Whoever walks in integrity walks securely,
     but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.
     --Proverbs 10:9 NIV

This week in my e-mails I will be reflecting on the book A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life by Parker Palmer.  Palmer is one of the authors who has guided my own faith journey, and I often recommend his writings to people questioning the direction of their lives.  In this book, he describes the costs of compartmentalizing our innermost identities and beliefs away from the outward actions and false identities we present to others.

In A Hidden Wholeness, he writes,

Afraid that our inner light will be extinguished or our inner darkness exposed, we hide our true identities from each other.  In the process we become separated from our own souls.  We end up living divided lives so far removed from truth we hold within that we cannot know the integrity that comes from being what you are.

When our lives become divided, our inner self and real convictions separate from our outer selves and actions, we pay a price and so do those around us.
Palmer provides examples of living the divided life:

• We refuse to invest ourselves in our work, diminishing its quality and distancing ourselves from those it is meant to serve

 

• We make our living at jobs that violate our basic values, even when survival does not absolutely demand it

 

• We remain in settings or relationships that steadily kill our spirits

 

• We harbor secrets to achieve personal gain at the expense of other people

 

• We hide our beliefs from those who disagree with us to avoid conflict, challenge, and change.
• We conceal our true identities for fear of being criticized, shunned or attacked.

He describes how these examples come from something deeper than a lack of ethics.  In today’s culture, ethics can become merely an external code of conduct, a “moral exoskeleton” that we can slip off whenever it suits us.  Inner integrity is necessary to join our actions to our deepest selves.

Palmer wrote A Hidden Wholeness, about fifteen years ago when the news headlines still featured corporate scandals like Worldcom and Enron, the financial crisis was only beginning to reveal the extent immoral lending practices by the nation’s largest banks would have on the economy, and the clergy sexual abuse scandal was revealed with its horrific consequences for thousands of children.  In our present time, things have not become any better.  In a world of “alternative facts” where blatant deception is presented as “truth,” our culture demonstrates the consequences of people living divided lives.

Palmer uses the image of a blizzard to describe the confusing times we find ourselves in. 

The was a time when farmers on the Great Plains, at the first sign of a blizzard, would run a rope from the back door out to the barn.  They all knew stories of people who had wandered off and been frozen to death, having lost sight of home in a whiteout while still in their own backyards.
​
The blizzard of our culture “swirls with economic injustice, ecological ruin, physical and spiritual violence.”  The confusion of our times may leave us thinking there is no hope for things like “truth and justice, love and forgiveness” to guide our lives.  Yet, Palmer declares we remain in “the soul’s backyard, with chance after chance to regain our bearings.”  The guide rope in our “blizzards” comes in the form of “trustworthy relationships, tenacious communities of support.”  Such relationships should happen in a faith community (sadly the often do not), but also come in support groups, faithful work colleagues and healthy friendships and families.

Most of all, our ultimate guide rope comes from the One who created us and in whose image we are made.  God knows our true selves, because God knows us best of all.  The God made manifest in Jesus Christ does not stand apart from us as a punishing judge but comes near to us offering grace upon grace to guide us back to who we were created to be.  As humans, we may always struggle to discover the wholeness God offers us, choosing to live with our actions divorced from our deepest truths, but God remains with us along the way assuring us we can discover ways of being that cause less pain to ourselves and others, new ways of peace and joy.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

     “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as
      yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.” Leviticus 19:34
​
The report came out this past week that the Department of Homeland Security is advising asylum seekers to ‘learn to deal with homelessness’. Yes, we the people of the United States are putting policy in place that nearly guarantees homelessness for a many of those coming to us as refugees.

This goes so strongly against scripture. As Leviticus states, it is not how God intends for us to treat the foreigner. Yet we are allowing it to become policy. As Christians, we cannot remain silent about this and we must reject such policy, and stand on the principle Jesus taught us:

     “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one
     another.” John 13:34

A broader picture of this comes to mind. As we sit comfortably in our reopening churches and try to recapture the days gone by, are we accepting the “foreigner”? Not just those coming to this country, fleeing poverty, war, terror and injustice, but also those just outside our building walls? Don’t we treat those outside our ‘bubble’ as foreigners as well?

