Ain't No Mountain High Enough
If you are a church-going person you already know that you will not hear any scripture about the pending birth of Jesus until the Fourth Sunday in Advent, that is, if your congregation follows the common lectionary. This coming Sunday is the Second Sunday in Advent, and the opening salvo from the third chapter of Luke is great news for all of us. Somewhere in the background a 30-something Jesus is waiting in the wings to come on the scene. Meanwhile, his cousin John the Baptist is out in the Palestinian wilderness preaching like a man possessed.
It is intentional that author Luke goes to great detail to name the political and religious power people of the day – the Roman Emperor, Pontius Pilate (the one who would order Jesus crucified), King Herod and ruler brother, Philip, as well as the high priests. None of these power people will be holding a press conference with breaking news, announcing the coming of the Messiah. None of these will be receiving an authentic word from on high. Nope. Luke says that among a setting featuring all those ruthless and corrupt power people, the word of God came to John… in the wilderness!
No authority figure needed to receive a word from God.
So, if a word from God can come to John, that word from God can come to you. John’s mission and activity out in the wilderness is about one thing only. God is coming to you and for you. God is not a top-down, imposing-her-power kind of god. God works at the grassroots in the midst of life wherever it happens.
Whatever it takes, God comes to you.
Luke, the author, writes of the physical world being shaken up as God comes for you. Luke speaks of mountains being leveled and valleys being filled. In an Advent sermon in December 2003, New Testament Professor Mark Allen Powell gave a sermon in my congregation in Colorado on the 2nd Sunday in Advent. I still vividly remember it. And considering all the stuff I have heard preached, that’s remarkable! What he proclaimed is that Luke’s words are an early rendition of Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell’s 1967 version of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.
Ain't no mountain high enough
Ain't no valley low enough,
Ain't no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you, baby.
That’s the great news. Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no tragedy harsh enough, ain’t no adversity challenging or crippling enough, ain’t no obstacles or excuses profound enough to keep God from coming for you. Whether it’s around a Christmas tree, at a candlelight service, in a delivery room, in a homeless shelter, on the front line of a military zone, or in the midst of the most profound grief you have ever experienced, God is coming to you and for you. Count on it!
In the abiding hope of the empty tomb,
Stand Up and Raise Your Heads
Frame the Day
It is always a promising idea to frame whatever the day may bring with the bedrock proclamation, “The tomb is empty!” For me, it is the lens through which I strive to interpret and react to whatever life might serve up to me or to our world. This is not to say that I do not get anxious when confronted with ominous news or get very frustrated with the powers of this world not being able to pay serious attention to things like the developing global calamity of climate change. Yet, when I get knocked off my center, it is remembering and clinging to the promise wrought by the proclamation, “The tomb is empty” that centers me back to true north.
I had to find that true north when my heart was wrenched by the battle with a glioblastoma and the inevitable death of my best friend – a lifelong friend. “The tomb is empty” is what framed me when I was called upon to conduct and craft my words for Stuart’s celebration of life service for close to 400 people on a farm north of Statesville, NC. I had to find that true north late on a Friday evening while I was with my wife, Harriet, enjoying the fall colors at the Lutheridge conference and retreat center near Asheville. A nurse at Winship Cancer Center called me with the news that I was no longer in remission in my fight with leukemia. And daily I have to stay held by the bedrock proclamation when our siblings in Haiti are having to endure unnecessary daily suffering and our own government, who is complicit in Haiti’s demise, does nothing.
The Tomb is Empty
The tomb that held Jesus, the one whom they crucified, is empty. To remind oneself of this is not a psych trick or a cliché. It is a reality. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus from the dead, God has already overcome everything that would demean us, fragment us, and destroy us. By the grace and tenacious compassion of God, love and life do finally win in the end.
In our congregations that use the ecumenical lectionary, the 1st Sunday in Advent comes with Jesus standing with his followers and pointing to some very calamitous events on the horizon (Luke 21). Contrary to the religious hucksters of our day, Jesus was not pointing to the end times. He was pointing to events just over the horizon. The nature of the coming trials could fit any generation, including ours. Nations still rise against nation. A global pandemic is still wreaking havoc and death. Political one-upmanship and culture wars are undermining our capacity to act on the big picture issues that matter not only for us but also for all humanity and all of creation. Cable news, social and the mainstream media deal in sensationalism and “click bait” rather than substance. These are trying times with a lot at stake.
