the man for others - bonhoeffer part II...

NOTE:  Today's worship notes for Bonhoeffer - Part II:  Jesus as the Man for

Others.  It was a cold and snowy morning - we're getting about 2" an hour - with more still to come. I was grateful for the 50+ people who showed up.

Introduction
Did you watch Super Bowl 51 last Sunday? I’m not a huge fan of the sport – and I only tuned in to check out Lady Gaga, truth be told – even as I rejoiced in the Patriots’ incredible upset. But what really spoke to me were the commercials. Yes, too much money was spent on them and you can argue about the mixed up values of a nation that directs our best and brightest artists into advertising and consumerism. But what about those messages? Over and over again, from Budweiser and Coke to AirBnB, the corporations made it clear that the current ban on Muslims – as well as the phobia some Americans have towards immigrants and refugees – is not only unwanted but un-American. It was to me a visceral, high tech portrayal of today’s opening Scripture: I set before you today the ways of life and death, prosperity and adversity… if you obey the way of the Lord you will blossom… and if you rebel you will perish… so with heaven and earth as my witness I plead: choose life saith the Lord. (Deuteronomy 30)

It should be obvious that currently there are competing visions for the soul of our nation that are in mortal combat with one another. On one side there is fear and a serious measure of hatred, resentment and confusion. On the other, an alternative reality built upon sharing, neighborliness and trust. Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, says that the “dominant narrative of our society is about military consumerism as driven by greed, vanity and violence – and that narrative is a lie – because it cannot produce life. Scripture offers an alternative meta-narrative based upon God’s grace and neighborliness. When social power and social resources are administered in a neighborly way, they produce a just and peaceable society that does produce life. These two truths are always in tension – a contest between the ways of death and the gospel that creates and sustains life through neighborly vulnerability.”

Theologians speak of this as testimony and counter-testimony – thesis, antithesis and synthesis – and what I saw on Super Bowl Sunday was the celebration of God’s counter testimony writ large in a non-partisan, life affirming way that literally made me weep tears of sorrow and joy at the same time. And it is my tears that compel me to share with you why I believe the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was martyred by Nazi Germany 72 years ago, holds meaning and value for our generation.

Our current quest for clarity looks a lot like what once confronted people of faith during the 1930s and 40s in Nazi Germany. I am not saying they are analogous. I am keenly aware of significant differences. But then as well as now, some profound parallels warrant our consideration. 

+  A huge swath of the working people in both eras experienced themselves as lost, forgotten and ignored patriots who became afraid of the future. In pre-war Germany, the rapid industrialization and migration to the cities after WWI left countless able bodied workers without the skills necessary to compete in the new economy. And globalization and 21st century hi-tech business practices have done much the same thing in America’s heartland. 

+  Public morality and social norms shifted wildly, too. Where women had once remained in their homes to serve their families for generations, by 1920 they were needed in public to be teachers, secretaries, factory aides, nurses and clerks in the German Weimar Republic. A social revolution every bit as mind numbing and perplexing with respect to families, traditional roles and workplace expectations as happened in Germany has also taken place in the United States over the past 20 years.

And, both nations share a vicious history of nativist demagoguery that periodically breaks into the public realm and turns vulgar and racist. The Nazis cultivated anti-Semitism and fear of the stranger for political gain while our white supremacists throw gasoline on the fire of prejudice, ignorance and resentment over Barrack Obama’s election as the first African- American president of the USA. Please note I am not saying the rise of Hitler offers an exact template for predicting the future in our land. I am not a shallow historical determinist. And yet, we would do well to pay attention to the needs of highly agitated but disempowered white folk in both eras who were open to manipulation – and that’s where Bonhoeffer has something to tell us about how to challenge this reality with Christ’s love.

Insights
Today I want to concentrate on what Brother B taught us about Jesus. If we’re going to be allies of God’s movement for life rather than pawns in the narratives of death, he said, we MUST figure out what Jesus means in our generation. This was Bonhoeffer’s essential task. In his own day the German Church had become divided between liberals and conservatives, both of whom made themselves irrelevant to healing the soul of the nation.

