Constructive Faith

God of Heaven and of Earth
Of plunging and of rising

We gather each year
to pray
to remember that on a day such as this
a day on the far edge of summer
with cerulean skies
the world changed.
We gather to ring bells
and celebrate heroes
ordinary folks
some of good character
some not so much.

On a day such as this
death still comes from the sky
drones executing without trial
the guilty and the innocent
bombs carry lethal gas
and mobs attack.

On a day such as this
many innocents are imprisoned
by Jihadis in caves and villages
by us in Guantanamo
where torture is the rule
and life is trampled under the heel of fear.

On a day such as this
diplomats negotiate
wise teachers call us to common ground
protesters demand peace
first responders protect and rescue.

On a day such as this we call on You
a God we know as compassionate
a God whose image we claim.
Mark us with your compassion
that each year we might leave behind a little of our grief
might shed a little of our anger
that we might become what you call us to be
people of memory and of promise
bearers of covenant and builders of hope.

We pray in the name of love
In the name of your great I AM
for we are
and You are with us.
Amen.

The local Patch asked me what advice I would offer to graduates. This is it…

Dear Graduates,

In the next few weeks, you’ll be getting tons of advice. Some will come in the form of little cutesy gift books bought at the Hallmark shop by distant relatives. Some will come from that blowhard uncle who has an opinion on everything and has one-beer-too-many at your graduation party. And some will come in columns like this. In all likelihood, you’ll blow it all off. That’s okay. Most of the advice will be good, and that wisdom will still be floating out there in the universe when you need to hear it.

Here are some things I wish people had told me when I was your age:

1) Have adventures. There will be plenty of time later in life to get trapped in the cycle of debt and consumerism. Go spend some time in the Peace Corps, as a Jesuit Volunteer, backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, sleeping in a hostel in Paris. You’ll learn and love and when it’s all over, you’ll be a better person. Ironically enough, seeing how amazing the rest of the world is will also open your eyes to how amazing your hometown is.
2) Decide what kind of person you want to be. Seventy years from now, when three friends and family members are delivering eulogies at your funeral, what do you want them to say about your character? Now here’s the big secret: that person is already inside of you. Start acting like him or her and that’s who you will become. Want to be an artist? Start acting like an artist. Want to be known for your compassion? See yourself as already being compassionate. “Fake it until you make it” actually works.
3) As a corollary to #2, surround yourself with the kind of people you want to become. Sure you chose your friends during your school years, but the pool you were choosing from wasn’t that big. Some of your current friends don’t share your values, and you’re going to have to get past your sense of loyalty to get on with your life. This is really hard to hear, and even harder to do. But you’re going to become more and more like your “crew,” and if that crew is obsessed with partying or being cool or getting laid, you are going to lose valuable years you can never get back.
4) Do better. My generation and the ones that came before it have been awful. We’ve worshiped the “god” in the mirror, promoting selfishness, individualism and greed. The result is that while we live longer and own more, we are miserable. And we are destroying our planet’s ability to sustain life. We’ve done our best to screw you up too, with “helicopter” parents insisting that its all about you all the time and you should never ever be held accountable for your actions. And yet, you’re turning out okay, with better values than us. It’s going to be your world soon, and the sooner the better. Vote, run for office, save us from our miserable selves.
5) Seriously bad things can happen. Some days are going to be hard. But you have a decision to make. If you see things as miserable and terrible, they will be. If you see every day as filled with possibility, that will be your experience. Believing is seeing. Faced with a crippled man, Jesus didn’t make a big show out of the healing. He said “Get up, take up your mat, and walk.” Get up, face forward, and keep going. Something amazing is going to happen. Are you ready?

Written for Outlook, Long Island’s LGBT magazine.

The early Christian church was an underground movement. In declaring that God was the only legitimate ruler, and that justice, love and grace were not subject to political control, the early Jesus community committed acts of treason. If you couldn’t keep a secret, you were likely to end up the main course for lunch with the lions in the local coliseum. This changed a couple of centuries later, when Christianity was not only accepted, but became the state religion. But what was compromised? Many believe that Christianity aligned with empire was something very different from the Christianity at the margins, diverging significantly from the teachings of that itinerant Jewish rabbi and healer. Continue reading “Post Gay Church?”