When Jesus was speaking truth of what was soon to come, he admonished his followers on how to respond. “Stand up and raise your heads.” Do not panic. Do not hide. Do not become cynical. And for God’s sake, do not give up or give in to despair. Despite evidence that would suggest otherwise, God still yet reigns and owns the future. Keep loving one another and this world. Keep doing what you can to make the world a better place for all. Be my heart, hands, and feet in the world. Jesus could say that because he knew that he would soon be taking a beating and be put to death by unspeakable torture and laid in a tomb. But he also knew, trusting the One who sent him, that on a Sunday morning, women who first came to the tomb would run and report the tomb is empty.
In Solidarity with Haiti: Voices You Need to Hear
The last three years have been among the most difficult in Haiti’s long history of unrest and corruption that together maintain Haiti’s status as the most impoverished nation in the Western Hemisphere. For 20 years, the Haitian Timoun Foundation (htflive.org) has partnered with the Haitian Education and Leadership Program (uhelp.net) to create a rising class of talented and dedicate young professionals who will forge a path towards Haiti becoming a more just society. In an extremely challenging context, HELP has an astonishing track record of creating life-giving impact. In the following op-ed, two of Haiti’s finest, Daphnée Charles and Stephanie Rubin, speak to the current crisis. They, their tenacious resiliency, and character speak to why we need Haiti more than Haiti needs us.
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The murder of our President last week is a shocking development in a country that has become almost numb to shocking developments. How did we get here? How have we, the first nation in the world to abolish slavery, gotten used to cohabiting with chaos, up to and including the assassination of the President? We seek to answer that question and propose ideas to build the Haiti most of us want to live in.
Both of us are among the rare “success stories” of Haiti’s struggling democratic transition. Daphnée was born in 1986, weeks after the fall of the brutal 34-year Duvalier family dictatorship. Stephanie was born in 1995 and grew up in one of the most lawless districts of the capital. We are lifelong witnesses to, and victims of, the degradation of Haiti’s politics, economics, and security. Often we studied by kerosene lamp because the state rarely provides electricity and sometimes we studied under our beds as gun battles from gang warfare raged outside. Daphnée’s parents didn’t finish primary school and Stephanie’s didn’t finish secondary, but our parents’ focus on education and our love of learning saved us; we won scholarship after scholarship, necessary for success in a country where public secondary schools educate no more than 20 percent of age-eligible children. Now with college degrees, we are part of Haiti’s “one percent”, the educated, economic elite.
How should Haiti work toward providing all its children a shot at similar success? First, Haiti and must focus on process over products. Second it must prioritize quality public education at all levels, with an emphasis on civic education and patriotism. Many countries may feel that Haiti’s problems are far removed, but the coronavirus has shown us that distant problems that we ignore can soon show up on our door, with devastating effects. So we ask that Haiti’s longstanding partners remain engaged to overcome the weaknesses of past efforts, and we invite new partners to join us in our renewed efforts.
Since the adoption of Haiti’s constitution in 1987, Haitians and our international partners have valued the products of democracy at the expense of its processes. Elections are a prime example. Our constitution establishes a permanent council (CEP in French) to organize elections. The process of electing the CEP is complicated, so for the 1988 elections our leaders made do by appointing a temporary council. No one paid much attention; the election took place. But that single failure was the harbinger of a dangerous trend. Since then, Haitians have held, and international partners have financed, seven Presidential elections as well as additional parliamentary and local elections without ever constituting a permanent CEP. Thirty-three years later Haiti remains without a CEP or any credible electoral institution. Haiti and its partners have so ignored processes in favor of quick results that today there is no constitutional method of choosing an interim President to replace the murdered Moise. Together we must commit to the long-term investment required to building these institutions which are the foundation of a durable democracy.
An educated population is another pre-requisite for shared participation and prosperity. Although universal education is enshrined in the constitution, and we have made great gains at the primary level, Haiti enrolls only 20 percent of children at the secondary level, the lowest in our hemisphere and less than a quarter of the regional average. Imagine trying to run a modern company with no more than 20 percent of the employees having reached secondary school. We Haitians are trying to run a country like that. Haiti and its friends must commit to massive, long term investment in universal education at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels if we are to have any chance of broadly shared prosperity. Post-secondary education, long dismissed by international donors, is particularly important. Without our university scholarships, our current success and influence would have been unimaginable. Luckily, international donors have begun to see the light on this issue; for the first time ever, the UN sustainable development goals include targets for university scholarships in developing countries. This will be money well spent.