Liberal Christians treated Jesus as an inward spiritual balm who offered only comfort to our psychological wounds without a strategy as to confronting social injustice; conversely, conservatives turned Jesus into the dean of middle class morality. Liberals trusted science, economics, physics, engineering, education and government to deal with their public lives and only wanted Jesus to guarantee the forgiveness for their sins. In their view, Jesus only mattered in the inner, so-called spiritual realm. Conservatives went public, but were so obsessed with individual moral purity in their quest to serve a harsh and judgmental God that they, too rendered themselves irrelevant to the real social issues. You see, the conservative agenda was not driven by Scripture but bourgeois etiquette reducing Jesus to a tea-totaling, mealy-mouthed prig rather than the revolutionary prophet of God’s justice and peace.

To which Bonhoeffer replied: rubbish! Beyond all rules, habits, piety, sentimentality, rituals, theology and dogma Jesus was the man for others. This was Bonhoeffer simple yet profound short hand description of who Jesus was in Scripture and why this mattered in our generation. Now let’s be clear that to name Jesus as the man for others meant: 1) Jesus is the standard by which we evaluate all our ethics; and 2) the life, death and resurrection of Jesus defines what it means for us to incarnate compassion and justice. Bonhoeffer understood the entirety of Scripture and tradition as the quest for justice and compassion, it was the contest between the testimony of death, greed and vanity and God’s counter testimony of faith, hope and love.

Are you with me on this? How do you react to confessing that the heart and essence of Jesus is NOT as Son of God – the miraculous union of natures both human and divine – but rather as the man for others? What does that say to you? Now, there are three elements to practicing a life that honors Jesus as the man for others that Bonhoeffer spent his life articulating – and let me lay them out carefully and clearly for you so that we might discern how they might help us in 2017. 

+  First, using the Old Testament’s insistence that God’s compassion and justice was NOT about some other life after death, but rather flesh and blood existence right here and now, Bonhoeffer insisted that transcendence is becoming grounded right in the middle of reality and not some other worldly concern. “God’s beyond,” he wrote, “has nothing to do with heaven or other-worldliness. God’s beyond is in the middle of our village… living unreservedly into life’s duties, problems, success and failures.”

+  Second, what makes living in the middle of the village Biblically transcendent in the way of Jesus is not about out-of-body spiritual experiences, but sharing real life beyond selfishness on behalf of our neighbors. “Being there for others” is how he put it: “Our relationship to God is not a religious relationship to the highest, most powerful and best BEING imaginable – that is not Biblical transcendence – rather our relation to God is new life born of being there for others."

This is how Jesus lived, this is how Jesus experienced transcendence - by being there for others“and what was true for Jesus is true for you and me. We meet God in relationships not abstraction.

+  And that speaks to his third insight: Christian faith is NOT about doctrine or dogma – ritual or tradition – even when they are lovely. Christian faith becomes “participation in the being of Jesus who gives his whole life as the man for others.” And that is why the church exists: to train us, equip us, empower, correct and encourage us to live as men and women for others. In 1944, Bonhoeffer put it like this:

God does not repay evil for evil and thus the righteous should not do so either. No judgment, no abuse, but blessing...Blessing means laying one's hand on something and saying: Despite everything, you belong to God. This is what we do with the world that inflicts such suffering on us. We do not abandon it; we do not repudiate, despise or condemn it. Instead we call it back to God, we give it hope, we lay our hand on it and say: may God's blessing come upon you, may God renew you; be blessed, world created by God, you who belong to your Creator and Redeemer. We have received God's blessing in happiness and in suffering. Yet those who have been blessed can do nothing but pass on this blessing; indeed, they must be a blessing wherever they are.

That might be the best summary of what Christianity looks like. It is being a blessing to others wherever you are, in the middle of life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. We lay our hands on others and say "Despite everything, you belong to God; be blessed." And, we suffer with our neighbors making our lives available to them, "not dominating, but helping and serving."

Three bold, brave and beautiful insights about what it really means for Jesus to be the man for others and how it heals a broken world: 1) We find God right in the middle of life’s agony, problems and celebrations not on the fringe of reality. 2) Transcendence is not other worldly, but living beyond our own small world as a generous allies of love for our neighbors. And 3) Faith looks like sharing love in the same way Jesus did – relationships that bring blessing for others – is that clear? God is right here, with us sharing blessing with others, in public.

Today’s gospel text speaks to this with clarity when Jesus says: I need your work for righteousness – dikaiosuné in New Testament Greek that literally means justice - to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. He’s not saying the scribes and Pharisees are bad guys, although Christian anti-Semitism likes to portray them that way. No, the scribes and Pharisees were often the best and most public people living into Torah – the justice, mercy and steadfast love of the Lord – so Jesus is telling us: I need you to do it better! Do it more publically! Do it with a greater vigor and physicality for that is what makes my Father’s kingdom visible and real for all with eyes to see!

