A Verse a Day

 A Verse A Day 

 

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” 

What stirring words of honesty meet us here in the 3^rd chapter of Genesis. “You are dust” literally connects us to the genesis of the created order, not just in the imaginative story of Genesis, but also in the scientific theory of the Big Bang, which spread stardust particles throughout the universe, bearing the carbon that became the resource for what we know as life. The science gives us some degree of satisfaction, that our minds are free to explore, to question, to allow the evidence to affirm or rebut our theories; while the stories offer an avenue of wonder, allowing our minds to soar to the heights and depths, then beyond. 

 

“You are dust.” What a glorious, global, universal, multiversal connection! 

 

Ah, but “You are dust” is also humbling. No matter our blandishments, conceits, or fame; no matter if we are influencers, superstars, on the spectrum, rich, poor, struggling, or sliver spooned; we are never more than dustlings that bear the breath of life. When we add the second piece, “to dust you shall return,” we slam up against the conundrum that has discomfited thinkers and intuitives alike – we die. We die and we decay back to the elemental dust. We may lie in a sealed tomb, a lavish pyramid, a bronze coffin fit within a concrete vault, or an urn. No matter – we die and we return to the dust, our native state. 

 

How profound that we begin our Lenten journey with this reminder, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” With such magnificent, yet humbling news, we step into this journey.

 

On Lent and Worship

 Today’s message has two Big Topics and begins with a Quick Note: 

Our Ash Wednesday service will be an interactive one! Pots, soil, and seeds are on a table outside of the church’s sanctuary doors ready for you to pick up and take home, so you can join in the work. For more information, see last week’s Friday Blast here. 

Big Topic #1: Lent

Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent, a journey of 40 day (not including Sundays) prior to Easter. This year, our theme is “Again and Again,” using worship and educational materials from a wonderful group called “A Sanctified Art.” There is a Daily Lenten Reading, Powerful Artwork with reflections by the artists, and lots of materials that we will be using in worship. Our friends at New Hope Presbyterian Church will be walking alongside of us for the journey, including a weekly zoom meeting of our two congregations, to share responses to the daily readings.  From 6:30 – 7:00PM each Tuesday of Lent we will have time to share ourselves with one another. The zoom information will be on the calendar of the church’s website.

The theme “Again and Again” triggers a number of thoughts. I used to teach youth groups that the tri-fold plot of Scripture is “God is faithful; We are not; God loves us anyway.” The fact that God is faithful, again and again and we fail, again and again, is reason enough for a season dedicated to introspection, confession, and repentance. Nonetheless, I do not hear the phrase “Again and Again” as a circle, endlessly going but ‘round and ‘round, but getting nowhere. I hear it as a spiral, where each experience of falling and rising moves the process to another plane. I think of that phrase from Leonard Cohen’s marvelous song, “Hallelujah” that names the “minor fall and major lift.” That’s what enables the circularity to be upwardly spiral in nature. 

Big Topic #2: Worship 

The Supreme Court recently handed down a decision striking down some of Governor Newsom’s ban on gathered worship for churches in California. The decision came down last Friday. On Saturday I had several inquiries of whether we would be “open for worship” on Sunday. Right now, the answer at the moment is “no.” I want to lay out the process that we are following to make decisions about gathering. 

A. The ultimate decision rests with our Session. We will not get a directive from the Presbytery or any other higher governing body of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Our church constitution makes it quite clear that this decision falls to our Session, since you elected them for moments like this. They are the ones who will listen, consider, discern, and decide. Pray for them. 

B. Early on, the Session authorized a “Faithful Phasing Team” that meets periodically to assess the science and healthcare aspects of the pandemic, in order to offer guidance to the Session’s decision-making. This team looks at the numbers and trends, particularly of hospitalizations, deaths, and now vaccinations – all guided by an epidemiologist on the team. We give less attention to ‘testing’ and ‘infection’ rates, because they often fluctuate due to many non-health-related reasons. Frankly, when Governor Newsom began color-coding each country according to the same kinds of numbers, our job became a lot clearer. We consult this page quite often, and you can too. It is a summary and springboard for more information.

C. Orange County is still in the “Purple Tier” of this pandemic, the worst tier, with numbers that none of us imagined we might be seeing a year or even six months ago. Since the numbers have gotten worse gradually and in “surges,” we have not felt the shock that we probably should feel about these numbers. They are as bad as we wished they would never be. 