In the sermon Sunday, which can be reviewed at our website (parkhillcc.org) or YouTube Channel (Park Hill Christian Church KC) or even on Facebook (Park Hill Christian Church KCMO), we learned of the slave woman Hagar. In a sense, she was a ‘foreigner’. As a slave she had no say in her life. She came from Egypt into Abraham’s family. She was treated cruelly and with contempt, an outsider to the family. Yet God was with her.

Outside our walls there are many ‘foreigners’, many such as Hagar. God is with them and He wants us to be with them as well. In his email message last week Reverend Peeples wrote of Father Gregory Boyle’s message of ‘ripping the roof off’ and how we have become so comfortable in our club house that we have forgotten to reach outside the walls. Isn’t it true, just as on a national scale we are putting policies in place to turn away the ‘foreigner’, we have put practices in place to turn them away from our churches? This is not what Jesus would do.

In fact, we are told.
     “… who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” I Timothy 2:4

Jesus came so that all might be saved, including the ‘foreigner’. And what is even more evident, as we learn from Hagar’s story, God is already there. He is with the ‘foreigner’ making a way for them in the desert. We are called to be a part of that, not a stumbling block.

Whether on a national level or at the local community, we must open our hearts and our doors to the stranger. We must step out in faith and trust that the Lord of Lords is going to lead us into a new revival with all those around us. As Reverend Peeples stated, Jesus is already out there, it is time we step out of our comfortable club house and begin welcoming the ‘foreigners’ all around us.

It is time to stop the petty bickering and jealous control of resources and reach out to a world broken and hurting.

It is time to show the love of Christ to all people in real and substantial ways.

The time is now to end the practice and policy of division and to bring together all the people for the glory of the Lord.

Let our voices be heard in the neighborhood, the cities, the nations; we are the people of God and we will move as God moves to protect, serve and honor all peoples, for it is His will that none will be lost.

Kathy Hendrix

In my sermon last Sunday, I shared a story from Father Gregory Boyle’s book, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion.  As I have shared in this week’s daily e-mails, Boyle was assigned to Dolores Mission in the late 1980’s in one of the poorest and most gang-ridden parts of Los Angeles.  The inspiring story of how this small congregation began to transform the neighborhood around it has been told in Boyle’s writings, documentaries and news stories.  They created Homeboy Industries to provide work, education, life skill training, addiction counseling and spiritual direction to young people wanting out of gangs and a better life.  Boyle and the congregation did this, because their own mindset changed from viewing the needs in their community as someone else’s problems to seeing the people in their community as connected to the church.

As I shared last Sunday, Dolores Mission began to house homeless undocumented people in their church building.  The men slept in the sanctuary and well, the sanctuary began to smell.  Boyle addressed the congregation one service and asked, “What does our church smell like?”

Nobody spoke at first, but finally an older man that didn’t care what others thought of him chimed in, “It smells like feet!”

Boyle asked, “Why does it smell that way?”

Someone else spoke, “Because we allow homeless men to sleep here.”

Boyle asked, “Why would a church do that?”

A third person spoke, “Because it is what Jesus would do.”

Boyle asked, “So what does our church smell like?”

The original older man yelled out, “It smells like community!”

Jesus taught us when he washed his disciples’ feet that the Holy Spirit can make stinky feet smell like community.  Yet, Jesus’ followers have had trouble from the very beginning right up until the present day remembering our job is to serve others in Christ’s name even when it means things get a little smelly.  We have preferred things neat and tidy and built beautiful buildings that become things we serve rather than functioning as tools to serve others.  Whether it was healing a woman’s withered hand on the sabbath, his disciples picking grain on the sabbath or overturning tables at the temple, Jesus threw out all religious propriety in favor of caring for people. 