“We can and must act to protect the public schools against those who slander them out of hidden anti-democratic, racial or class biases. But most particularly, we must protect the children in those schools, for such is not only the kingdom of heaven but also the future of our country and of the yet-to-be-realized democratic dream of equal opportunity for all…”

These words, from a resolution passed at a United Church of Christ General Synod in 1991, underscores our belief that the common good and justice are best served by equal access to quality education, that opportunity should not be reserved for the wealthiest communities. Since that resolution was passed, the educational landscape has dramatically changed. The so-called “Texas Miracle” drove “No Child Left Behind,” extending the failed educational policies of former governor and President George W. Bush to the national level.

The not-so-secret agenda of this legislation was to marginalize teachers, Continue reading “A Patch column on education”

a sermon delivered on January 29, 2012 at Sayville Congregational United Church of Christ

We begin at the end, because the story of Kurt Gödel does not end well, and hopefully this sermon will. Gödel was one of the three great minds of the early 20th century who closed the door on the great project of the Enlightenment. More on that later. Through the middle of the last century, he could be seen most days strolling home from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, with his dear friend, Albert Einstein, one of the other two great reality-changing thinkers of the time…  Gödel was a difficult man verging on madness, and in the end it was madness that killed him, for he came to believe someone was trying to poison him, and when his elderly wife was hospitalized, he starved himself to death, not trusting anyone else with his food. It was a tragic end, to be sure, for a brilliant career. More than a decade earlier there was a more endearing reference to Gödel’s sanity when Einstein remarked to a friend that Gödel really had finally gone mad. When asked why, Einstein replied that the man had voted for Eisenhower. Continue reading “Positively Wrong”

a sermon delivered January 22, 2012 at Sayville Congregational United Church of Christ

I got on the train, like I had many times before that year. I had my backpack, my passport, a baguette, sausage and cheese in case I got hungry. I also had my Thomas Cooke guide with train schedules for all of Europe and my Let’s Go guide, letting me know where I could find a hostel, cheap eats, and the best times to visit various attractions. And so we pulled out a Gare du Nord heading to Metz. Now, I am bilingual… I speak English and Southern, but I do not speak French. None-the-less, I did manage to understand the announcement, made in French, that revealed that half of the cars in the train were going to Metz, and that at some point half would split off and head to Luxembourg. And I was in the wrong half. Continue reading “On the complexity of not going to Metz”

a sermon delivered on January 15th, 2012 at Sayville Congregational United Church of Christ

Scholar John Dominic Crossan stated the problem succinctly when it comes to how we interpret the Bible. Either the ancients wrote a text they believed to be literally true, and many of us are smart enough to read it symbolically; or, the ancients wrote a text they believed to be symbolically true, and many of us are dumb enough to take it literally. Crossan believes the latter. I tend to think it is somewhere in between, the ancients realizing parts were true and parts symbolic, and that many contemporary American Christians are unable to admit to themselves and the world that they are choosing which parts are symbolic and which are literal. Continue reading “Monkey-Soul-A-Phobia”

It is not uncommon for folks, on learning that I am a Christian minister, to say to me something like this: “Well, all paths lead to the same place.” I usually politely nod, move on to other topics. But I don’t really believe it.

As we begin our three week sermon series on “Lessons Learned from Other Religions,” I thought it might be helpful to clarify how we use the term “universalist,” and why I am specifically a Christian. Continue reading “On Being 2/3 Universalist”

It is very old, primordial, this fear of the dark, this ancient human fear of what is unknown. It is the salt in the soup of our souls, this desire to know, to explore, to illuminate, and to hate what is obscured. Dylan Thomas advises us: “Do not go gentle into that good night,” further advising us to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Death and birth, ignorance and knowledge, these are tropes, figures that transcend any single culture, the raging at the dark seen in our ritual candle lighting, in the bonfires of the ancients. And here, in the long dark of winter, we celebrate light. Continue reading “Dusk: January 8, 2012”

Despite the hullabaloo in Times Square last night, the vast amounts of alcohol consumed, the soon-to-be broken resolutions that were made, despite all of this, this day is no different than any other day. Yes, we mark the end of the secular year, which for purposes of historical dating makes a difference, as we will remember the next few weeks every time we mistakenly write 2011. And we will close the financial books, some starting to gather information for their taxes while others drag their feet until April 14th. But for many, the “year” starts at other times. Our Jewish brothers and sisters started their year some months ago. Communist China and people that share the Chinese cultural heritage have a different New Year. Twelve month a year Christians marked the beginning of the year with the start of Advent, in a cycle that is meant to loosely re-create the narrative arc of Christ’s life. And nine month a year Christians marked the start of the year with the beginning of the academic year.

So, it is one more day, really, as good a time as any to reflect and plan. Continue reading “New Year’s Homily: To plant and to pluck, to gather and to throw”