D. So, from a science and healthcare perspective, the Faithful Phasing Team is not recommending that we begin gathered worship at this time. The Supreme Court ruled, not on the wisdom, but on the constitutionality of banning worship, based on the 1st Amendment. Rightly or wrongly, their ruling is just one aspect of our Session’s decision. They have said that, legally, we can gather; the Session decides when we, wisely, ought to gather. 

GOOD NEWS: I feel that there is light at the end of this tunnel and it is growing brighter, although it has nothing to do with the Supreme Court’s ruling. Between the expanded number of folks who have received the vaccine (including a lot of you, for whom I am glad!), the number of folks who have already had COVID-19 and have developed some degree of immunity, and the continued practice of wearing masks, practicing distance, etc., we are beginning to see the numbers trend in the right direction. And while there may be setbacks (like a post-Super Bowl surge), the directional trend is good. So, we are in the “heartbreak hill” phase of this marathon, where the last portion is the most challenging and we are already exhausted. But, if we run this race with perseverance, we will get there. Together. 

Mark of St. Mark

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

Most years it seems like Ash Wednesday impatiently arrives too early - just after we get the baby Jesus born we start plotting his death. This year feels a little different. Since Christmas we’ve had New Years Day (good riddance 2020!); a failed palace coup; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day; an inauguration; ordinations and installations; and a vaccine rollout starting to actually reach people. January was an eventful month. 

But, as predicted, Ash Wednesday is coming soon – February 17, in fact – and with it comes the season of Lent. We’ll have more to say about Lent in future Friday Messages, particularly how we are taking that journey alongside of our sister churches New Hope and Canvas this year. For today I want to focus on Ash Wednesday itself. First, with a little history and second with some very important information for you. 

Getting smudged with ashes seems like a very exotic, deeply religious, once-a-year kind of phenomenon, but it was not always so. In biblical times – as well as later church history – ashes were fairly common parts of every household. Cooking and heating were based on wood-burning and the deposition of ashes was typically some unfortunate child’s household chore. Sometimes the ashes would be scattered, but sometimes they were put to more practical use. (I can testify from a small, disastrous Ash Wednesday experience that mixing olive oil with ashes makes for some very effective, hard-to-remove stains.) During biblical times, one would put ashes on themselves as a sign of mourning or fasting and, in many cultures, ashes symbolized death, since many persons were cremated after dying. Somewhere along the line the church started the practice of taking the palm branches from Palm Sunday and burning them to be the ashes for the following Ash Wednesday. These days if you want that kind of authentic ashes, you have to go to a Catholic Liturgical Supplies store. 

My point is that while ashes seem to be an exotic, religious symbol today, they were initially a common part of everyday life. Ashes were so common that they were associated with dirt, the ground, the humus of creation, the “dust of the earth” in the phrase, “From dust you have come, to dust you will return.” 

This year, since we will not gather for Ash Wednesday worship and the imposition of ashes, we decided to use different common items as our symbols for the Lenten journey, namely dirt, seeds, and water. Along with New Hope and Canvas, we are going to produce an Ash Wednesday video that will lead you in interactive worship. 

Here’s what you want to have on hand by February 17 to actively engage in Ash Wednesday worship: 

A pot – Any size or quality, from a Dixie Cup to an ornate vase. We have some available at the church. 

Seeds – We will have Wheatgrass, Easter Egg Radish, and Mung seeds available at the church. Of course, you can use your own seed. We encourage you to choose something that will grow visibly during the Lenten season. 

Dirt – Any old dirt. We have some organic potting soil in quart-sized bags at the church. 

Water – in a pitcher, a jar, glass, cup, or watering can. We’ll let you get this yourself. 

If you have these items ready in a place where you can make a little mess, you will be ready to join us in worship on Ash Wednesday. And, as I said, we’ll have the supplies you need at the church on a table by the front doors of the sanctuary. You don’t need to make an appointment, just come and get ‘em!  

Mark of St. Mark

COVID, Vaccinations, and the Challenge of Patience

About ten years, ago our family spent a week on the campus of Buena Vista College for an event called Synod School. There was another small group on campus that week, of Japanese students, for a separate event. One of those students wore a mask whenever we would see her in the cafeteria or other common areas. It was an odd thing to see. Until then, the only time we might have seen someone wearing a mask was in a hospital setting or perhaps in news footage of a city that was smog-infested. And, it bothered some people, for reasons that were not entirely clear, though perhaps xenophobic in nature. 

