What’s Next? Part next

As I reflect on yesterday’s Presbytery meeting and last night’s presentation by Father Gregory Boyle, with Enrique and Ricardo from Homeboy Industries, I need to begin with a thousand expressions of “Thanks.”  

Thanks to the Staff – Sue-Ann, Judith, Hayes, Jennifer, Kathy, Scott, Norm, Jeremy, and Alex, to name a few – who worked tirelessly in helping us to prepare, host, and carry out a very successful meeting of the Presbytery of Los Ranchos. Seriously, there is a huge investment of time, improvisation, and last minute hand-holding that it takes to pull of a meeting, the agenda for which was 156 pages long. 

Thanks to Shelby Lott, whom many of you do not know, as well as Henry and Deborah Mayhew, the Facilities Commission, and the Session for bringing our hearts, minds, efforts, and money together to install a projection system that is powerful enough to allow our generous amounts of ambient light that we love so much in our sanctuary, and still project images and text on the screen legibly. I’ll write more about our new projection system next week, but for now lots of thanks to the folks who helped to get it done in time, because projection is very important during a presbytery meeting. 

Thanks to so, so many volunteers, who showed up to set up, welcome, host, feed, direct, and clean up for the 177 presbyters who were signed up to attend the meeting. The food for dinner was catered by Homegirl Cafe and was marvelous, while so many St. Mark helpers made it go well. 

And, finally, thanks to those of you who give St. Mark its life and character. I cannot tell you how many times people come up to me at presbytery gatherings and say, “Your church does so much for our community,” or “You all seem to be good at everything that you do,” and of course, “Your campus and sanctuary are so beautiful.” What that tells me is that St. Mark members past and present have been faithfully listening to God’s direction and boldly following it. 

Thanks, y’all. 

Last night Father Boyle, Enrique, and Ricardo have us gifts of compassion and wisdom. Father Boyle’s humble, witty, and theologically profound presentation of what God is doing through Homeboy Industries and Homegirl Cafe was the right blend of realism and hopefulness. I loved how he took a misspoken phrase, “God is Exhausted,” and let it guide his reflection on how tiresome many of our expectations about God must be to a God who simply greets us with a delighted, “You’re here!” He also said something that many of us need to hear: When we go “to the margins” it is not to help, but to connect in a way that we are helped. It is not to transform, but to make community with those whose lives can transform us. What a beautiful way to affirm our call to be activists, to advocate, to practice hospitality, to visit the sick, to stand in solidarity with the refugee – to do all of those things that St. Mark has been known for doing over the years. And yet, to frame that work in humility, to disabuse us when we imagine that we are doing the world, or God, a favor with our activity. In truth, we are being transformed in this work powerfully and beautifully. 

The presentations by Father Boyle, Enrique, and Ricardo will be posted on the presbytery’s web site when it is ready and we’ll make it accessible on our web site as well. All in all, it was a marvelous day of hard work, delight, and a refreshing experience of God’s joy. Thanks to all of you who made it possible. 

Finally: Last week we had Nic’s graduation party, during which we handed out a puzzle about him that his brother Mickey put together. If you’d like to see the puzzle with the answers, click here. 

Mark of St. Mark

Answers!

Last week we had a graduation party for my son Nic, during which we handed out Crossword Puzzles for people to discover how well they know him and to get to know him a bit better. Here is the completed puzzle. I had no idea that the UCI Anteater had a name, so this was a teaching tool for me as well.
MD

ACROSS 

6. Nic's favorite sister
8. where Nic will sing you a song
12. Two wheels, very dangerous and Nic’s newest passion
14. Peter The _____________ 15. It’s all about the sauce
16. Graduate of
17. Nic's Junior College
18. Where Nic's brother lives (2 words)
19. Nic's Middle name
20. A favorite brew of Nic's
21. Double Double no onion
22. Where Nic shows off his impressive latte art 

DOWN

1. Nic’s Instagram handle
2. Nic’s and Luke’s most recent business venture
3. Where Nic's other brother lives
4. Nic's very expensive piece of paper
5. Nic's dad's Instagram handle
7. Nic's friends all call him ____ Nic
9. Nic's childhood fear, which he learned from The Big Comfy Couch
10. Nic's preferred video game system
11. The people Nic must thank for getting this far in life and this party
13. Where Nic flies to every other weekend 

A Reflection by Wendy Williams

This week I will back away from my ongoing topic in order to share this reflection with you from Wendy Williams. Wendy worked with Sandy Krogh this year in organizing and accompanying St. Mark’s “Get on the Bus” event. To find our more about the “Get on the Bus” program and to watch a wonderful, brief video about it, click here. Now, here is Wendy’s reflection. 