Like most suburban American churches, Park Hill Christian Church has done a good job caring for its church building, but it has faltered when it comes to maximizing the building for ministry to its community.  Don’t get me wrong, PHCC is better than some churches I could name that treat their buildings like museums never to be disturbed, however, even in non-pandemic times, PHCC has a whole lot of real estate sitting unused a lot of the time.  Every church member knows groups, organizations, and non-profit agencies that want to address the needs of the Northland but lack the space to do so.  It’s time for all church members to invite those groups to partner with PHCC and for this church to share the fine building it has been blessed with.

Fair warning—opening up your church building to your community means it might start to smell differently.  If a congregation of faithful people are open to the Holy Spirit, however, what smells bad at first will start to smell an awful lot like community.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
--Matthew 5:11-12 NRSV

Over the years I’ve received a steady stream of hate mail.  Sometimes the hate mail comes from an anonymous church member slipping a critical note under my office door.  Other times the hate mail arrives in my email inbox from a church member with an ax to grind about something I said (or usually that they think I said) in a sermon.  My favorite hate mail is the kind that actually arrives in the mail, usually neatly typed from some “Christian” somewhere correcting my theology.  Usually this latter type shows up when I have spoken publicly about justice issues, especially when I have spoken publicly as a faith leader about equal rights and inclusion for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people. 

I feel I must be doing something right if somebody gets mad, because I’m using my privilege to speak up for people being marginalized or oppressed, because that’s what Jesus did and look what happened to him.

I’m not talking about persecution in the way TV preachers and members of the Religious Right talk about it—as if a secular humanist world is out to destroy their faith.  Instead I’m talking about the kind of hate mail that comes when somebody feels their status or beliefs are threatened when groups they condemn are treated like human beings.  A lot of folks who call themselves Christian act as if God’s love is in limited supply; if God shows extravagant grace to somebody else that means less for them.  Such folks have found their identities in condemning others rather than in receiving grace from God.  If something I’ve said or done makes such people angry, then I feel like I’ve done my job as a minister.

Jesus demonstrated compassion (literally “suffering with”) humanity, and that kind of oneness threatens everyone who profits from keeping people divided from one another.  This is why Jesus tells his followers to expect opposition and even persecution.  People who believe their well-being depends upon other people’s oppression never respond kindly to having their zero-sum game called into question.

In his book, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, Father Gregory Boyle tells the story of what happened when his church Dolores Mission in east Los Angeles declared itself a sanctuary church in the late 1980’s.  They began providing shelter for undocumented people from Mexico and Central America, and as is the case any time a church truly helps oppressed people, the media showed up.  So did opposition. 

One day, Boyle showed up to find the words “Wetback Church” spray painted on the church building.   He went to a previously scheduled meeting with women of the church, and he told them he would get it cleaned it up.  One of the women named Petra who rarely spoke in meetings suddenly took charge.

“You will not clean that up.  If there are people in our community who are disparaged and hated and left out because they are mejados (wetbacks), then we shall be proud to call ourselves a wetback church.”

Boyle writes that Petra and the other women “didn’t just want to serve the less fortunate, they were anchored in some profound sense of oneness with them and became them.”  He goes on to say that this type of compassion is what Jesus demonstrated.  “The strategy of Jesus is not centered in taking the right stand on issues, but rather in standing in the right place—with the outcast and those relegated to the margins.’

I think part of the reason churches are dying in America today and why we are less culturally relevant than ever is because we have played it safe for too long.  Once upon a time, your status in your community depended in part upon what church you belonged to.  Once church membership was as essential to fitting in to suburban life as belonging to a neighborhood association or a rotary club.  Being a part of a church, meant fitting in and fitting in meant security.  Yet, such security, safety and fitting in cannot be found when we read the Gospels.  Younger generations searching for meaning and purpose no longer want what their parents wanted from a church, and maybe that is a good thing.  Maybe our expectations of what a church should be were reflections of a white suburban mindset rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I think it is fair to ask if a church never faces any opposition or persecution on behalf of people who are marginalized and oppressed really a church?  If a church really wishes to show compassion for other people the way Jesus did, then it will ultimately cost that church something.  There is a difference between charity (where one person gives something they probably didn’t need anyway to someone of less power and means who needs that something desperately) and compassion which says we are one, we are in this together and what we each have we share with one another. 