 

What a difference ten years makes! What a difference the last year has made! Now the roles have been reversed and people practice the “stare of shame” for those who either refuse to wear a mask or who think a mask over their chin or short of their nose is somehow magically effective. For the better part of a year our social lives, family gatherings, work, play, and even worship have been shaped by a rapidly spreading and often-deadly coronavirus, which has forced us to adopt new norms. We don’t need to recount the number of changes that we have all had to make, either joyfully, willingly, or kicking and screaming. We don’t need to rehearse the devastating effects the shutdowns and other precautions have brought about on businesses, particularly small businesses with slim profit margins to rely on. We mourn together the losses and near-losses that every single family in America has known. And we don’t need reminding that one of the less enviable consequences of our mutual concerns has been the creation and perpetuation of misleading stories, misread “facts,” and fears masqueraded as bravado. It has been a trying year, to put it very mildly. 

 

But, there is light at the end of this tunnel. It is dim and it is distant, but it is in sight. Between the vaccinations that are available, the “herd immunity” that we get from vaccines and other forms of antibody development, and the best practices that we have developed, we do hope that we will attain some semblance of renewal in the future. I am hesitant to say anything about “when,” since I remember last year during Lent I was imagining that we’d be through the worst of it by Pentecost. We were not. We are, in fact, still in the worst of it right now. But still, there is hope. For now, we will continue to be the church in our moment of distancing, we will continue to err on the side of caution, we will continue to listen to the science and embrace best practices, and we will plan our steps so that we can move into our newness of life when the way is clear. To that end, here are some practical steps that I encourage you to take. 

 

1. Be patient. 

2. Get vaccinated. If you have serious reservations about vaccinations in general, I am not trying to disregard your feelings, although I disagree with them. I do, however, want to encourage those of you who have been holding back so that others can get their’s first. The rollout nationally has been so mishandled that your good intentions simply do not ensure that someone more needy or worthy is next in line. So, perhaps you can think of it as good selfishness. You are taking it on the arm so that others may breathe more freely. 

3. Be patient. The problem with patience is that when we practice it we are often rewarded with simply more opportunities to keep practicing it. 

 

4. Ask for help. We have a church member who has successfully helped some neighbors navigate the process of signing up for a vaccine and we have folks who can help with transportation and accompany you. And if you know of someone else who needs this kind of community support, please ask. Call the church office, explain what you need, and we will find the right person who can respond to the best of our ability. 

5. And finally, be patient. The problem with patience is that when we practice it we are often rewarded with simply more opportunities to keep practicing it. Nonetheless, it is right to do.

 

We can and we will get through this best if we do so together. The church is simply one of the many collective groups that we are part of, but we have the specific mandate to love one another well. So, I invite you to live into that call as patiently and powerfully as you can.

 

Mark of St. Mark

 

Hopeful Realism

The nation swore President Joe Biden and Madam Vice-President Kamala Harris into office on Wednesday. It is a change in leadership that many people welcomed gladly and others less so. Personally, I felt that President Biden’s inaugural address was incredibly conciliatory and Father Leo Donovan’s invocation, Amanda Gorman’s poetry, and Rev. Dr. Silvester Beaman’s benediction were all very well done, as was all the music. It seemed to be a hopeful, hope-filled event, but there was plenty of recognition of the tragic losses that COVID-19 has wrought, as well as the significant divides that our nation’s people are experiencing. It puts me in mind of a powerful book that my mentor Douglas Ottati wrote called Hopeful Realism. (If that title sounds familiar, I spoke about it in my “St. Mark Minuscule Morning Moment” on Wednesday. It’s in my head, y’all.) 

Dr. Ottati describes hopeful realism in the Christian tradition as a way of life that is different from the kind of managerial process that we often take for community leadership these days. The Reign of God, specifically, is intended to be a banquet, a party, and celebratory event into which the least likely candidates are invited and welcomed. Undergirding this celebration is hope – hope in God and, therefore, hope in the prospects of life. But, it’s not a simplistic hope. It is hope in tandem with realism. 

So, within that framework let me muse a bit about hopeful realism. 

