A Week of Violence and Hubris

 Friends, 

This week has been a mess: A Supreme Court decision left anyone who seems identifiably non-white vulnerable to raids and arrests; a decision by HUD left many organizations that have been providing service for homeless persons suddenly defunded if they do not begin to espouse a particular political party line; a school shooting in Denver, the second in two weeks, continuing a sickening kind of violence that is affecting our youth far more than many of our elected leaders will admit; and a tragic and evil political assassination in Utah took a life and opened a door for more violence. Each of these actions grows out of our culture of violence and each has the potential to continue the downward spiral of escalatory violence. For people of faith, our question is how to resist allowing our own anger to devolve into yet another layer of retaliatory rhetoric or action. 

 

So, how are you doing in the midst of all of this? 

 

This week, the United Methodist Church issued a very powerful statement in response to the Supreme Court decision to allow racial profiling that said, “This ruling deepens fear among those whose first language is not English, whose accents are noticeable, and whose very appearance, workplace, or attire may now be used by agents as a pretext for questioning. It forces entire communities to live under the constant threat of harassment without cause. People become targets for scrutiny simply for existing.”  You can read the entire statement here.

 

So, how are you doing in the midst of all of this? 

 

I have heard from St. Mark members who live in fear of being rounded up because of their ethnicity, as well as students who go to school anxiously every day because the fear of violence, as well as couples who fear that their marriage will be the next target. Last week, in my sermon, I mentioned how the New Testament was written to audiences who shared these kinds of anxieties. It was to people living in fear of government sanctioned discrimination that Jesus said, “Love your enemy.” It was to people who knew the burden of oppressive politics that Paul wrote, “Do good to those who hate you.” It was to disciples hiding in secret rooms with locked doors that Jesus said, “Peace be with you.” None of these aspirations was easy to achieve then, and none is easy to realize today. 

 

So, how are you doing in the midst of all of this? 

 

Dr. King, also facing a government that practiced and protected discrimination, once cautioned that taking an eye for an eye simply leaves two people blind. The harder path, the narrower path, the path that is often untaken, is to overcome evil with good, to overcome falsehood with truth, and to overcome hate with love. Any attempt at discipleship without this precise kind of costliness is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer so poignantly called “cheap grace.” The grace of discipleship is “costly grace,” and it is a path that turns from being outraged to being engaged when violence and injustice take place. But Christian engagement in issues that have been politicized is different from politics in general. We do not choose between love or justice, because we trust that the God of love is also the God of justice and, in God, they are one. 

 

So, how are you doing in the midst of all of this? What can we, who aspire to take up the cross, do in such a time as this? 

 

Next week, I will offer some starting points, but I want your input as well. I invite you to send me your strategies and avenues of engagement, that I can post in forthcoming Friday newsletters. Send it here. I will benefit from your wisdom as we pursue this path of love and justice together. 

 

Mark of St. Mark 

 

 

Playground and Serving Children

 Friends, 

I have some exciting news to share about our St. Mark Community Preschool. This week the new school year began with a brand-new playground! This playground seemed to appear overnight, but of course it took a lot of hard work and planning. A “Playground Committee,” has been planning this work, selecting the equip
ment, scheduling the destruction and removal of the old equipment and the installation of the new. It was no small feat, and all the removing and installation took place in between the end of the Summer School and the beginning of our Fall Semester. 

 

The Playground Committee has been composed of Preschool parents Michael Manning, Ameen Lalani, Novelle Shakeel-Campoli, Lisa Barrymore, and Mark Rogerson; with our Preschool Assistant Director Noemi Carrillo, as well as Kathy Roberts and Greg McCollum, members of our Facilities Commission. We are so thankful for the long hours of perusing catalogs, taking measurements, studying safety features, and calendar planning that enabled this work to be done so well and in such a timely fashion. 

 

There is one more recent addition to the Preschool that you will appreciate. Last month a Patrick’s Purpose Bench was installed, with the hope that no child (or adult) ever feels that they are alone, particularly when life can feel overwhelming. We give thanks for the life of Patrick Turner and the legacy that John and Kim Turner have established in his memory. 

 

We give thanks that St. Mark is able to provide such a stimulating and lovely place for children to learn to love the depth and beauty of God’s world. 

 

Mark of St. Mark

Two Events Forthcoming

 Friends, 

 

There are two things coming soon that I will write about today. 