The black sky brightened by a full moon began what evolved into a holy day. My first time with “Get on the Bus” opened my eyes to a whole new slice of life. The humility on display in the visitation room and yard transformed an ordinary space into a God-filled space. 

The light in the eyes of the inmates and their families was pure joy. Never would I have expected this visit to a prison to unfold so positively. The inmates who qualified to have visitors had strict guidelines to meet. Their visitors also submitted applications and underwent background checks. 

During the over four-hour visit it was overwhelming to see mutigenerational family units reconnect. In some instances father and their children had not seen one another since the 2018 “Get on the Bus” event. The gardens adjacent to the visiting area were bright with spring flowers and edged with rocks. One father and 4-year-old son were completely focused on turning rocks over to see the tiny critters living beneath. Watching that beautiful interaction was my moment to know this hard core prison was also a God-filled space. 

As volunteers we served copious amounts of food, helped with cleanup, provided the families with countless board games and toys for the small-fry. Every small courtesy we gave was met with gratitude and respect. Never did we see any frustration or anger during our visit. 

At a local faith community near the prison each family member was given a nicely framed photo of their family. The children received lovely Teddy bears. Each prison her written a letter to their family as an additional gift. 

The prisoners are truly grateful for the “Get on the Bus” program – it is their hope and life line.

Pentecost Story

Some of my friends have asked me to share the Pentecost Story that I wrote last year. It can be read in the voices of Clement Moore, Dr. Seuss, or Lin-Manuel Miranda. I did all three, wearing a top hat then a cat-in-the-hat hat, then one of my normal hats as I switched voices. Maybe that was too hokey.

It's a great story and needs to be told in ways that are creative, imaginative, and fresh. Enjoy

Pentecost Story 

‘Twas the day of the fiftieth, the Sabbath of Sabbaths

when they were all gathered, an annual habit. 

They saw their Lord buried then risen then taken; 

they had had their hearts broken but now were awakened! 

When all of a sudden there ‘rose such a clatter, 

the people in town came to see what’s the matter. 

The sound of strong winds, tongues dancing of fire, 

the gathered ones filled with their true heart’s desire. 

With languages, idioms, dialects empowered, 

they each found their tongue and they used it that hour.

And those who had gathered were astonished and wondered, 

“What is this strange thing onto which we have blundered? 

Are not these folks common, unlearned, unlettered, 

how do they speak in the tongues of their betters? 

We’ve traveled the world, in Parthia and Rome, 

we call Cappadocia and Media our home, 

Now these ignorantia are trying to say 

that God works in this mysterious way?” 

All of them wondered, but some of them thunk, 

“These people are babbling because they are drunk!” 

Then Peter stood up and had something to say, 

“You know we’re not drunk at this time of the day!” 

This thing that is happ’ning, that makes us awoke, 

is that very thing that the prophet Joel spoke. 

‘In days that are lasting, the true God declares, 

I’ll make me a people, a people who dare, 

We dare to see visions of justice one day. 

We dare to have dreams like my man M.L.K.

We dare new equalities, not classes of old, 

we’re benders of genders and breakers of codes! 

This thing you see here, how we are behavin’, 

is God being present in a world that needs savin.’” 

Don’t sit there and wonder how commoners babbleth, 

wonder instead that this is true Sabbath!  

A people on fire, all Spirit-inspired, 

living the true path that God has required, 

Led by the one who was unjustly killed, 

by hands with violence honed and skilled, 

but then he was raised, ‘cause death has no might, 

to hold down the one who does what is right. 

He is the one who is breathing this breath, 

whose Spirit’s unleashed and the world is refreshed. 

What’s NEXT? Part VIII

Since I’ve been off that topic for a couple of week, I feel the need to recap the exploration. You may remember that I was challenged at the NEXT Church National Gathering to become more sensitive to the difference between Christianity itself and what we might call “White Christianity.” The phrase “White Christianity” does not refer to a branch of Christianity or a particular church where every single person in it is manifestly light-skinned and has European origins. And so, whenever I am writing about “White Christianity,” please don’t hear me assuming that it looks like this photo. 

This church is indeed a “White Church” and their brand of Christianity – if one is willing to call it Christianity at all! – needs to be identified as a particular, peculiar, and baleful form of “White Christianity.” But this is not what I am talking about when I speak of “White Church” or “White Christianity.” Please know that. 

When I use the term “White Christianity” I am not speaking of active racist attitudes, active exclusive practices, or 100% European stock membership. I am using the term to become more aware of historical-cultural characteristics that often go unnamed and unnoticed. For example, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has a designation for some of its churches as “Racial Ethnic Congregations.” In the Presbytery of Los Ranchos there are 46 congregations, 19 of which are designated as “Racial Ethnic Congregations.” Among them is New Hope in Orange, which was an intentional startup church for the purpose of reaching out to African Americans. There is the Vietnamese Presbyterian Church in Garden Grove, which has one service in Vietnamese and a simultaneous service for young, second-generation members in English. There are nine Korean congregations, three Taiwanese congregations, two Hispanic congregations, an Arabic, Indonesian, and an African congregation. Each of them has deliberate practices for the sake of reaching out to persons who share a common story. 