Good education is necessary but not sufficient. As we have reached adulthood we have seen too many of Haiti’s educated leaders prioritize their narrow interest over the national interest, and either look the other way when faced with corruption, or participate directly, as the reports on the recent PetroCaribe scandal demonstrate. We have been lucky to receive strong civic education throughout our academic career, including university scholarships with a focus on active citizenship, community service and ethical leadership. Lessons we learned from our primary school civics textbook, I Love Haiti, and from planting trees every May Day, still guide us. Civic education transformed our view of our role in society and what we can accomplish for our country, so much so that one of our service projects at university has blossomed into ACTIVEH, Haiti’s largest university student association. If all Haitian children had access to this same information and encouragement in their youth, we could really build a new Haiti.
Of course, counting on people’s good feelings and good will are not enough. Corruption exists where there is opportunity. And today our institutions are so weak that the opportunity exists everywhere. Which brings us back to institution building. We have been nurtured by schools and programs that are among Haiti’s few remaining strong institutions. We have seen how the emphasis on policies and procedures maintain these institutions and are the foundation of their successful products, among which we can count ourselves.
Rather than use our education to move abroad, we chose to stay and build a better Haiti. Today Haiti is weak and needs international collaboration: thoughtful, targeted and most of all sustained collaboration to strengthen critical institutions, provide good education to all Haitians and encourage them to use their skills to fulfill the long-lost promise of Haiti’s inspiring revolution. Won’t you join us?
Daphnée Charles is the Development Officer at the HELP scholarship program. In 2017 the Lorquet Foundation named her one of Haiti’s most influential women. Stephanie Rubin is a Fulbright Scholar at the Rochester Institute of Technology, pursuing an MBA in information management. Both women are graduates of HELP.
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With Abiding Hope,
OUR BEST HOPE
A blessed Holy Week to you all. May you emerge from this week as more determined and hopeful than ever for a changed world.
GK Chesterton once wrote, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” May we consider doing the difficult? For the sake of the world?
Something’s Gotta Give
We look to Easter aware that our world is terribly divided and broken. That’s not new to human existence. It’s just that the headlines underscoring the age-old stubborn human dilemma tell of these particularly perilous days in which we live. Another mass shooting and then another. Jim Crow renewal in Georgia and elsewhere. More dire warnings about unmitigated climate change. A divided, contentious, and gridlocked congress. News and lies. Hate crimes. Refugees at our borders and displacements around the world. The widening wealth gap. White supremacy and whiteness as a defining cultural ideology. And, of course, COVID-19 and its carnage, and vaccinations notwithstanding, the questions of whether we will ever return to normalcy. In the words of Jack Nicholson in his 2003 film, Something’s Gotta Give.
Our Best Hope
In the stance of a good Old Testament prophet who knows that the present order cannot stand, I appeal to that community I know best – the church. Without fully retelling my own personal story of call, a great awakening happened in me when I left a business world of global engagement and entered seminary. From the time of that decision and through 32 years of ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, I continue to cling to the notion that the church is the community which offers our best (and only?) hope for the world. It is the only vision I know for a restored world.
A Church in Its Own Way
Yet, to be totally frank, I do not wear rose colored glasses when viewing the church. You who know me are aware that I have had a lifetime of a lover’s quarrel with the church. I have seen how the sausage is made. I have not seen a lack of theology, thoughtful and inspiring sermons, or good faithful service to the church being done by good people. What I do see is a church that struggles to get out of its own way, mainly because it is still confused about its identity and calling. That confusion is the biggest symptom of the church’s hangover from the deal it made with the devil when Emperor Constantine (4th Century) thought, for reasons of self-preservation, the marriage of the church and the empire was a good idea.
From Top-Down Command-and-Control to a Grassroots Movement
My pre-seminary life of witnessing an imperialistic approach to foreign aid and my 25 years of grassroots efforts in Haiti have confirmed to me what persons more informed than I have already said. Top-down approaches have never worked to bring about transformation. (For example, see Dead Aid: Why Aid is not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa by Dambisa Moyo, or Toxic Charity by Robert D. Lupton, or The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly.) It is the same with the church. Because of its marriage with empire the church has in its DNA an inherent top-down orientation, complete with command-and-control approaches to its life, as well as a number of programs that are to both help people and garner people’s attention, cementing its authority. When the empire influence became especially insidious, it spawned a tragic result that I called “Malignant Christianity.” For more on this and how we can be saved from it, see my June 2020 blog - https://www.rightspirit.org/blog/2020/6/9/being-saved-from-malignant-christianity.