Some of the challenges we face as a human community – or any subsection thereof, such as a nation, a church, or a family – are written into the human condition. Right now, apart from any ideology or belief system, there are 7,800,000,000 people in this world. That is 7.8 billion people to feed; 7.8 billion people to house, 7.8 billion people who need healthcare, 7.8 billion people whose lives matter, 7.8 billion people who are true gems in God’s eyes. And, it is 7.8 billion people, among whom there are fundamental differences in beliefs, aspirations, experiences, and dispositions. The challenge of having a world where everyone receives the kind of dignity and equality that is ideal is enormous. And that challenge continues to be enormous even if we break it down from 7.8 billion people to a nation of 328 million people, just as it is for a family of four. These challenges are simply germane to being part of the human community. I’ve often thought that our liturgies need to supplement our familiar “Prayer of Confession” with a “Prayer of Condition.” Perhaps that is the role that prayers of lament and even those hideous prayers of imprecation in the Psalms intend to play. Being human-in-community is hard and often heart-breaking. 

And some of the challenges that we face as a human community are because of human sin. The word “sin” is a musty old thing that has been used so improperly to bludgeon people and perspectives over the years. I hesitate to use it because it has been so misused; or else it has been watered down to the extent that it hardly names anything of substance any more. I think our Reformed tradition invites us to think of the word “sin” as “anything that is destructive of life and community.” Honestly, the challenges of the human condition are hard enough, but when we add hate, racism, selfishness, greed, bullying, and the like into the mix, it ensures that some people will never experience the dignity of housing, nutrition, healthcare, acceptance, justice, and peace that they ought to experience. I think one reason the biblical writers gave. Us stories of Cain killing Abel and other moments of egregious violence is because injustice is so wrong, yet so predictable. Reinhold Niebuhr once called sin, “inevitable, but not necessary.” What a hauntingly precise depiction. 

Hopeful realism takes the human condition and human sin into account as true words, but not the last words. Only hope has the privilege of the last word. As such, it is the power that saves us from despair, and enables us to be honest in confessing sin, pursuing justice, and telling the truth. 

That’s enough for now. Thanks for listening.

Mark of St. Mark

Honoring the Legacy and Ministry of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, in honor of the legacy of the Rev. Dr. King. This weekend also is when SueJeanne Koh begins her work with St. Mark and New Hope Presbyterian Churches as our Director of Adult Education and Resident Theologian. So, today’s missive includes reflections from Rev. Chineta Goodjoin, pastor of New Hope, and Dr. SueJeanne Koh, and Rev. Mark Davis about this weekend and how each of us can approach it in a way that genuinely honors Dr. King’s legacy and ministry. 

 

Chineta: When we remember and reflect upon the life and sacrifice of Dr. Martin Luther King, we are affirmed in our commitment to seek justice, peace, and freedom in the world. This one weekend is a motivating reminder that the work of reconciliation and peace is not to simply be memorialized, but more so actualized by the ways in which we choose to see the humanity of God in others. We are responsible to God and each other in building the Beloved Community in which Dr. King envisioned as a society based on social, political and economic justice—a place of equal opportunity, and love of one’s fellow human beings. Luke 4:18 reminds us that Jesus was a radical liberator who came to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free. This weekend is a prophetic booster shot for long suffering in the continued fight for freedom. I pray that our spirits are awakened to God’s promise and our potential to be the change agents who embrace the dream of freedom and equality for all people. MLK weekend means that the work of reconciliation is not finished and that we have the opportunity to work together for a new peace and a greater unity. New Hope has created a resource website that allows people to participate in a variety of virtual lectures, prayer gatherings and book studies centered on love, reconciliation, non-violent resistance and the Beloved Community. There is also a Jamboard on this site in which you can interact with others and share ideas about how we can help to build the Beloved Community. Click here to access MLK events and opportunities.

 

SueJeanne: To remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this weekend is to reread and be challenged by his “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” which you can find here. King writes that he is not afraid of “crisis” or “tension”—“Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.” Reading this causes me to reflect on the particular social crises and witness that helped create that kind of creative tension in myself, that spurred me to act and think differently about my faith. Nonviolent action isn’t passive inaction but rather a challenge and call for transformative justice. 

 

What does nonviolent resistance look like for you? This is an ongoing question with no one answer. Given Dr. King’s enormous impact, it may feel like an impossible task for us to step into. I know that I am, we are, tired. But there are small ways that we can start. To resist reminds me that we are mutually interdependent rather than politically divided along racial, social, and economic lines. I believe that our congregations coming together to collaborate on racial justice is a creative act of resistance. Community service, too, can be an act of resistance—resisting the notion that our time is too precious, or that such a limited act can do anything in the grand scheme of things. To that end, one such opportunity is One OC’s MLK Day of Service, which includes a socially distanced food bank drop off as well as a dinner and dialogue reflecting on King’s legacy. Signing up may feel challenging, but also coming together in this way can be a small but powerful example of nonviolence resistance. You can register here to participate.