Another way to say this would be: fulfill Torah in your life – do not treat Torah like it is over – but rather fill it full with all the love you can muster and all the Spirit can inspire. That’s what it means to choose life over death as the Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy challenged, ol? Fulfill the love of God in public by filling it full of justice – full of love – full of mercy for this is where the human and the holy embrace.

Conclusion
Now sometimes it is painful and costly to bring blessings to our neighbors in public. Many of us continue to be active in what has being called the resistance to the selfish and fearful agenda that has captured so many hearts and minds in contemporary America. Last week, my man Pope Francis was explicit: we cannot claim the name of Jesus and his grace if we turn away the refugee and foment hatred for Muslims. That, said the Pontiff, is hypocrisy – and so it is. Every week, my wife – who is studying to teach English as a second language to refugees and immigrant neighbors – gets trolled by people who call themselves Christians but spew the ugliest and most hateful words to her – praying that she gets raped or knifed or beaten by one she hopes to teach. If we weren’t in church I’d say these are really weird f***d up times for Christianity.

So let me call you attention to verse three of Bonhoeffer’s hymn which we sang before I started this message: he describes the sorrow and pain of being a blessing in public, linking it specifically to Christ’s own sorrow: And when this cup you give is filled to brimming with bitter suffering, hard to understand; we take it thankfully and without trembling, out of so good and beloved a hand. Faith is choosing life over death and moving into the middle of real problems. Sometimes that hurts – but sometimes there are joys and ecstasies too great for human words. That’s what verse four honors: And when again in this same world you give us the joy we had, the brightness of your sun, we shall remember all the days we lived through and our whole life shall be yours alone.

Bonhoeffer turns bourgeois religion on its head – and shows us how living and loving in public can not only change our lives, but heal the world. Brother B celebrated Jesus as the man for others – and teaches that as Jesus did it, so must we. So in our realm, in the world of the global neighborhood, being there for others and bringing blessings to the most vulnerable requires some homework:

+  Tomorrow, at 6 pm at Herberg Middle School, our friends from Jewish Family Services will be holding an informational meeting about bringing 50 Syrian refugee families to relocate in Pittsfield. Before Christmas, about 20 of us spontaneously attended. Since then, fears have been fueled and lies have been told.

+  So let’s see if we can double our past participation with intentionality and faith: let’s send 40 people from First Church to choose life and not death – to honor the wounded and afraid – to let our righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees and Scribes – and become Jesus, the man for others, in the flesh.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said that when he marched in Selma with Dr. King, it felt as if his feet were praying. We need to be praying with our feet this week for it is time to stand and deliver. This is how I hear the good news for today – so let those who have ears to hear, hear.

i've been told there's a salon revival taking place...

My Brooklyn based buddy Pam tells me that salons are making a

revival in the US so I've been letting that truth percolate within for a few weeks. Four broad but interrelated ideas seem to be bubbling up now, taking a measure of shape and form during this time of gestation - and I wonder what you think? You see, I am very serious about abiding in the wisdom Gertrud Mueller-Nelson celebrates in her description of Advent spirituality (the four week liturgical seasons Christians observe prior to Christmas.) As a Jungian Christian Educator I find her work simultaneously stimulating and practical. And since coming upon her guidebook to "Family Ritual and Community Celebrations" back in my Cleveland days, I have tried to integrate her ideas into my own spiritual disciplines. "Waiting," she writes, "Can be made into a work of art.

And the season of Advent invites us to underscore and understand with a new patience the very feminine state of being: waiting. Our masculine world wants to blast away waiting from our lives. Instant gratification has become our constitutional right and delay an aberration. We equate waiting with wasting. So we build Concorde airplanes, drink instant coffee, roll out green plastic and call it turf, and reach for the phone before we reach for the pen. The more life asks us to wait, the more we anxiously hurry. The tempo of haste in which we live has less to do with being on time or the efficiency of a busy life - it has more to do with our being unable to wait.