When the women first ran from the tomb and declared it empty, the very first sermon was quite simple, “He is not here. He is risen.” From that proclamation a new community was formed. It was a grassroots community that was the continuation and embodiment of Jesus in the world. Jesus, in the Gospel of John, called the church his “branches.” As an arborist knows, the vine and the branch have the same DNA. Paul used the term, “The Body of Christ,” to describe the church. This new community in its very essence was to be counter-cultural to the status quo. Its life as a contrast society – in the world and not of it – was its witness. Its life together was to be an imitator of the crucified and risen Jesus. Caesar was not Lord. Jesus was.
Making the World Right
I do not want to overly romanticize the early church, but its call to be the light of the world and to be salt and leaven is a corporate call. Yes, Jesus does make the individual call of denying self and following him (Mark 8:34 et al). However, the call to find life rather than losing it is a call to the common good everyone must discern. That is, to live out in a community and participate in its life together for the sake of the world that God so richly loves. And for the church to be the body it is baptized to be, the most important fundamental shift it needs to make is from individualism to corporate witness. The fullest corporate expression is the same as that of the courageous, death-defeating, sinner-embracing, radical and extravagant-loving Jesus. As his body, the church bears Jesus’ focus – the poor, the powerless, the disenfranchised, the broken-hearted, all captured in the call to “do justice” (Micah 6:8). In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus proclaims at his baptism his coming to “fulfill all righteousness” (Mt. 3:15), and at his signature Sermon on the Mount announces blessings to those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Mt. 5:6). Righteousness is about justice, making things “right.” And folks, things are not right.
From American Individualism to a Mission for the Common Good
Perhaps the most stubborn aberration of American Christianity is the unchecked individualism that it not only fails to fully challenge but that it also reinforces. Protecting “my personal rights” and “my person freedom” is central to the American creed. Never mind that individual rights are not a biblical theme. How in the world does American Individualism square with this early Christian hymn?
Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.
- Philippians 2:4-8
To fully appreciate this startling passage, the original Greek is helpful. First there is an individual appeal to each member of the body. Do not look after your own interests. What?!?! But rather look to the common good of all. Then the hymn switches to a corporate exhortation. Let the same mind, church, be in you (plural) that was in Christ Jesus.
Five Moves Towards Repairing the World
For the church to become a grassroots effort that changes the world in this time of great crises, I suggest some starts here. There are five:
1) Start recovering the essential marks of fidelity to Jesus and his gospel as being community spirituality, the collective life and witness of a community. This includes not only what the community stands for, but how it is that they live their lives and in whom they place their ultimate trust. Virtually every promise and call in the New Testament is in the plural, not the singular. Even the call of the disciples is a call to a community. When Jesus proclaims that we are to be the salt, leaven, and light of the world, it is a communal calling.
This would mean reimaging how we approach the whole idea of discipleship. It is almost universally true that every congregation who has a Minister for Discipleship also has a number of programs to help individuals become disciples. The focus needs to be placed on the body itself being a corporate witness and being a force for the common good in all aspects of the crises we face – white supremacy, climate, gun violence, poverty, refugees, etc. Alluding to the words of GK Chesterton, let’s do the “difficult” as a body.
2) Start challenging and debunking the notion of substitutionary atonement as what happened on Good Friday. The fallacy that there is a punishment-seeking, angry God that transforms Jesus into a scapegoat only fuels the individual decision salvation theology that infects American Christianity. I recently learned of a young man in one of my previous youth groups who made the tragic decision to take his own life. His distraught mother went searching around the community looking for some words that could speak to her deep pain. When she asked a Roman Catholic priest if her son “was in heaven,” the priest said that was up to God to decide. The priest left it at that. What the priest and every minister of the gospel should have said is, “Yes, that decision is God’s, and God has already decided. That is why Jesus went to the cross and would not stay dead. And besides, Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’” For every religious huckster who tries to turn the cross into some sort of individual salvation deal the authentic church needs to declare what the Spirit revealed to the new church on Pentecost. God has already decided. God has already overcome whatever would crush us, fragment us, or cheapen us. The only decision with which we are left is about how we will now reorder our lives and what we will do together now that God has already done it all for us. So, stop the salvation games.