A church that operates with compassion like Jesus understands that in God’s eyes there is no difference between the person serving and the person being served.  That kind of radical reframing of power, status and influence upsets people who depend upon such things to determine their own worth.  They will not react with kindness but with outrage. 

But here’s the beautiful truth that Jesus understood and what he gives to us if we will only receive it: the joy we receive from demonstrating compassion for others far surpasses any hate we receive for doing so.  This is why Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you.”

A church that doesn’t receive hate mail is a church that has played it too safe.  A church that has played it too safe has missed out on the joy Jesus has promised.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

     “At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that
     came down from heaven.” John 6:41
     “Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh
     to eat?” John 6:52

The Jews grumbled, they argued, they did not see with spiritual eyes. These two verses from John are a part of one the most amazing discourses (John 6:25 – 59) in the gospels. Jesus states who he is and what it means to follow him. And the Jews miss the point. Sometimes, so do we.

This passage takes place the morning after Jesus has fed the 5,000 plus. The people wake to find Jesus has left and so they chase him down to Capernaum. They ask when he got there and really are not ready for his response. Jesus knows why they have followed him, not for the hours long teaching of the previous day under the hot Judean sun. They haven’t searched him out for more wisdom. And he plainly let’s them know he knows it has to do with the feeding them physically, not spiritual that they have sought him out.

They blindly argue that Moses gave them manna in the wilderness. Jesus corrects them,

     “Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from
     heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God
     is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” John 6:22 – 23 

Yet they miss the point. Then when they demand this “bread of life” they demand a miracle from him. They are unprepared for his statement,

     “Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and
     whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” John 6:35

They grumble.

Jesus takes it further; he stretches the metaphor to a point of vulgarity.

     “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.
     This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” John 6:51

They argue. In their feeble understanding they believe him to say they must cannibalize him. “Eat His Flesh”. What an impossible thing to hear.

Most of us have heard the theology of this passage over and over. Of course, Jesus isn’t advocating cannibalism, not physically anyway. But on a spiritual level there is much more to this metaphor than just a wafer and glass of juice or wine at communion.

The whole point of this very direct discourse is the taking on of Christ. In this passage he is pointing out that he will lay down his life for everyone and that unless we take part in that we are missing the point. Repeatedly Paul talks of laying down our lives as Christ did, being a servant to the least, so that God might be glorified. In Galatians Paul says,

     “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
     Galatians 3:27

When we come to communion are, we putting on Christ? When we were baptized did, we cloth ourselves as Christ? Each time we take communion we are told, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Are we doing that? Are we feeding the 5000? Or are we just living out an ideal?

If we are truly taking in the bread of life, shouldn’t we also be feeding the poor?

If we are truly taking in the bread of life, shouldn’t we be helping the widow, the orphan, the refugee?

If we are truly taking in the bread of life, shouldn’t we be fighting against oppression and injustice?

If we are truly taking the bread of life, what are we doing for the least of these?

Jesus’ language was harsh in John 6:25 – 59, it needed to be, because as we read further in John 6, it separates those who are willing to follow from those are just looking for a magic worker. John states many disciples fell away. We need to reread this passage again and again and read it with spiritual eyes that are unflinching to the vulgarity of what Jesus suggest in the ‘eating of his flesh’.

We cannot come to the table and partake without understanding what the bread truly represents. If we are to be disciples, true disciples of Christ we must recognize that the eating of the bread is a commitment not just of remembrance, but of action.

We must do it without grumbling or argument. We must fully accept our responsibility to our neighbor. And we must “put on the clothing of Christ” and work diligently in this world to rescue the least of these.

