emotions that care for the fear, anger, and sadness, we are feeling.  We need to grieve our losses, we need to practice gratitude for our blessings, we need to cultivate a sense of wonder at what is good and beautiful in the world.  And he recommends that these skills are best acquired in communities, like the church. 

Where does Jesus leave his questioners and listeners?  In typical biblical fashion he reminds them, “do not fear.”  Be aware and be realistic of what is happening.  Times will be difficult, but we can do difficult things.  And the reason is because God is with you.  Jesus says he will give us the words and the wisdom we need.  And “by your endurance you will gain your souls.”

As faithful followers of Jesus, we have felt all the emotions, as we’ve lived through this apocalyptic time.  We’ve been afraid, angry, and sad.  And as faithful followers of Jesus, we aren’t going to get stuck there, are we?  We have been grieving our losses and are cultivating a rich emotional and spiritual life, full of gratitude, wonder, generosity, and joy.  This is a time of opportunities, a time for vision and mission.  This is a new beginning, and we Christians are the “eternal beginners.”  W are beloved children of God, called to serve, with gifts to give the world.   


Doing Theology in Pandemics

Doing Theology in PandemicsDoing Theology in Pandemics by Zachary Moon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In a profound essay that opens this volume, Rita Nakashima Brock contends that the pandemic "created the conditions for an apocalypse, an unveiling of moral truth in the midst of the collapse of powerful malevolent systems."

She goes on to write about how we have all experienced moral injury during the pandemic and confrontations against racial injustice and police brutality. Her essay is the best theological reflection I've read yet on the pandemic.

The other excellent essay in this collection is Cody Sanders's "Feeling Our Way through an Apocalypse." He grapples with the emotions elicited from the end of the world as we know it. We care for our anger, fear, and sadness by cultivating wonder, gratitude, and grief, in community.

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More Responses

Jill Lepore wrote a powerful piece at The New Yorker showing how poorly the justices are using history.  As one of our best historians, she knows history. Her piece focuses on the gun case.  If you couple this piece with the Adam Serwer Atlantic article I posted the other day, you get a good sense of the most profound confusions of these rulings.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Rubin has been on a roll over at the NYTimes with what feels like 2 or 3 columns a day.  Her latest calls for a "pro-privacy movement" to fight against the Christian Nationalism of the court majority.