3) Kill whatever “program” mentality the congregation may have. The church is not a collection of “programs.” God is not a program. The church is a body of people. Start focusing on what the congregation must do to shape the body into one that aspires to be the heart, hands, and feet of Jesus in the world.
4) Stop the insanity with perpetuating the fallacy that the church is not supposed to be political. Jesus was highly political. Jesus’ march into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was a protest march. Jesus took on the powers at be, whether it was the corrupt religious establishment of the day or the civil leaders. Our pastors and leaders face a dilemma. In this highly contentious climate in which we try to be church, pastors are often under siege. If they do speak to the real sins of our society in specific forms (i.e., racism, white supremacy, gun violence, voting rights et al), they put themselves and their families at risk, often great risk. Their bishops get calls from angry parishioners. The angry withhold their support or even leave. Too often the pastor is forced to resign. I am more convinced than ever that the main cause for mental health issues among our precious leaders is their own awareness of the stakes of being forthright and the fears that hold them back. I do not have easy answers for this, except to say that pastors who find themselves under siege and attack know that they serve the One who himself was attacked and crucified (cf. Philippians 2 above). When threatened, it is good to remember the most frequent command in the New Testament? Do not be afraid.
5) Be intentional about living proleptically. Prolepsis means to live in the midst of our own lives and in the midst of history while already knowing the outcome. Love and life do win. If that day is surely coming, where there are no more tears, no more hunger, no more exclusion, no more violence, suffering, and death; if one day this broken, fragmented, hurting world is fully restored; if because death has been defeated, we no longer need to resort to self-preservation; and, if the ultimate promises of God are true; then, let’s get on with it! Let’s do the difficult! It’s our best hope.
I beg you (church) to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
- Ephesians 4:1
In the abiding hope of the empty tomb,
To Those in the Club to Which You Never Wanted to Belong
This blog is addressed to those of you in a club to which you never wanted to belong. The Big C Club – not COVID-19 but CANCER. But, first let’s talk about COVID-19. Then we’ll talk about “the club.”
600,000 deaths. That is the number of COVID-19 deaths the U.S. will probably reach sometime in June. Since the first death in February 2020 and through the cultural and political processes of denial, bargaining, blaming, grief, and perhaps one day of acceptance, it has been a miserable fourteen months of cancelled travel, a wrecked economy for many and a boom for a few, social distancing, stay-at-home, schoolchildren losing in big ways, no in-person worship, culture wars, political strife, Zoom fatigue, COVID-fatigue, family strife, and death. Everyone in this country has been affected in some way. But it is the deaths that have been the most devastating – deaths in the ICU with only a nurse in PPE holding one’s hand, deaths with no accustomed way of public grieving, deaths where bodies are warehoused awaiting some sort of burial, deaths where too many suffered, both the deceased and their loved ones, alone. Deaths, their recognition, and the public permission to grieve were overshadowed by a politics of deflection and distortion. Imagine the loneliness and isolation of those who have lost loved ones. Studies, doctoral dissertations, books, and documentaries will surely be part of the outcome and reflection on this miserable time and what we might collectively learn from it.
Another 600,000 Deaths
But there are another 600,000 deaths. And another. And another. 600,000 deaths are not only the expected U.S. carnage from COVID-19 by June, but it is also the shocking number of people in this country who die each year from cancer. To be precise, 2020 brought 1.8 million diagnoses and 606,520 deaths. There is no vaccine to prevent cancer. When COVID-19 is long gone, the 600,000 deaths per year from cancer continue, and to put that number in perspective, the total US lives lost in combat from all wars, from 1775 until now, is just under 670,000. Let that sink in. It not only speaks of the horrible grief and carnage from COVID-19, it should also open the eyes to the annual cancer toll. So, it is to you who are fighting cancer to whom this blog is addressed.
Just the word, “cancer,” whether spoken by a doctor as a confirmed diagnosis or as something to be investigated, is a shock to the system. Almost all people who hear that word for the first time as a diagnosis never thought it would ever be said to them. Back in 2007 when my sister-in-law, Sherry, was diagnosed with cancer, among her first words after the diagnosis and the impeding treatments of radical surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation were these: “I am now a member of a club to which I never wanted to belong.” My sister-in-law was a valiant fighter. Deep in the Jesus faith as an executive secretary in a large church and part of a family that finds to be biblical the words of the one and only Jimmy V, “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up!” she seemingly beat it. But then because cancer has no conscience, it revisited her. She succumbed on January 31, 2016. I was in San Antonio on seminary business when I got the call. It was just a few days earlier when I sat in her home Hospice room with other members of the family and friends. With guitar in hand we sang Bob Marley’s reggae song, Three Little Birds. The chorus goes like this:
This is my message for you ou!