Kathy Hendrix

I was in my late thirties before I recall hearing the word “Juneteenth.”  I was serving a church in St. Joseph, MO and the African American community in that small city had a Juneteenth celebration each June 19.  I recall asking, “What is Juneteenth?” and when I heard the answer wondering why I had never heard of the holiday before?

“Juneteenth” is a shortened form of “June 19”, which was the date in 1965 when the Emancipation Proclamation was finally declared in the last Confederate state to hear it.  When Union troops landed in Galveston, TX on June 19, 1865, the Union general made a public proclamation that all enslaved people were free.  Many slaveholders in Confederate states took their slaves to Texas for fear of the slaves being freed by Union troops.  By the original Juneteenth, an estimated 250,000 enslaved African Americans were in Texas.  The celebration that ensued in Galveston after the general’s words inspired future celebrations.

Part of honoring Juneteenth is the recognition that Lincoln declared slaves in Confederate states free as of January 1, 1865, but it took almost two and a half years for that to become known in all the Confederate states.  Justice, when it comes to race, is always delayed.  Indeed, Lincoln’s proclamation only applied to slaves in Confederate states, and it wasn’t until the Thirteenth Amendment was passed on December 6, 1865 that slaves in Union states were officially freed.  The emancipation of slaves in Texas wasn’t settled law until Texas Supreme Court decisions in 1874.  Historians and activists today note that real freedom for African Americans has been hard won only in steps through Jim Crow up until the present moment. 

I never learned about Juneteenth in any of my formal education.  I also didn’t learn about redlining and racial housing segregation in Kansas City and every other American city.  I learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. but I didn’t know the history of lynchings across the country including Kansas City.  I learned George Washington’s teeth were made of wood, but I only recently discovered some of them were human teeth that came from his slaves.  I learned about our Founding Fathers, but I didn’t learn that many of them were slaveholders who believed in brutal violence against their human property.  Why did it take so long for me to learn such things? 

I believe most white people of my generation and older are having to re-learn American history or maybe un-learn the way it was taught to us.  The advances in technology and the small steps towards racial equality have meant more voices are being heard than ever before.  I grew up in predominantly white spaces where educators knowingly or unknowingly taught me things like the Civil War was about states’ rights rather than slavery.  I visited southern plantations where tour guides refused to talk about the brutal lives of enslaved people.  In sum, I learned a “whitewashed” history that failed to reckon with centuries of slavery and state sponsored racism.  My learning curve has been pretty steep.

White folks have a choice to make, we can view our new understandings about America’s history as an attack upon our identities, getting defensive and viewing ourselves as victims or we can respond with humility, listening, learning and allowing ourselves to take in painful but ultimately redemptive new ideas. 

I grew up with a white Jesus too.  My children’s Bible had a Jesus who looked Norwegian!  As I grew up and came to understand Jesus was a brown Semitic man who didn’t look like me, I still didn’t understand the significance of a whitewashed Jesus.  It wasn’t until I ended up with two black sons and I read to them from a children’s Bible each night at bedtime, that I fully understood how important it was for my brown boys to see pictures where Jesus was brown too.  How we tell the stories of our past matters in ways and at a level white folks like me grew up not having to understand, but if we truly wish to love our neighbors as ourselves, we have to re-learn/un-learn history (including our religious history) as we have known it.

An essential part of learning is admitting what one doesn’t know.  I admit I have a lot to learn about the history of racism in America.  An essential part of being a Christian is learning the stories of other people, I also admit I have a lot to learn about the history of suffering by African Americans.