But waiting is unpractical time, good for nothing, but mysteriously necessary to all that is becoming. As in pregnancy, nothing of value comes into being without a period of quiet incubation: not a healthy baby, not a loving relationship, not a reconciliation, a new 

understanding, a work of art, never a transformation. Rather, a shortened period of incubation brings forth what is not whole or strong or even alive. Brewing, baking, simmering, fermenting, ripening, germinating, gestating are the feminine processes of becoming and they are the symbolic states of being which belong in a live of value, necessary to transformation.

To Dance with God, p. 62

First, I am fascinated with the history and form of previous salons. They have been described thusly:

A gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine the taste and increase the knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to please or to educate" ("aut delectare aut prodesse"). Salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical movements of the 17th and 18th centuries, were carried on until as recently as the 1940s in urban settings.

Originally the provenance of affluent, beautiful and entertaining women in Italy, a salon would bring create a small community together for the explicit purpose of sharing thoughtful conversation in the midst of art and excellent food and drink. What's NOT to love about this idea?!? I feel like my semi-retirement was a part of destiny's invitation to join this revival. Think of it: art, carefully chosen words, listening, food, music and libation. It's got my name all over it!  And, it was born within the feminine charisms of culture. Not that I'll be greeting guests lounging on a day bed, but a careful, civilized conversation about matters of the heart in this dark and

testosterone driven era makes a world of sense to me.

Second, given the pedagogy of Parker Palmer, Richard Rohr, Carrie Newcomer, Henri Nouwen, Jean Vanier and Gertrud Mueller-Nelson, the salon's focus on "small is beautiful" speaks to how we might engage in meaningful cultural renewal in the midst of our resistance.It is prefigurative,right? It is sized for community and clarity, too. Bringing 20-30 people together in a tender way is something I can get my head around. It is both part of the "10 foot rule" (focus on what you can touch as the core of social change) and a style of spiritual formation born of beauty and relationship. I value the place of mass rallies. I am committed to civil disobedience in the face of evil, as well. And I know that I have learned and been transformed more often than not in small groups where trust and safety were clearly enforced.

Third, I have a small group of musical colleagues I would like to pitch

this idea to that would give us a chance to play together and share creativity on our own terms. This is not open mic night at the coffee house or hawking ourselves at a bar. And I like doing that, too. But this gives us deep artistic control and permission to explore the Spirit without trolls, drunks or oddballs looking for a fight. It also creates a forum for sharing music outside the mainstream while empowering local musicians to live into their deepest creative blessings.

And fourth, the revival of the salon creates a place to practice the "Living Room Conversations" (http://www.livingroomconversations.org/) that I have long wanted to explore. As the group's founders proclaim: the art of civil discourse means no soapboxes are allowed. "Ever sit on a couch in someone’s living room, trying to make conversation? Or listen to someone get on a soapbox and dominate the conversation by expressing their opinion with such fervor that no one else dares speak, let alone contradict? When we have authentic, respectful conversations we strengthen our relationships and advance our understanding of the challenges, opportunities and solutions before us."

I have much more to read about salons - and more thought and prayer to explore, too - but the notion that as late as 1940 Gertrude Stein was hosting salons that included Picasso blows my mind. Wikipedia puts it like this:

Contemporary literature about the salons is dominated by idealistic notions of politesse, civilité and honnêteté... Today, however, this view is rarely considered an adequate analysis of the salon. Dena Goodman claims that rather than being leisure based or 'schools of civilité' salons were instead at 'the very heart of the philosophic community' and thus integral to the process of Enlightenment. In short, Goodman argues, the 17th and 18th century saw the emergence of the academic, Enlightenment salons, which came out of the aristocratic 'schools of civilité'. Politeness, argues Goodman, took second-place to academic discussion
Dena Goodman, 'Enlightenment Salons: The Convergence of Female and Philosophic Ambitions' Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3, Special Issue: The French Revolution in Culture(Spring, 1989), pp. 330

Let me know what strikes you about this idea, please? And if you are in the area, know that very likely I will be in touch with an invitation to such a soirée si cela fait sens!

bread AND roses...