Don’t worry ‘bout a thing,
Cause every ‘lil thing gonna be alright.
Singing don’t worry ‘bout a thing,
Cause every ‘lil thing gonna be alright.
The worst thing that could ever happen to you will not be the last.
So confident in the hope and promises of the empty tomb, it was Sherry who first said, The worst thing that could ever happen to me will not be the last. It was Sherry Barger whom I called while a pastor in Colorado when a horrible undiscovered final-stage brain tumor took away the 32-year-old mother of two small girls. The girls begged in the ICU unit, “Mommy, please don’t die.” It was Sherry who told me to tell them, Remember. The first person to cry is God.
Somehow growing up and in my early life I had almost no experience with cancer. That changed in the summer of 1986, when as a seminarian I was taking my obligatory unit of Clinical Pastoral Education at Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. I was assigned as chaplain to the east wing on the 5th floor. It was the hematology/oncology unit. For a summer I was immersed in the suffering, fear, trauma, and dancing with death of children with cancers, as well as the shock and numbness of their parents. It was there where I learned a diagnosis of AML (acute myeloid leukemia) meant certain death and a diagnosis of ALL (acute lymphoblastic leukemia) was beatable.
It was that summer when I also learned about the life cycle of support for children and their families with cancer. When a teenage child would be newly admitted to the hospital with a cancer diagnosis, there would be an immediate outpouring of support. Balloons, cards, well wishes, clever teddy bears, and other positive-messaging paraphernalia would fill their rooms. Visitors would come and go like the room had a revolving door. There would be bold statements. “We are going to beat this thing!” But as time wore on, as chemotherapy and radiation ravaged their little bodies, and when you did not know what was worse, the cancer or the treatment, people’s ability to sustain intense concern waned.
The life of a cancer patient with the cycle of treatments and then tests to determine the efficacy of the treatments and then decisions about the next steps while all the time watching lab reports and scans that report things like tumor size, or blast counts, or the size of swollen lymph nodes can be a tortuous grind. I learned that a family with a child dealing with cancer is a lonely life. The child would come into the hospital for 3 days on in-patient treatment, go home and then return two weeks later for another round. The entire 5th floor was like a congregation of sorts. You developed relationships with the kids, their parents, and families and especially the medical staff. It was hard on the medical staff to watch kids suffer and their parents suffer with them. Deaths on the floor were devastating, but rarely did death happen there. It happened at home, usually under Hospice care, when the family had heard and absorbed the words, “There is nothing more we can do.”
Cancer has no conscience
As a pastor I walked with countless persons and their families through a cancer diagnosis and the subsequent journey. Many beat it. Many did not. One lady who was diagnosed with stage 4 and told to get her affairs in order went through Hell and back at MD Anderson in Houston with experimental treatments that miraculously cleared her of cancer. She threw a party for over a hundred people to say, “Thank you,” to all who had a hand in her survival. But some years later the cancer came back. No heroics. No reprieve. Death.
In 1995, Harriet’s mother died after a heroic bout with lymphoma. As we had driven deep into the night to her dad’s house, he stood in the front driveway the next morning and wept. Lt. Colonel Harry Hall Hart had led the first battalion of tank destroyers to successfully land at Normandy and took them all the way to Berlin, while losing many of the men under his command. While standing in the driveway and speaking of his wife’s death he said, “Even from my experiences in the war, I have never seen anything as ugly as that.”
I am in the club.
In 2018 I was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia. There once was a time when it was an automatic death sentence. One of the toughest parishioners I ever had, a former NCAA wrestler, gallantly fought CML. In his early 40s with three young children, he tried to beat it, but even the heroics of MD Anderson could not hold off the Grim Reaper. In 2001, after decades of development, the FDA approved a drug, Gleevec, that mitigated against CML. Time Magazine declared it a miracle cancer drug. Every night at 9 pm, I take the generic, Imatinib Mesylate, at a cost of $14,000 per month. Thank God for health insurance because I only pay $9.60. As I near the end of a third year fighting this disease, I feel blessed in many ways. The side effects of taking a daily pill that kills cancer are many, but I have deep gratitude for many things – my wonderful wife, children, grandchildren, family, faith, and the will and capacity to still try to save the world. While on this journey, I was also diagnosed with another cancer, underwent proton beam radiation. Late last year my radiology oncologist declared me, with respect to this second cancer, NED, meaning no evidence of disease. I am grateful beyond words. Like the great Jimmy V also would say, Survive and Advance.