If you would like to learn more about Juneteenth and participate with African Americans envisioning a new world, there are plenty of opportunities to do so.  One good option happens on June 27 noon-1:30 pm.  The Greater Kansas City Disciples will offer a Juneteenth commemoration via Zoom.  It will include presentations on KC history and a Q&A time.  kcdisciples.org

Grace and Peace,
Chase

​“Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.”
--Exodus 20:8 NRSV
 
I remember life before I had seasonal allergies.  Whatever was blooming had no effect on me; that all changed in my late thirties.  Now I get them bad and although Zyrtec is my daily drug of choice, there are some days when I try every over the counter option out there only to get no relief.  True confession: prior to suffering allergies myself, I secretly thought people with allergies were making it up and being dramatic; I had no idea how bad it can be. 
 
I recently had the kind of bad allergy day that strikes me only once or twice a year.  I was sleepy in the middle of the afternoon and took a nap.  When I woke, the pressure in my sinuses was immense—I literally felt like somebody was pumping air into the empty spaces in my skull!  I shambled downstairs to have dinner with the family, but my wife took one look at me and said, “Go back to bed.  You look miserable.”  I skipped dinner and remained in bed until the following morning.  I think I literally needed to remain asleep until the air cleared. 
 
This never used to happen to me.  It seems bizarre that I would need to just collapse in such a manner.  This kind of breakdown makes me want to look up at the sky and scream, “What the heck?”  (Except replace the word “heck” with the expletive of your choice.)
 
I’m a minister, so I’m always looking to find some spiritual meaning out of my experiences, even if those meanings are sometimes forced.  So my collapse due to allergies has got me thinking about the idea of rest.  Sometimes our minds and our hearts are so full, we need to just collapse into rest.  When the pressure gets too great, the best thing we can do is stop, because the very air we are breathing is filled with stuff triggering a reaction inside of us that necessitates halting our activity immediately.
 
I preach, teach and write about cultivating a spiritual life, but I have to cop to being pretty bad at it myself.  I’m addicted to activity.  I feel a sense of guilt or shame when I stop and rest.  Part of the secret thrill of resting for me is a sense that I am getting away with something.  I should be doing “something worthwhile,” I think when I’m taking a nap, binging a TV show or reading a book just for pleasure.  Somehow, doing any of these things for its own sake seems selfish or at least misguided.  There is always a “to do list” sapping the joy out of pleasurable things.
 
In his book Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest, Wayne Muller writes, “Our culture invariably supposes that action and accomplishment are better than rest, that doing something—anything—is better than doing nothing.  Because of our desire to succeed, to meet these ever-growing expectations, we do not rest.  Because we do not rest, we lose our way.”
 
In the Torah, the first five books of what Christians misname The Old Testament, God commands keeping sabbath, a practice of connecting with the very order of creation which was created in six days and a seventh day of rest woven into it.  The sabbath is a day where everything rests—even the hired hands, slaves, animals and land itself rest on the Sabbath.  Everything needs rest, a time to worship God and a time to reflect upon what really matters amidst all the activity of our lives. 
 
I’ve heard of people who practice sabbath on days other than Saturday or Sunday.  I’ve heard of others that make keeping sabbath a part of their daily routines of prayer and meditation.  I’ve even known a few who practiced sabbath in moments of breathing, prayer and meditation which have become an integral part of every day as they go about their daily work. 
 
My own efforts of keeping sabbath look more like a hit and miss, start and stop, and sort of an awkward catch as catch can sort of thing.  I’m pretty sure that’s why I end up collapsing sometimes, as if my spiritual self has collected too many allergens along the way and I’m left overloaded and spent.  I feel sure there is a better way, and daily doses of sabbath would help in this regard.  As I age, perhaps like allergies, things will get severe enough that I’ll be forced to change my ways.  I’ve usually found that I’m thick headed enough that I only do what’s good for me after things have gotten bad enough to force me to change.
 
