Advent 1

This weekend is the beginning of the Advent season! I rarely use exclamation points, but I really love the season of Advent. Our theme this year is “Everybody Needs a Home.” Special thanks to our Worship Commission - as well as Brian Parker and Shane McCullough - who have worked very hard on our seasonal installation in the sanctuary. To get a sense of what this season is about, here is an excerpt from an Op Ed that I have sent to our local newspaper: 

For those preparing to hear the Christmas story, there is one small feature that particularly deserves our attention this year. In a passing phrase, the Gospel of Luke says that Mary and Joseph wrapped the newborn in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the inn. That slight reference to an inn with no vacancy is impacted with lots of meaning. For Luke’s story, it is a reminder that Jesus’ birth takes place under the umbrella of Roman dominion. Luke’s story begins with a reference to Caesar Augustus demanding that all of Israel return to their family hometown for a census. At the least, this census would be added to Caesar’s self-congratulatory list of conquered peoples. Beyond that, it would serve to show how many legions would be needed to maintain Rome’s control, as well as to provide a tax base for funding the next conquest. There was no room in Bethlehem’s inn because so many people were displaced by Caesar’s command. This moment of imperial, politicized displacement is the context in which Jesus’ birth takes place.  

Since the Christmas story is grounded in the experience of displacement, we will listen to it through stories of displacement as well. Each week we will have a subtheme and will point toward a related event that will offer a way of living into this story today.  

November 30/December 1: "Dislocation and Relocation"--When a home no longer feels like home (due to dementia, empty nest syndrome, loss of a loved one, children moving back, etc.). Our Health Ministries Commission will offer a Blue Christmas session at 11 a.m. on Sunday for those who are experiencing loss and grief during this season).

December 7/8: "Displacement and Replacement"--The challenge for refugees, immigrants, and castaways. On Saturday St. Mark will host a special event on behalf of victims of human trafficking. (Due to the need for confidentiality, this event is not open to the public. If you want to support it in some way, please contact the church office.)

December 14/15:  "Homelessness and Housing"--Facing economic, situational, and chronic homelessness in our community. On Saturday we will have a “Synerjazz Christmas Party” in the Fellowship Hall following worship, and on Sunday we will have a Las Posadas event throughout the Fellowship Hall after worship. 

December 21/22: "Unwelcomed and Welcomed"--Exploring the feelings of not being welcomed or not welcoming others. On Saturday there is a “Homeless Persons Interreligious Memorial Service” at Christ Cathedral at 8:00pm, to remember those who have died on the streets of Orange County this year. 

I hope you make every effort to be part of our Advent season, as well as our Christmas Eve services at 4:00, 7:00, or 9:00. I’ll share more information about those services soon. 

Blessings, 

Mark of St. Mark 

United to End Homelessness

As many of you know, I have gotten involved with several attempts to address the homelessness challenge in Orange County during the last several years. Initially, we started the Orange County Alliance for Just Change (OCAJC), with the hope of working to identify and address systemic roots of injustice. Early on we decided to make homelessness our focus and brought Professor David Snow on board, who had just led a team that produced a groundbreaking study called Homelessness in Orange County: The Costs to Our Community. Dr. Snow’s team had been commissioned by the United Way of Orange County and demonstrated that the costs of “doing nothing” are higher that it would be for the county to house homeless persons, in order to provide wraparound services for those who need them. 

About that same time that OCAJC was getting started by offering educational forums about the root causes of homelessness, the United Way was creating a new program in response to Dr. Snow’s study called United to End Homelessness (U2EH). Basing its structure on a model from Orlando, FL, U2EH formed a Leadership Council made up of persons at various levels of government, service providers, business leaders, and educators. And, after a time, they formed a Faith Leaders Council, on which they invited me to serve. I was asked to moderate the Faith Leaders Council in our second meeting, and as a result I was asked to represent the Faith Leaders as part of the Leadership Council. Subsequently, I was asked to be on the Executive Committee of the Leadership Council. Please understand, I’m not bragging about my resume – this is more of a testimony of my inability to say ‘no’ than anything else. And despite my reluctance to add more layers of meetings to my life, I wanted to take advantage of these invitations in order to represent St. Mark, OCAJC, as well as other faith communities in this coordinated effort.  

And it has been an incredible experience so far. Let me share some highlights. 

- U2EH has the goal of seeing 2,700 new units of Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) in Orange County by 2025. For a great definition of and look at PSH, check out this page by Jamboree Housing here.  

- U2EH began offering Homelessness 101 workshops that provide one of the best overviews of homelessness and responses to homelessness anywhere. 

- U2EH,  in cooperation with OCAJC, has just initiated a new Housing Champions training called Advocacy 101. The first training took place this week in Mission Viejo. The next two training dates are December 4 at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center in Fullerton and December 5 at the Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove. For more information and to register, click here.

- U2EH began a program called Welcome Home OC, which works with apartment owners to provide “scattered site” PSH, which do not need approval by city councils, but do require initial costs to incentivize apartment owners to participate. 