The Wider Club
During the wretched year of 2020, if all of the COVID crisis was not enough, our son was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. A clinical trial treatment worked to kick the cancer down the road for hopefully five years before he needs any further treatment. When he was first diagnosed, I was asked if I would join the program of Patient Family Advisors at Winship Cancer Institute. My role means, among other things, that I advise Winship on their practices from the perspective of being a cancer patient, and I get to advise and support others on their cancer journey. My journey has been helpful in walking with one of my very best lifelong friends who is dealing with a wicked brain tumor and horrible lifestyle compromises from the treatments. We speak by phone at least once a week, and Harriet and I pray with him and his wife. He knows the promises of God. He knows the tomb of the crucified Jesus is empty. He knows that there is no situation in life so painful or devoid of hope that God has not already joined him there. He knows that love and life win.
Finding Light
Last week, President Joe Biden addressed the nation and said, “Finding light in the darkness is a very American thing to do. In fact, it may be the most American thing we do.” I am not going to disrespect the President by challenging this statement, but what I do know for sure is that those who have been grasped by the hope and promise of the empty tomb, whether American or not, can find light in any darkness. Cancer can do many things to us, but there are things it cannot do. Last week I wrote to my friend and shared this light with him. It is a light I share to all of you in our club to which you never wanted to belong:
Cancer cannot cripple your love for others.
It cannot shatter hope.
It cannot corrode faith.
It cannot destroy peace.
It cannot kill friendships.
It cannot suppress memories.
It cannot silence courage.
It cannot invade the soul.
It cannot steal eternal life.
It cannot conquer your spirit.
Those things will live forever.
In the abiding hope of the empty tomb,
Radical!
Here in Georgia, the word, radical, can be heard from the TV or from the airwaves several times each hour, sometimes several times a minute. While Advent is the Season where we watch for the coming of the Lord, here in Georgia we are consumed by the coming of another election, runoffs for Georgia’s two US Senate seats. Lord, may it please end soon! Think of all the TV spots, ads, obscene amount of money raised and spent, and the countless lies and spin spewed by all sides that led up to the November 3rd election. Think of the continued campaign to “Stop the Steal” that has raised another $200 million for Donald Trump, the nonstop lawsuits, the Proud Boys in DC, and over half the GOP in the US. House and 17 state AGs signing onto the Texas lawsuit filed in the U.S. Supreme Court that was summarily dismissed. Think of all the noise, name calling, and conspiracy theories being amplified while at the same time our nation passed the tragic milestone of 300,000 deaths from COVID-19. Maybe the Electoral College vote yesterday will stop most of the noise, but not here in Georgia. It is still full political game on. God, help us!
Fear the Radical!
Dominating the political ads is radical. Kelly Loeffler constantly refers to the Reverend Raphael Warnock as a radical liberal. In my ecclesial circles I am familiar with the ordained being referred to as “The Very Reverend” or “The Most Reverend” or “The Highly Reverend.” Only in the one televised debate between the two did I hear over and over again from the lips of Senator Loeffler, a new title – The “Radical Liberal Reverend.” Of course, the ads against “Radical Liberal Reverend Raphael Warnock” have images of him doctored to have him look very menacing and are meant to draw the same fearful response former President George Herbert Walker Bush elicited years ago in infamous racist Willie Horton ads. Loeffler’s message is clear. If you elect Radical Liberal Reverend Raphael Warnock, the radical liberals will cancel culture and destroy America.
It is the same with the Senator David Perdue ads that attack Jon Ossoff as a radical liberal. Somehow Perdue is banking on his television ads, texting, and social media to so scare people of radical liberal end-America-as-we-know-it Jon Ossoff that he is hoping voters will forget his refusal to debate his opponent after being taken behind the rhetorical woodshed in their only televised debate.
Lest you think that this blog is headed in a highly partisan political direction, the use of the term, radical, is also being used by the Dems to slam the Republican candidates. With the attempt to overthrow the election, fire the Georgia Secretary of State, it is open season on the Republicans to paint them as anti-democracy, autocracy-embracing, right-wing extreme radicals.