Every day I discover a new song that speaks to my heart. Yesterday it was news that John Legend was reworking Brian Wilson's masterpiece, "God Only Knows," for Sunday's Grammy Awards. (check it out: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/john-legend-cynthia-erivo-to-perform-grammys-in-memoriam/2017/02/07/9cf7db4c-ed31-11e6-a100-fdaaf400369a_story.html)  According to Paul McCartney, this may be the most perfect pop song ever crafted - and I would agree. And having been moved often by Legend's insightful reinterpretations, like this take on U2's "Pride in the Name of Love," heightens my anticipation.
This morning, while sipping Sabbath tea and reading the newspaper, I saw that a new biopic about Django Reinhardt is soon to be released after opening the Berlin Film Festival. Director Etienne Comar focuses on the early hopes of the Gypsy Jazz guitarist who believed that the joy of his music would keep him from the clutches of Nazi white supremacy only to flee Vichy France in 1943. By this time, thousands of Jews, Roma, trade unionists and other "undesirables" had been transported to death camps. (check it out: http://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/django-review-berlin-film-festival-1201980971/) The joy and jump of Dgango's music certainly offers a refuge from sorrow, but only organizing, prayer and solidarity can beat back a monster (in his era or ours.)

As a musician steeped in the practice of theology and social change, these two tunes keep my head out of the clouds even as they strengthen my heart. As the early feminist trade unionists in Lowell, MA taught:  "Give us bread AND give us roses!" The late Henri Nouwen put it well:

Consolation is a beautiful word. It means "to be" (con-) "with the lonely one" (solus). To offer consolation is one of the most important ways to care. Life is so full of pain, sadness, and loneliness that we often wonder what we can do to alleviate the immense suffering we see. We can and must offer consolation. We can and must console the mother who lost her child, the young person with AIDS, the family whose house burned down, the soldier who was wounded, the teenager who contemplates suicide, the old man who wonders why he should stay alive. To console does not mean to take away the pain but rather to be there and say, "You are not alone, I am with you. Together we can carry the burden. Don't be afraid. I am here." That is consolation. We all need to give it as well as to receive it.

reviving our hearts for justice...

Today is a snow day in these parts - looks like about 9" so far with no end in sight - so it is chill time in the Berkshires. Last night I had the privilege to be a part of a diverse "reviving our hearts for justice" gathering.  Young poets, dancers, jazz musicians, Christians, Muslims, SBNRs, politicos, labor organizers, old time activists and newbies, Black, White, Asian and Latino, students, men, women, children, gay, straight, trans and questioning allies embraced one another in solidarity. As is said in the spiritual directors realm, I "noticed" a few truths worth commenting.

+ First, the young poets were vulnerable and angry.  Speaking from the heart, each artist shared a part of their story with us in ways that helped us experience their fears and alienation. Sometimes it was jarring, other times tender, and always honest. Poetry can evoke deep truths and insights using words and tone that are greater than words alone - and this cadre of poets did so with verve. They gave shape and form to what they feel in a world gone mad much like Ginsberg did in "Howl" 62 years ago. 

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated....

I am so glad that poetry from young artists held such an essential role in driving this revival.

+ Second, the music was passionately eclectic. There was a crazy symmetry at work in this event that kicked the night off with a student group playing their take on Ornette Coleman's free jazz. Coleman spent time in the Berkshires at the influential but short-lived Lenox School of Jazz. During his 1958 summer of resting and practicing the sax in this integrated gathering of artists and students, Coleman discerned a way to take the freedom of his music and the heart of the civil rights movement in new directions. Next came a visiting scholar from Williams College who shared a freedom song from his native Zimbabwe. He played a large kalimba-like instrument, taught the participants to clap lightly to a highly syncopated rhythm and then sang over and through our shared sounds. A classical music choir sang a setting of the Prayer of St. Francis, the NAACP speaker started with his version of an old gospel tune, a young dancer shared a jazz track evoking the experiences of Black women in the USA, I played an unplugged version of St. Lou Reed's "Sweet Jane" on acoustic guitar and an a capella gospel choir brought the night to a rousing close. 

What spoke to me was the breadth and depth of beauty honored in each musical offering. I was also moved by the way each different genre fit into the whole. To my spirituality, this was an audible parable of the blessings diversity promises rather than the all too regular cries of fear from the America First crowd.

+ Third, the most moving spoken address came from an imam who reminded us that we are to move and change the world with love. If timing is everything, it was serendipitous that I played my gentle love song celebrating the heart just before he spoke. His words of meeting the challenges of the day with strong love resonated with my counter-intuitive, non-movement song of protest. Fascinating the way the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for human understanding. Kudos to my colleague, Mark, who organized the event and planned its unfolding. 