 

First, the Orange County Pride Parade is scheduled for September 27 at the OC Fairgrounds. The Parade begins at 11:00, followed by a Festival at noon. For the second year, some churches from the Presbytery of Los Ranchos are joining together as “the Affirming Churches of Los Ranchos” for the march. Please consider marching with us. And this year, for the first time, we will have a booth at the Festival. We are trying to dramatically shift the narrative in our country, where too many loud churches call anti-discriminatory practices “woke,” and are pushing agendas to take away the rights of the LGBTQIA community to be legally married or adopt children, not to mention the imposition of discriminatory practices against non-binary and transgender persons. 

 

St. Mark “fought the good fight” many years ago when the State of California was facing “Prop 8” and the PCUSA was facing “Amendment B.” That work is not done. If you are willing to march with or work the booth for the Affirming Churches (or both), please visit this registration page. 

 

Second, the St. Mark worship commission asked me if we could have a “Saturday worship service” on a Sunday, in order to enable the larger congregation to see how the Saturday service expands our worship repertoire. That’s what we will do this weekend. As many of you who have experienced both services know, there are many similarities and some differences between our Saturday and Sunday worship. On Saturday, the “Evening Prayer” is contemplative, a deliberate mixture of music, silence, and words. One key to contemplative worship is that someone can detach from a responsive or unison reading and allow oneself simply to “be” in the moment. Another difference is the musical style, which is sometimes jazz, but better described as more intentionally improvisational on Saturdays. I find improvisation to be one way of participating in God’s activity and creativity in worship, and while it happens in many ways on Sundays, it is more deliberately worked into the music on Saturdays. 

 

The Sunday service has its own creative voice, with excellent organ accompaniment, an excellent choir, a time for the Young Church, a Handbell Ensemble, and some approaches to worship that work more effectively for a larger gathering than a smaller one. What makes us one, even with two services, is that the Scripture, sermon, call to worship, prayers, announcements, and most of the songs are the same on Saturday and Sunday. The presentation is different, but the core identity and message are the same. 

 

When we first studied and decided to initiate the Saturday service, I invited Rich Messenger, who was our Music Director at the time, to be as much a part of it as he wanted. Rich said that he thought it would be better to use his talents on Sunday and to let Saturday take on its own worship personality. One thing I committed to was not to try to build up the Saturday service at the expense of the Sunday service. That is one reason why I often may refer to both services, but try to err on the side of not promoting one at the expense of the other. I cannot tell you how deeply I appreciate both the Saturday and the Sunday worship services – the people, the music, the style, the repertoire, and especially the different ways that the Holy Spirit works in each. 

 

So, this Sunday, we’ll have “Saturday on Sunday.” It seemed like a good weekend to do so, since we have ended “The Well” and the choir will reboot the first Sunday of September. 

 

See you in worship,

Mark of St. Mark

Winding Down and Gearing Up

 Friends, 

 

Thank you all for the warm reception that you gave our guest preacher Kathy Kipp, as well as her family and friends who were visiting, last weekend. Back when I was interviewing here many years ago, one of the references that I contacted said, “St. Mark loves its pastors very well.” That has been true in my experience, and it seems to be true for guest preachers also. Thanks again.

 

This weekend is full of good. On Saturday is our Meet Me at Muldoon’s following worship. Come worship, come listen, come eat, come dance … just come! And, Sunday, we have three things for you. At 8:30 the Lectio Divina group will meet in the Conference Room of the Administration Building. Then, this is the last Summer Choir opportunity. If you show up at 8:30 promptly, you’ll be all ready to lead worship by 9:30. Our Choir Director, Ryan Yoder, is kind of magical like that. And finally, on Sunday, our older children will leave for Eco Club after our Young Church time. As I said, this weekend is full of good. 

 

Then, next Sunday, August 31, we will have a unique worship experience. You’ll love it. (That’s a teaser, folks!) 

 

Now, to gear up for our post-summer church life. I hope you’ve been reading the Faith in Action weeklies, and marking your calendars. You’ve got our “Text Study” series that begins the first week of September on your calendar, right? And the Choir Retreat for September 6^th, followed by the All Church Picnic for September 7? Then, on Monday, September 8, St. Mark has invited the Presbytery of Los Ranchos to join us in a four-week online study of the book, Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor, from 7:00 – 7:45. Please contact SueJeanne Koh If you have questions. My goodness, the good just keeps on happening. 