- Thanks to the leadership of Cottie Petrie-Norris, U2EH received a $2.9 million grant from the State of CA to address homeless veterans through the “Welcome Home OC” program. The outreach to veterans is called “Marching Home.” 

- U2EH worked with the Santa Ana Housing Authority (SAHA) in August to provide 30 units in 30 days, in order to take advantage of 30 housing vouchers that SAHA needed to use, in order to qualify for potentially 300 more voucher. St. Mark was a huge part of that effort. U2EH needed to raise $500,000 of initial costs to house the 30 families, and St. Mark responded with over $115,0000, funding 7 of the 30 units. 

And now, a new opportunity is at hand. The federal office of HUD has awarded 12 communities grants to house 18-24 year olds who have “aged out” of the Foster Care System. U2EH is working with The Orangewood Foundation and SAHA to house 25 former foster youth. The initial costs are over $12,000 each. U2EH has already secured funding to house 7 former foster youth through our WelcomeHomeOC Program and are working to raise $228,060 by December 31, 2019 to help to house the other 18. The St. Mark Mission Commission has already put some funding toward it, and you are welcomed to participate in addition. For more information and to make a contribution, visit U2EH’s GoFundMe page here.  

Well, that’s enough for now. St. Mark has long been a leader in striving for economic justice in Orange County and I think the work of OCAJC, U2EH, and related organizations is an extension of what God has been calling us to do throughout our church’s 50+ years. It is a blessing to be a part of it.

Mark of St. Mark 

Faithful and Expansive View of God

Three quick announcements, then on with the show.

1. If you want to attend our Thanksgiving dinner, Thanksgiving Day at 4:00, please sign up today. Right now, even! Send a note to stmark@stmarkpresbyterian.org.

2. If you were not in worship last Sunday, you may want to go to the St. Mark web site and listen to last week’s sermon. It was “Hagar’s Story, part 1” and this week we will hear “part 2.” 

3. The Alternative Christmas Market is Sunday! This Sunday! Two days from now! If you’re working the market and have to miss worship, then come on Saturday and follow the crowd to Muldoon’s. 

And now … 

A funny thing happens when we leave our customary spaces and enter other spaces as a guest. Last Saturday, following worship, I was a guest speaker at the Islamic Education Center as part of their celebration of their prophet’s birthday. Our Muslim brothers and sisters know that many Americans view them primarily through the lens of news clips of violence, movie depictions of terrorists, or theories about their sinister intentions. They cringe whenever a mass shooting takes place, praying that it will not turn out to be a Muslim who is doing the violence or Muslims who were the victims. Many Muslims live with a constant shroud of fear that some random person will try to execute a kind of vigilante justice by harassing them or harming them. In truth, they are doctors, police officers, business persons, school teachers, and next-door neighbors, who follow Islam. 

When I was at the Islamic Education Center, the Imam Sayed Moustafa al-Qazwini condemned religious violence in the strongest terms possible. He argued that Muslims who terrorize, take innocent lives, or go to war in the name of Islam are misrepresenting Islam and misreading the Koran. He named names and argued that groups like the Islamic State were wrong. He argued that the best way to honor the prophet Muhammad is to live peaceably and helpfully with all of our neighbors. He honored Jesus Christ - not in the same way that I do, but with reverence and respect. He honored Moses and welcomed the Jewish persons who were in attendance. It was a meaningful experience and always is. 

The same is true whenever I visit the Shinnyo-en Japanese Buddhist Temple in Yorba Linda, the Temple Bat Yam, the Jewish Collaborative of Orange County, or any number of worship spaces where persons of other faiths gather. When the Newport Mesa Irvine Interfaith Council or Orange County Interfaith Network meet, they are respectful gatherings with progressive Christians, lots of Mormons, Jews of many kinds, Muslims, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, and Universalist Unitarians. What is curious to me is that the most underrepresented group – at least from the Christian denominations – are Evangelical churches. 

The primary reason evangelicals are underrepresented is fairly clear. Theologically, if one is convinced that professing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is the only true way to salvation, then there is a problem with interfaith work. It would seem like one is validating a lie. I spoke with an evangelical pastor recently, who is a great guy who pours himself out in service to folks that many others would simply ignore. He said that whenever he tries to convince himself that other religions are siblings and perhaps have their own pathway toward God, he gets hung up on the stories of the Old Testament, where God demanded absolute intolerance of other religions and exclusivist claims that are in the New Testament on occasion. I disagree with his reading of these texts and -more importantly - with the presumptions through which he reads biblical texts generally. I do not doubt his sincerity, but I mourn his conclusions because of what they do not allow him to do. He is not able to enter the Islamic Education Center with an open heart, free of thinking that he is somehow compromising his faith by being there. He cannot enter a synagogue or temple without feeling that the people there are blind to the real truth of their own religion. I am not judging him. I am only speaking from my own experience, having been raised in a way of Christianity that could not encounter other religious expressions with openness. I still struggle against ingrained tendencies of religious intolerance. 