As the snow keeps falling, I give thanks this day for the totality of the revival and each of its discrete parts. It was, as Carrie Newcomer likes to say, a bit of the beautiful but not yet...

sweet jane and reviving our hearts for justice...

Tonight I will join with my colleagues and new student friends from Williams College for an evening of song, dance, art, prayer and spoken word. "Reviving Our Hearts for Justice" is an invitation to "revive our hearts for resistance and action" to the current madness. 

Through song, poetry, dance, speakers, this special evening will inspire our hearts for the urgent work of justice and peace that is so threatened in our nation. Think of it as a community gathering to galvanize moral dissent to the injustice unleashed against so many people, particularly refugees, immigrants, and people of color. Community and student organizations are invited to table before and during the event. Confirmed speakers include Williams College Chaplain Rick Spalding, Williams College Muslim Chaplain Sharif Rosen, Eleanore Velez (Berkshire Community College), Peg Kern (Northern Berkshires for Racial Justice), Brian Morrison (Berkshire Central Labor Council), Sherwood Guernsey (Four Freedoms Coalition), Warren Dews and many more to be confirmed. Music curated by Brad Wells, Williams College Choral Director.

Yesterday I was invited to bring a tune to this happening - and was delighted to be asked. I

spent time playing through a variety of possible songs from Springsteen's "Reason to Believe" and U2's "Pride in the Name of Love" to Bob Franke's "Alleluia, The Great Storm is Over" and Carrie Newcomer's "If Not Now Tell Me When?" All are powerful and each share a unique gift in the practice of reviving our hearts for justice. But none resonated with me as I was looking for something wildly counter-intuitive. And then it hit me:  my quiet and even tender take on Lou Reed's rock and roll masterpiece "Sweet Jane." And here's why:

+ I see St.Lou as the link between the best of the Beat Poets in the 50s - think Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti - and Lady Gaga or Beyonce in our era. Specifically, Lou Reed was the consummate people's artist. He was high brow in his aesthetic and low down with his delivery. He mashed up words, sounds, time, space and grooves in a way that celebrated freedom in all of its unruly forms. He was a true genre bender empowering outsiders to trust their God-given identity as a blessing. And he challenged us all to understand and honor our quest for liberation sexually, politically, artistically, emotionally  and intellectually.

+ Brother Reed was never sentimental, but always a champion for love. He put himself into the middle of conflicts on behalf of the wounded and discarded, just like Bonhoeffer described Jesus. In "Sweet Jane" he offers us a vision of love that starts with a couple who look buttoned up and unhip. Jack's in a corset - gender bending or just uptight? - and Jane's in a vest - like Annie Hall or something more trans? - while Lou is wearing the uniform of a rock and roller. Jack and Jane listen to classical music and save their money while Lou rides in his Stutz Bearcat acting out of control. But they did it for love.  They sacrificed for love. They played their parts for love. And that's something each new generation is called to celebrate: we ALL have to make choices and compromises, so do it for love and blessings will follow.

"Sweet Jane" is an anti elitist -protest song on one level directed to all the 60s hipsters who derided the Silent Majority as square and evil without ever knowing them personally. It is a metaphorically creative expression of the many nuanced layers to a person's life. And it is a hymn to love in all its saving glory.  As some of you know, I was knocked on my ass by St. Lou's death four years ago. In ways that are mystical to me, I feel called to carry the flame of his devotion to unsentimental love to those who might never have heard him. And so, as part of our reviving our heart for justice, I'll share "Sweet Jane" as a gritty song of grace.

bonhoeffer - part one...

NOTE:  My worship notes from Sunday, February 5, 2017 (one day after Bonhoeffer's 111th birthday. The Sanctuary was significantly fuller yesterday. New people eager to connect with others seeking justice and compassion in these odd and chilling times. My written text, of course, is only close to the live message.