 

And there are other things happening in our area among our ministry partners in Orange County. 

-              On Saturday, September 6, the Orange County United Way is having a “kickoff walk” from 8:00 - 9:30am to introduce a new community-wide, 5-year plan to serve Orange County together. A two-mile walk is planned for each of the 34 cities of Orange County. Click here for more information and to register.  

-              On Thursday, September 18, the Presbytery of Los Ranchos will host Rev. CeCe Armstrong and Rev. Tony Larsen as guests. They will also lead the Presbytery worship service at 7:00 PM, at Orange Canaan Presbyterian Church (right across the street from Glenn Martin Elementary!) Click here for more information. 

-              The OC Pride Parade and Festival will take place September 27 at the OC Fairgrounds. St. Mark is joining several other churches in the presbytery to enter the parade. If you would like to be part of the planning, please contact me here and I will send you a zoom link for a planning meeting, Monday, August 25, at 7:00 PM. 

-                

So much good to do – good things, good trouble, and good work. 

 

Be blessed,

Mark of St. Mark

 Friends, 

 

Last Sunday, we baptized a baby as an act of initiation and welcome into the church. Tomorrow, we will have a memorial for a long-time member and usher here at St. Mark. Between the baby's age, measured in months, and the member's 95 years, we can see the span of what a baptismal journey looks like. So, let’s talk about baptism for a moment. 

 

One of the things that I loved most dearly when leaving my Pentecostal Holiness roots and joining the Presbyterian Church was the practice of infant baptism. To be sure, Presbyterians baptize confirmands and adults when appropriate, and do so joyfully. But infant baptism was a strange thing to me, growing up in a church that exclusively practiced “believer’s baptism.” We would ask, “How do we know this baby will grow up and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior?” We would wonder if those crazy Presbyterians (Lutherans, Catholics, and other hydrophobic types) imagined there was some kind of magic quality to the water or the ritual, that would affect the baby’s future life. We heard stories of parents whose children were born with life-threatening challenges, frantically searching for a chaplain who could come and baptize the baby to ensure that it could go to heaven. (I remember being taught that the thief on the cross wasn’t baptized, but Jesus assured him he would be in heaven.) Baptizing a child seemed a strange thing when growing up in a tradition that put all of its eggs in the “come to Jesus” basket. 

 

Then, I actually talked to Presbyterians. The water was not magic; neither was the ritual. The baptized infant would – at least this was the intended process – grow up in the church, surrounded by those who had participated in the baptism (never a private event for Presbyterians!), taught in Sunday School, held in prayers, greeted by name even by those whom the child thought was just another ancient person, loved by the community, and one day offered a chance to study and confirm the vows that were made on their behalf when they were infants. And the reason for this process was key: Long before we are capable or willing to confess our faith, God’s grace is present. If Presbyterian theology can be boiled down to anything it is this: God goes first. God’s love is not contingent on our love, God’s grace is not a response to our faith, God is not waiting for us to make the first move. That’s what infant baptism means most of all, and it is exactly why I fell in love with the practice. Even knowing that most biblical narratives about baptism involve adults, it struck me as more biblical than anything else to see baptism as a declaration of God’s grace, not a sign of our decision-making. 

 

Many of us did not grow up in traditions that baptize infants. Still, it is true about our journeys that God’s grace was there all along, and long before we had any say in the matter. I was declared a beloved child of God without any say in the matter, just like I was named Donald Mark without my consent. Whether we are months old or almost a century old, what graces our lives from beginning to end is God’s love. That’s why I have always gravitated toward the song that says, “When we are living, it is in Christ Jesus. And when we’re dying, it is in the Lord. Both in our living and in our dying, we belong to God.” 

 

Amen. 

Mark of St. Mark 

Quick Things of Beauty

 Friends, 

I have two things to share with you today. 

 

First, throughout this month for our Sunday morning Introit, the St. Mark Quartet has been singing a beautiful song by Eric Whitacre entitled, Sing Gently. In 2020, 17,572 singers from 129 countries gathered virtually to sing the song, including our own Carissa Huntting and Emilio Lópex Felix. The recordings were captured and compiled into a stunning YouTube video that you can find here. It is mesmerizing and a lovely way to lose oneself a time of holy reverie, just as the song intends. We had every intention to show the video this weekend in worship, but due to copyright restrictions we are unable to embed it into our keynote presentations. Instead, I strongly urge you to take the time to listen, watch, and let your heart be lifted up by watching this video. 