Joan Boarysenko shares a story about a woodcutter to describe her own tendency towards fruitless activity, “He had an axe that was dull; the blade needed to be sharpened. A stranger came up to him and said, ‘You know, if you just stop working and take time to sharpen that blade, everything would go so much more smoothly.’  And the woodcutter was frantic. He said, ‘Forget it. I don't have time to stop and sharpen my blade. I've got things to do. I've got a family to support.’ And he just kept on keeping on .... Sometimes when I'm sitting at my computer, I remember the story of that woodcutter. And I say to myself, ‘Joan, you might be busy, but if you take five minutes, and you just get up and you do some stretches ... or you take 10 minutes and go out and take a walk ... or if you just take two minutes and close your eyes and do some breathing — you'll come into your center, your blade will be sharp, and the rest of your work will just flow ...’”
 
Man, I think that woodcutter and I were separated at birth.
 
Whether you are the kind of person who is proactive and disciplined, managing to care for yourself daily in order to connect with the Divine or you are like me and must be dragged into God’s presence by the painful circumstances of life, I wish you less collapsing and more flowing with the very essence of creation that will nurture your soul and make all your activity purposeful.
 
Grace and Peace,
Chase

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
--Romans 8:38-39 NRSV

During these days of pandemic quarantine, I have indulged in binging some TV series that have been on my list for a long time.  Recently, I got around to watching the HBO series The Leftovers.  It is about what happens in a world where 2% of the world’s population simply disappears one day.  Poof!  Suddenly, 140 million people are gone, people from every nation, ethnic group, gender, religion, sexuality, age—all simply gone.  Those who have disappeared are called “the Departed.”  The show takes pains to show this is not some kind of Rapture where the good people are taken off to heaven, because the Departed were a mix of good and bad people.  There is no explanation, no pattern, no sense to the world changing event.  It happened and now the world must deal with that reality.

The Leftovers was recommended to me by multiple people, because of the shows overt religious subject and the many different ways characters both do and don’t look to religion to make sense of their losses.  One of the main characters is a minister; he’s deeply flawed but at least he is not a pedophile or exorcist, which are the usual ways clergy show up in popular culture.  Yet, I resisted watching the show, because one of its creators is Damon Lindelof.  Lindelof also was a creator of the TV show Lost, which I watched well, religiously, and was sorely disappointed when the many mysteries the show set up were never answered in satisfactory ways.  I didn’t want to be frustrated and disappointed again.

I became more open to Lindelof’s Leftovers when I read his statement early declaring the show would never provide an answer to its central mystery: what happened to the missing people?  Lindelof said the show isn’t about answers but about how people deal with not having answers to their deepest pain.  Huh?  That sounds like a pretty depressing show, but I am interested, or at least interested enough to watch the show six years after it first came out.

Indeed, Lindelof was true to his word; The Leftovers offers no definitive answers for why 140 million people simply vanished one day.  Instead, the show is about how people deal with a grief that has no closure.  Some double down on the religion they have, others reject their former religions.  Some create new religions, and there are new mysteries and seemingly supernatural events that end up raising more questions than they do answers.  Some get lost in their work, others quit their jobs.  Some families grow closer, others fall apart.  Some self-medicate with drugs and alcohol, others seek to drop all their vices.  Conspiracy theories are everywhere.  In sum, it seems a lot like real life when unexpected and/or unexplained tragedy strikes.

Whether it is 9-11 or a death in a car accident, a lost job or a divorce, our losses set us adrift searching to make sense of what is nonsensical.  Like someone trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle without a picture on the box of the finished work and without all the pieces, we struggle to find a reason for our pain.  It’s no wonder people cling to shallow and dangerous theology like, “everything happens for a reason” or “God just needed another angel in heaven” or “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”  Even bad theology is better than a world where nothing makes sense.  A conspiracy theory, no matter how crazy, is preferable to a world where chaos can strike at any time. 

I’ve seen that people who work through their grief do so by creating meaning in their lives in the way one might use a nail file to sculpt a mountain.  It happens slowly, with all sorts of stops and starts.  It only happens with honesty, but even the most honest must deceive themselves sometimes, because the pain can be too much. 