And so begins my four week in worship teaching series of the meaning of Bonhoeffer for our generation.
Introduction
The Bible lessons assigned to us today by the Ecumenical Church working cooperatively as Protestant, Catholic and Anglican all emphasize the responsibilities of discipleship. There can be no authentic faith without action, no dogma that does not strengthen compassion, no abstract commitment to God without living like Jesus in our ordinary lives. In Eugene Peterson’s blunt reworking of St. Matthew’s poetry, we’re told: Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? Should this happen, you’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage… we have been called by Jesus to go public with all of this…be generous with your lives for by opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God who is the source of ALL generosity. (Mt. 5: 13-16)

And I don’t know a wiser, more important or time-tested interpreter of Christ’s call to public theology and the responsibilities of discipleship in the modern world than Dietrich Bonhoeffer. For the next four weeks, therefore, I will be sharing aspects of his life and thought with you for I believe they are vital to American people of faith in 2017. Perhaps this one quote will clarify why I sense this is the hour to do so. In his 1937 book, The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer wrote:

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without commitment, Communion without confession, absolution without gratitude. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate… Ultimately, Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power… I feel that Christianity is doing too little in showing these points than doing too much. Christianity has adjusted itself much too easily to the worship of power. It should give much more offence, more shock to the world, than it is doing. Christianity should take a much more definite stand for the weak than to consider the potential moral right of the strong.

Do you grasp what Brother Bonhoeffer believed was at stake here? Can you wrap your head and heart around the notion that while God’s grace and forgiveness are always freely given, if they fail to evoke an attitude of gratitude – a living response that changes our actions in the direction of love – then we’ve missed the point? Cheap grace confuses form with content, the penultimate for eternity and our own comfort and safety with the blessings of the kingdom of God – and costly grace offends the powerful.

Insights
These tensions are expressed in the prophet Isaiah’s calling out of the religious elite of ancient Israel even as they experienced bondage in Babylon and Bonhoeffer drew upon the prophets in his understand o cheap rather than costly grace. Peterson’s translation of Isaiah is appropriately unsettling:

Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout! Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives, face my family Jacob with their sins! They’re so busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me. To all appearances they’re a nation of right-living people—law-abiding, God-honoring. They ask me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’ and love having me on their side. But they also complain: ‘Why do we fast and you don’t look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’ Well, here’s why: “The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit. You drive your employees much too hard. You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist. The kind of fasting you do won’t get your prayers off the ground. Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after: a day to show off your humility? To put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black? Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, the Lord your God, would like? NO! This is the kind of fast day I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed and cancel their debts. What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Do this and the lights will turn on and your lives will turn around at once. (Isaiah 58: 1-9)

Here we have an Old Testament example of what Bonhoeffer called the dialectical faith: a spirituality that humbly wrestles with the fact that we most often think better of ourselves than we deserve and worse of others than their record warrants. His way of being faithful realized that most of the time we want God’s mercy for our sins but the Lord’s judgment for everyone else. And this complicated reality is experienced most clearly when God sent Jesus into the world in human flesh to show us objectively the way to live with this tension. Because we are so easily deceived by our own confusion and selfishness, all obedience must look, smell, taste, feel and sound like Jesus or else we are getting it wildly wrong. In Bonhoeffer’s words, in our battle against injustice, “the will of God, to which the Hebrew Bible gives expression, is that we should defeat our enemies by loving them.”

Jesus, therefore, is the objective standard by which we evaluate our commitment to the ways of the Lord both in our hearts and in our world. That is why I have come to believe that Bonhoeffer’s testimony, theology and witness is so important at this hour of our lives: Jesus becomes the objective judge of everything we do. Human beings of every race, ideology, class and gender, you see, are simply too good at erecting ethical diversions and alternative facts to be counted on when life is harsh. St. Paul was clear in his own confession: Miserable wretch that I am: why do I continue to do what I hate and hate what I do even when I want to love? Bonhoeffer would say that’s what happens when we make ourselves the standard of ethical evaluation rather than Jesus. And what makes his ministry compelling to me is that he kept getting closer to the mark of Christ’s sacrificial love –even in prison – even facing martyrdom. On the day of his execution at a Nazi gallows, after kneeling in prayer with his fellow inmates, he was stripped naked and led into the courtyard where Bonhoeffer said to the prison chaplain, “This is the end – for me the beginning of life.” He then faced his death with serenity and was hanged.

So let me give you a quick overview of his life and then share one theological insight that I sense is crucial for the days before us. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born 111 years ago on February 4, 1906 in Breslau, Germany to Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer with a twin sister Sabine. He attended the finest upper middle class schools, was awarded his Ph. D. in theology from the University of Berlin at the tender age of 24, served a German congregation as youth pastor in Barcelona in 1929 and was eventually appointed professor of theology at the University of Berlin in 1930. This cat was no slouch intellectually and ran with the best and the brightest of his generation.