 

Finally, I have been out of pocket this week, enjoying a time of study leave surrounded by the beauty of the Eastern Sierras in Mammoth. Since it is not skiing season, I have been spending the mornings writing, and the late afternoons taking hikes, riding a gondola to the highest peak, walking around lakes, and getting lost in wonder. Wow, talk about mesmerizing and a lovely way to lose oneself! I look forward to returning on Saturday morning and seeing you all in worship this weekend. In addition to the weekly joy of worship, we have our monthly “Meet me at Muldoon’s” on Saturday evening, a baptism on Sunday, and SueJeanne Koh bringing our message. 

 

See you in worship,

Mark of St. Mark

 

IRS Ruling, pt. 2

 Friends, 

 

I wrote some reflections last week on the new IRS ruling allowing churches to endorse candidates from the pulpit without endangering their tax exemption status. That particular ruling is narrowly focused on churches, not all 501c3 organizations. It has been framed as a “free speech” matter, but I suspect there is more to it than that. For example, in this ABC news report, Ellen Aprill, a professor emerita of tax law at Loyola Marymount University Law School, says the new regulation could open the door to political campaigns channeling money through churches to take advantage of their tax-exempt status and lower application and reporting requirements. Aprill even expressed concern that this new ruling “will encourage the creation of fraudulent churches who want to be able to get tax deductible money to engage in opposing or supporting candidates … so they don't have to disclose any other campaign intervention activities.”  

 

When I was the chair of The Interfaith Alliance of Iowa (TIAI), I sat down at a meeting with Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who at that time was the chair of the National Democratic Party. The Christian Coalition was in full swing at that time, and TIAI was begun when a long-time school board member was outed and ousted from office by Christian conservatives for being gay. Because TIAI strongly opposed discrimination based on sexual orientation and tried to change the rhetoric in the public square from addressing queer persons with demeaning language, one Des Moines Register opinion columnist consistently referred to TIAI as “the Christian Coalition of the Left.” We did not like that depiction, but apparently, Congresswoman Schultz thought that was accurate and arranged this meeting to urge us to use our churches, synagogues, and mosques to support a particular Democratic slate of candidates. We responded, “While we may personally support these candidates and agree with all of your reasons for doing so, we will not endorse any candidate from the pulpit, nor will we encourage other houses of worship to do so.” The meeting closed pretty quickly.  

 

The line between “politics and justice” or “politics and faithfulness” will always be gray, malleable, and debatable. The Des Moines Register opinion writer did not appreciate that gray area, supposing that any faith group that was in solidarity with gay and lesbian persons was taking a “political” position. Likewise, the writers of Project 2025 tried to establish a rhetoric that attempts to ensure Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (D.E.I.) are purely political and should be condemned as “woke.” More accurately, a Christian perspective can argue that Diversity, if you look at the expanse of creation, is part of God’s very design; Equity, if you look at biblical laws regarding access to food and shelter, is a moral imperative; and Inclusion, if you look at Jesus’ table manners, is a Christian value. How to establish diversity, equity, and inclusion is an ongoing conversation with many valid perspectives, but simply dismissing D.E.I. efforts generally as “woke” is politically and religiously cynical. 

 

The Presbyterian Church (USA) should strive to be faithful in reflecting God’s diversity, pursuing equity, and practicing inclusion. But we cannot do so by wagging our fingers at others. As we proclaim truth, we must likewise confess our failures and complicities in discriminatory practices. As I pointed out in my sermon last week, the list that our Book of Order says should be protected from discrimination is long, because the list of groups who have suffered discrimination in our church’s history is long. Ironically, the only way a church can exercise a courageous, prophetic voice for justice is by starting with auditing our own failures with fear and trembling. That’s how the paradox of gaining life by losing it, being first by being last, or following Christ by taking up the cross works. 

 

Churches automatically qualify for tax exemption and do not have to file 990 forms disclosing the kind of financial information that other 501 c3 organizations do. Because political donations have been identified lately as exercises of free speech, I share Ellen Aprill’s concerns that the new IRS ruling will not only embolden preachers to explicitly endorse candidates but also allow churches to become unaccountable privileged channels for campaign finances. And we all know that money can be as ruinous and compromising for houses of faith as it is for politics. May God guide us into better light.

 

Mark of St. Mark