 

Mark: Whenever MLKing Day approaches, I remember something that Allan Boesak once said. Dr. Boesak argued that while some White Christians joined alongside Dr. King because they shared his theological vision of “the beloved community” and racial justice, many White Christians only hesitatingly and reluctantly turned to Dr. King because he offered them a safe alternative to the more radical vision of Malcolm X. Boesak’s insight continues to be true. Many White Christians love to quote Dr. King’s words about nonviolence and love, but seem to have forgotten his prophetic words about resisting the “giant triplets of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.” Nonviolence and love require a radical dedication to truth, or else they descend into platitudes that merely salve the conscience of those who benefit from injustice. So, this weekend is an appropriate time to lean into some of the more pointed words that Dr. King spoke, the kind that put him on an FBI watch list and led to his imprisonment, beatings, constant harassment, and ultimately to his assassination. No one is so ill-treated because they speak gentle words of loving and getting along – Jesus is the prime example of that. Prophets are killed because their critiques require us to either repent or silence the critiques. As we remember Dr. King and honor his legacy and ministry this weekend, I hope we can do so with integrity and not simply romanticize his work in a way that misses the point. 

 

In service to the love and justice of Jesus Christ, 

Chineta Goodjoin, SueJeanne Koh, and Mark Davis

 

Some Good News and The Good News

Some Good News: 

St. Mark has joined with New Hope Presbyterian Church to hire Dr. SueJeanne Koh as our Director of Adult Education and Resident Theologian. It is a shared position in which SueJeanne will be working with the appropriate commissions and committees from both churches and will particularly find ways for our two congregations to pursue our discipleship together. The job was initiated by Rev. Chineta Goodjoin and me, shaped by a joint committee with representation from both congregations, interviewed with representatives from both congregations, and will be celebrated by both congregations. As “Resident Theologian,” SueJeanne will also be encouraged to continue her research and writings in theology as it intersects with culture, gender, race, and ethnicity, so that we all can benefit from her work. 

And I want to give a loud shout out to an anonymous beneficent family who agreed to fund this position with an above-and-beyond donation. We all benefit greatly from this gift. Thank you.

 

And now, The Good News: 

We just came out of a season when we sang, “Go Tell it on the Mountain!” Alicia Adams shared a marvelous Musical Monday Morning Moment this week about that song and it is how we end our Christmas eve services whether in person or virtual. The strength of the song is that our faith is not “insider knowledge” that we keep to ourselves, but “Good news of great joy to all people.” As news, we are called to share it, to say that it is, what it is, who is blessed by it, how it happens, and so forth. 

 

So, as those who are called to go and tell, what do we say after a week when we witnessed a protest that turned into a short-term occupation of the nation’s Capitol building? It reminds me of a conversation in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Rings, that takes place between the hobbit Frodo and the wizard Gandalf, deep in the mines of Moria. “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

 

In moments like this, it is given to us to ask how we can faithfully “go tell it on the mountain” when events leave us speechless. What shall we say? 

 

Do we go the route of reconciliation, where we start by affirming that everyone is aggrieved in some way or another and try to build from there? 

Do we go the route of law and order, parsing the difference between protests or methods we believe in and those that we believe cross the line of propriety and safety? 

Do we name it as a variation of, or a cynical use of, John Lewis’ prescription for “good trouble”?

Do we aim for a higher ground of analysis, remembering that most of history saw little distinction between democracy and mob rule?  

Do we aim for sympathy, acknowledging that people who are aggrieved about their lives in general are willing to embrace conspiracy stories that center themselves as victims? 

Do we shake our fists at someone else's fist-shaking? 

Do we compare the robust response to BLM protests and the halting, delayed response to an action that was openly forewarned as a way of unveiling the depth of white supremacy in our governing and policing bodies? 

Do we look inwardly and wonder aloud how many of the folks who were gathered at the Capitol building yesterday were baptized and saw their actions as a way of living into their baptismal vows? (This weekend is “Baptism of Christ” weekend on the church calendar.)

 

And I'm sure there are many other routes that one can take. As those who are called to “Go tell it on the mountain,” I'm quite interested in hearing how you believe the church - that is, you - are called to proclaim the love and justice of Jesus Christ in the time that is given to us. 

 

Feel free to leave a comment if you want to let your thoughts be part of a larger conversation. I hope we can find ways to be thoughtful, open, and genuine, without simply falling into the kind of opinion-wars that often happen on social media. 

 

Mark of St. Mark