I have learned in my own life and seen it also in my role as minister that more than answers, even though answers are important, people really want to know they have not been rejected and abandoned, by family, by friends and by God.  Even when they (and I) push people away, inside we are begging for someone to stay beside us and help us bear our pain when it is too much for us to bear alone.  Cards, letters, texts, emails, calls, visits, sitting down over coffee or a drink, talking, listening, crying, all matter more than explanations, because oftentimes there is no explanation good enough.

At one time or another, all of us are “leftovers,” left behind as the world keeps spinning while we are stuck in our moments of pain.  When that happens and I’m called to show up in my capacity as minister, if I mention God at all, I read the few verses in Romans 8 that declare nothing can separate us from the love of God.  In the end, more than answers, that’s all I want to know.  If God can’t show up in person, I will settle for a good friend, many times, I expect, that is how God shows up anyway.
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Grace and Peace,
Chase

     1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away,
     and the sea was no more. 2I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven
     from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

     3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying:
          “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man,
          and He will dwell with them.
          They will be His people,
          and God Himself will be with them as their God.
          4‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’
          and there will be no more death
          or mourning or crying or pain,
          for the former things have passed away.”
     5And the One seated on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Then He said, “Write
     this down, for these words are faithful and true.” 6And He told me, “It is done! I am the Alpha
     and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give freely from the spring of
     the water of life. 7The one who overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he
     will be My son.” Revelations 21:1 – 7

What a glorious sight! What a joyful day!

Amen and Amen, let it be so Lord.

This glorious vision that John has is our great hope. It is a day long awaited for by all saints. How often we dream of heaven and the day when there will be no more pain, sorrow or death. And it is the goal we all press on toward.

This glorious moment, which will last for eternity, is at the heart of every man truly. No one truly dreams of the end of life. Emptiness. From the moment of consciousness, people dream of a better place. A more just world. A place of peace and tranquility. The Christian longs for the day when they will walk with God freely, continually. When things will be set right and once again our God will dwell with us. This aspiration of hope keeps us going.

The reality of this world, its pain, its hunger and injustice grate against our soul. So far the year 2020 has been an abrasion that continues to grow, deeper, harsher and with more pain. We have witnessed so much in just the first six months. Human sufferings, failures and tragedies, that make it impossible to not entertain the thought, ‘has our God forsaken us’? Yet we trust He is in the midst of this with us.

It is the struggle that builds the butterflies wings. Just as the birthing of the that beautiful creature, we are in the struggle for something new. In the middle of a pandemic, a biblical world-wide plague, we as a nation are struggling for justice and a new way of being.

Some say, it is not as bad as all that. Some think that fairness, equality, is something that can be earned, but as many point out, oppression has been around as long as civilization.
Truly, sin has been prevalent since the fall from Eden and jealousy and oppression have existed since Cain and Able. All of this is the result of sin. All of this is the fall of man. And some say, it can never be changed.

Yet, Christ didn’t say that. Certainly, Paul in his many letters to the early church did not believe that. The early church came together and.

          “42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the
          breaking of bread and to prayer. 43A sense of awe came over everyone, and the apostles
          performed many wonders and signs.
 
     44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions
     and goods, they shared with anyone who was in need.” Acts 2:42 – 44

At that moment, in that time something of heaven came upon earth. To nullify our responsibility to this world and to say, ‘it’ll only change when God comes’ is to deny the gospel. To deny Christ, who said.

          “44“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or
          needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
 
          45“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you
          did not do for me.’ Matthew 25:44 – 45

We cannot hide from the commandment of our Lord. We are to Love One Another, even those different, those we see as less than ourselves. We are not to oppress; we are not to sit idly by and allow injustice.

The vision of heaven John shares in Revelations is the promise, but the hope of the world is in bringing as much of that vision to earth as we can today.

Our mission is to bring about change that leads to reconciliation with our Lord. Ignoring the state of the world is not an option. We are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus, bring not only the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the bread, the compassion and the justice that everyone of God’s children deserves.

Let us dream of the great vision of John. Let us hunger for that day, but also, let us strive with passion to make this world a better place today.
 
Kathy Hendrix