But, if those churches are the “Racial Ethnic” churches, what are the rest of us? What are we at St. Mark? Do we lack race? Are we without ethnicity? Of course not. We have – on one hand – a significant variety of racial and ethnic roots among us. And we have – on the other hand – a common set of practices and assumptions that enable us to be “one.” Those commons practices and assumptions (whether good nor bad) are what I am trying to discern in these posts, because some of them are wonderful and need to become even more pronounced among us, and some of them are subtle and make us more biased and exclusive than we might imagine.

Until next time, 

Mark of St. Mark

What’s NEXT? Part VII

Speaking of Roman numerals, can you identify the Roman numeral for zero? No, there isn’t one. The Romans had a word, nullus, but no numeral for zero. In fact, none of the most sophisticated ancient numerical systems – Sumerian, Babylonian, etc. – had zero as an integer. Over time, systems developed a “placeholder,” that would help distinguish the difference between, say, 15 and 105 by putting something in between the 1 and the 5 for the latter, but it was a late development. One of the first known recordings of using a dot for a placeholder, is not until the 3^rd or 4^th Century CE. And the first known instance of zero written as a circle is from the Chaturbhuj Temple inside of the Gwalior Fort in India, from a 9^th Century inscription of ‘270.’ 

You might be wondering what this focus on ‘zero’ has to do with my ongoing reflections on what constitutes “White Christianity.” The reason I am thinking about zero today is because there may be religious reasons why the number zero does not appear in some ancient cultures and finally does appear in others. Particularly, western cultures were more resistant to zero than eastern cultures. In India, where the mathematical concept of zero was first developed, the tem for zero, shunya in Sanskrit, seems related to the Buddhist understanding of shunyata, emptying one’s mind of impressions and thought. 

On the other hand, there’s this: “There was a time in the early days of Christianity in Europe when religious leaders banned the use of zero because they felt that, since God is in everything, a symbol that represented nothing must be satanic.”[1] I imagine that this resistance was based on a reading of the creation story in Genesis where the world was a lot of nothing until God created the heavens and the earth. In this reading, often called creatio ex nihilo, nothingness is in opposition to God’s order of creation. 

With that in mind, it is not hard to imagine that Christian communities would devalue things that might be described as nothing, zero, emptiness, vacuum, or void, as being the opposite of God’s created order. And that attitude, I want to suggest, has impacted how Christians have seen many things. 

The “Protestant work ethic,” for example, is an expression of how many Christians have seen the proper stewardship of time, energy, and effort. But, within this framework, what happens to the concept of the rest and restoration of Sabbath? Think, for example, how pejoratively we use the word “lazy” to describe people who don’t necessarily share our attention to (or obsession with) time and productivity.  A biblical illustration might clarify: When Moses and Aaron approach Pharaoh to let God’s people go out into the wilderness to worship for three days, here is Pharaoh’s response: “Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their work? Get to your labors!” Then Pharaoh continued, “Now they are more numerous than the people of the land and yet you want them to stop working!” It’s amazing how many good WASP business owners said Pharaoh’s exact words when confronted with labor unions began demanding a five-day workweek or how many good Christian people say the same today when describing persons on assistance as “Welfare Queens.”

Likewise, the need to fill every single moment of worship with something, whether it is organ music, somebody saying something, or (in mega-churches) repeated ovations may be another expression of our distrust of zero. In the process, the biblical concepts of ‘being still’ in order to know God or ‘keeping silence’ as a proper way to honor God may be lost. 

My point is, if we want to identify parts of “White Christianity” that are more reflective of “White” than “Christianity,” a great place to begin might be to reconsider our attitudes toward “zero.” Let me conclude with a story: 

When Alexander the Great visited India, he met a yogi, sitting on a rock, staring at the sky. Alexander asked, “What are you doing?” The yogi replied, “I’m experiencing nothingness. What are you doing?” “I am conquering the world,” Alexander said. They both laughed. Each one thought the other was a fool, and was wasting his life.

I wonder how many Christians would automatically assume that Alexander was right. 

Mark of St. Mark 

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[1]I am relying on two online articles and some past readings for a lot of this information. If you want to quibble with it, please do so to the original authors. Or, just read them because they’re interesting.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180807-how-india-gave-us-the-zeroand https://www.livescience.com/27853-who-invented-zero.html.