Now, in order to be fully transparent, I do have a progressive bent when it comes to politics, and I am a citizen of Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, the district of the late John Lewis. Our neighborhood is clearly deep blue, and my lovely bride and I do fit the profile. But this blog is not really about the January 5th runoff election. Besides, the overwhelming majority of readers of this blog are not residents of Georgia and can’t vote for a dog in this hunt anyhow. Moreover, I am under no illusion that an Ossoff and Warnock victory and Democratic control of the US Senate will somehow usher in the Kingdom of God.
Making Sense of the Reason for the Season
What I do believe is that radical can be redemptively used to make sense out of “the reason for the season” and what God is actually up to. To fit the true definition of radical, something or someone has to be so far-reaching that he or she not only affects the fundamental nature of things but also overturns the current stasis. When we throw the word, radical, around to smear a political opponent, we mean it in its utmost negative sense. It is meant to evoke fear. The other person is going to rob you of something of utmost importance to you. So, you had better watch out!
The proclamation of the coming of Jesus and his birth is a radical promise. God gives this promise not as a threat but as good news. The sermon by the angel to the shepherds (Luke 2:10) is clear:
Do not be afraid – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.
ALL the people. This is truly radical because for Jesus to be good news for all the people today, as the short sermon goes, then the current stasis must surely be coming to an end. The pronouncements that preceded Jesus’ birth speak to the disruption. The mighty get brought down from their thrones. The humble get lifted up. The hungry get fed. The rich become empty. And then Jesus comes preaching the same radical vision.
The Radical Jesus
It is important to know that we only pay attention to the birth of Jesus and celebrate Christmas because of Easter. Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah because God raised him from the dead. But to be raised, Jesus had to die. It was inevitable. The proclaimed disruption of the status quo did not sit well with the powers at be. Table fellowship with sinners, prostitutes, criminals, and outcasts offended them. Grace – God’s favor for those the powers despised – was an afront. A Jesus speaking truth to power needed to be silenced. The only outcome was to execute him in the most hideous and shocking way possible in order to send an ominous message to anybody else thinking about identifying with or trying to replicate the radical Jesus.
But God raised him from the dead. You want to know what God is up to? Radical righteousness. Look at Jesus. It is a theme that runs through the scriptures, but Matthew’s Gospel is most explicit in saying that Jesus came to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15). Jesus even blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6) and blesses those who are injured, marginalized, belittled, and silenced because they pursued righteousness (Matthew 5:10).
Radical Righteousness - Making Things Right
To be clear, righteousness, is not some sort of inner-spiritual experience. Righteousness has to do with making things right. It is not right that over 300,000 have died from COVID-19 when concern for the common good by all the people – i.e. wearing masks – could have changed the math. It is not right that millions live on the edge right now while the comfortable have watched their stock portfolios reach record values. It is not right that the very people who work hard to protect us – health care workers, grocery store clerks, delivery people and the like – put their lives at risk while the comfortable can work safely behind a computer screen. It is not right that a 90-minute flight from Miami lands one in Port-au-Prince, Haiti where the misery index is off the charts. It is not right that we are too soft and do not have the personal discipline nor economic imagination to pay attention to and mitigate the impending catastrophic climate crisis. It is also not right to have an America first attitude when it comes to the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines, though such a strategy would have political benefits. I could say more, but you should be getting the drift. So much is simply not right.
A Radical Movement as God’s Social Strategy
But God created the church and breathed life into those who claim to be followers of Jesus not to be the first ones to get into or have the best suites in heaven but rather to make things right – right here and right now. Jesus calls people to follow him and imitate him as God’s social strategy for making things right, for taking a broken world and bringing it to healing and restoration. After all, if Jesus is risen and God really holds the final word then we no longer need to make self-preservation our goal. We are free for live life that works for the common good.
Writer and theologian G.K. Chesterton (1874 – 1936) once wrote the following:
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult; and left untried.
Maybe this go round, we try to actually follow Jesus and become true radicals for the kingdom. And as we ponder the radical promise, maybe we listen more closely to the words of this familiar hymn we sing:
Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace! Hail the sun of righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings, ris’n with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die,
Born to raise each child of earth, born to give us second birth.
Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn king!”
In the abiding hope of the empty tomb,