When I was invited to the Islamic Education Center for the prophet’s birthday, I was asked to speak about interfaith relations. I raised the question of why some Christians read the New Testament exclusively and others expansively; why some Jews read the Torah exclusively and other expansively; why some Muslims read the Koran exclusively and other expansively. The only sorts of answers that I could offer were roughly this: The lens through which we read Scripture is shaped by our theological predispositions. My journey has led me to have a large view of God, to where God is free, able, and willing to act in ways that lie outside of my own way of faith; and a small view of humanity, where each claim I/we make about God is proximate at best. For me, “truth” about God is less about the proposition that we formulate, and more about the hunger that drives us to search, hope, and believe. 

Or something like that. 

Mark of St. Mark  

Undies and Church Attendance

Let me begin with Two Quick Notes: 

1. Did you notice the announcement that we’re going to have a St. Mark Thanksgiving dinner this year? If you’d like to come, and are willing to help with the before-during-after stuff, please drop a note to stmark@stmarkpresbyterian.org.   

2. The Orange County Alliance for Just Change is working with United to End Homelessness to offer three “Advocacy 101” opportunities between now and the end of the year, to advocate in our cities for more Permanent Supportive Housing. For South County, Wednesday, November 20, at the Presbyterian Church of the Master in Mission Viejo. For North County, Wednesday, December 4 at the Muckenthaler Cultural Arts Center in Fullerton. For Central County, Thursday, December 5 at Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove. All event open registration at 6:30 and you will want to arrive by then so you can register and be ready to start promptly at 7:00pm. If you want to attend one of these workshops, sign up, at https://www.eventbrite.com/o/united-to-end-homelessness-19985632942.

And now, for the Weekly Missive: 

A recent article in the Huffington Post said, “It may be the most familiar dream in the world.” They were speaking, of course, about the “Suddenly realizing you are in your underwear in public” dream. Dream studies folks reckon that the dream is either prompted by what you’re wearing (or not) when sleeping (so let’s not talk about it). Or, they say it may be a subconscious expression of feeling unprepared and risking being exposed in some way (Let’s talk about this one). 

Based on my own sleep experience, which I actually experience every single night, I happen to think that the ‘underwear in public’ dream is just one expression of ‘anxiety dreams’ in general. Beyond physical exposure, those anxiety dreams often tend to be specific to our job, our daily routines, or our deepest fears. For example, as a pastor I often have the anxiety dream of being in a crowded church building and discovering at the last minute that I’m supposed to preach from a text that I had not even given any consideration sermon-wise. I don’t have that dream every weekend, but often enough to know that I carry within myself the feeling of not-quite-prepared anxieties. 

So, here’s a funny thing. The other night I had a very different pastor-anxiety dream, the first of its kind that I can remember. This time I was prepared: The bulletin was ready, the accompanists were in place, the sermon was in hand and mostly in head, and the time was nigh. As I got up to begin worship, there were maybe ten people scattered throughout a cavernous-looking sanctuary. Ten people! And most of them were family to the paid staff! While I know that worship is about the glory of God, not a popularity poll of the preacher, that moment was devastating for me. 

So, it leaves me wondering why my usual anxiety dream of being unprepared took on the form of being prepared but irrelevant. Here are some theories. 

1. I once read that genuine prophetic preaching results in driving away most people in order to build upon the truly committed folks. That may be true in some churches, but I don’t buy it at St. Mark. For many years my predecessors preached the unvarnished gospel of grace and justice, so it does not fall to me to separate the wheat from the chaff. I just try to maintain that faithful legacy.

2. Perhaps I am feeling the weight of all of the church studies about how the ‘nones’ and ‘dones’ are outnumbering the folks in the world who affiliate with some kind of organized faith. I actually happen to think that there is some encouraging news in those reports, but they certainly raise some concerns as well. I’ll reflect on my reading of those reports some other time because it is too nuanced for this post. 

3. A theory that may have legs falls under my general maxim that dreams reflect the dreamer – in this case the dreamer’s anxieties – more than any of the persons who might appear in the dream. I can’t wake up mad at someone because they mistreated me in a dream, but I can explore whatever mistrusts or anger I might be harboring toward that person because of the dream. In the case of the “Ten People in Worship” dream, perhaps it is an expression of my feelings of inadequacy. 

4. The most convincing theory I have is that I am still adjusting to the “new normal” that many people now practice “occasional attendance” instead of “weekly attendance,” that children have activities whenever there is space and no longer is “worship time” considered off limits; and that our weeks are so over-scheduled that many people choose St. Mattress or St. Arbucks over St. Mark when they have the leisure of choice. (You may now say, “OK, Boomer” if you wish.)

When that is the case, it seems to me to be similar to when a family sits down to share dinner and one or two members are not there. They may have perfectly good reasons and so there’s no need for judgment. It’s just the case that those who are there miss the joy of their company and the family misses the continued strength that comes from being together. That’s how I feel when we haven’t seen someone in worship recently. No judgment, just a tinge of sadness from missing a valued companion. I don’t know how God feels, so I won’t speculate on that. 

Having said all that, I hope to see at least 11 of you on Saturday or Sunday this weekend! It’s a family thing.

Mark of St. Mark