During his first year as a professor, he travelled to my alma mater, Union Theological Seminary in NYC, where he began a lifelong friendship with Reinhold Niebuhr. Most Sundays he worshipped at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and came to love the mixture of liturgy, incense, Pentecostal preaching and gospel singing that took place in that great African-American cathedral. Upon his return to Germany he was ordained in the Lutheran Church in 1931 and became active in the world ecumenical youth movement. You may recall, Adolf Hitler was appointed as German Chancellor on January 30, 1933. This travesty compelled Bonhoeffer to outline his opposition to Aryan supremacy and state enforced anti-Semitism. By April of that same year, Hitler signed an executive order calling for a boycott of all Jewish businesses and the scourge of Nazi hatred was institutionalized. You may not know that in 1933 Dachau was formed. By 1935 Jews were banned from holding public office or positions in the German Church. This split apart the German Protestant Church: some bowed to Nazi ideology and intimidation, becoming the German Evangelical Church – or the Reich Kirche – while those who called out the fascists as heretics became the Confessing Church.

If you know your history, Nazi persecution of Jews, gypsies, trade unionists, intellectuals, homosexuals and society’s most vulnerable citizens increased leading to Kristallnacht in 1939 – the coordinated and sanctioned smashing of Jewish shops and synagogues all over the Third Reich – and the invasion of Poland which ignited an active internal opposition to Hitler. Bonhoeffer’s leadership led to his being banned from teaching anywhere in the Reich. So, being the rebel he was, he started an underground seminary for students in the Confessing Church that ran below the Nazi radar for two years. He continued to write and speak out against Nazi racism and was vigilant in telling the international, ecumenical community what was really taking place in Germany.

After the underground seminary was destroyed, Bonhoeffer was drafted. Using his family’s political connections and privileges, he went into military intelligence and used his mobility as a spy against Hitler. In 1943, he worked with others smuggling Jews out of Germany only to be arrested and imprisoned. It was during his incarceration that Bonhoeffer began to conspire with his brothers and other military officers and political elites to assassinate Hitler. They had concluded that even though murder was a sin, it would be more sinful to let Hitler continue. In July, 1944 their assassination attempt took place; a bomb exploded in Hitler’s war room but the Fuhrer was not mortally wounded. The conspirators were eventually discovered – including Bonhoeffer – who was moved to Buchenwald Concentration Camp. On April 9, 1945, two years after his initial arrest, Prisoner Bonhoeffer was stripped naked and hung to death at age 39 as an enemy of the state.

Now here’s the thing I want you to know about this man and why he continues to be relevant 80 years later. During his incarceration, he wrote a series of letters to his favorite student, Eberhard Bethge, from the under-ground seminary days. Bethge hid these letters and after1945 showed them to a few Western theologians asking: is there anything of value here? By 1953, a small volume entitled Letters and Papers from Prison was published in both London and New York. And this little book, containing an outline for a work Bonhoeffer wanted published after the war, spoke of a new way to do church: “religionless Christianity.” I’ll talk more about that as well as three other expressions – Jesus as the man for others, living in a world come of age and evaluating all faith by the physical presence of God in the flesh of Jesus – in the weeks to come. Just know right now that this tiny book changed the Western Church! His concepts were grossly misunderstood at first - especially by the God is Dead movement – his words have been denigrated by traditional evangelical Christians and thrown away in ignorance, too. But Bonhoeffer became a saint to Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu in South African and energized Christians opposing Eastern European communism as well. And in our own era of political uncertainty and religious intolerance, I have come to believe that Bonhoeffer has something important to teach us. In 1944 he put it like this: 

The all-or-nothing gamble of this hour is called heroism and unfettered action. Whatever is neither Machiavellian nor heroic is labeled “hypocrisy,” because there is no longer any understanding for the slow, laborious conflict between knowledge of right and the necessities of the hour, the conflict which was the genuine political life of the west, with all its voluntary concessions and its authentically free responsibilities. Strength is disastrously confused with weakness, historical continuity with decadence. The absence of anything lasting means the collapse of the foundation of historical life, confidence, in all its forms. Since there is no confidence in truth, the place of truth is usurped by sophistic propaganda. Since there is no confidence in justice, whatever is useful is declared to be just. And even the tacit confidence in one’s fellow-man, which rests on the certainty of permanence and constancy, is now superseded by suspicion and an hour-to-hour watch on one’s neighbor.

I have been persuaded that in a world facing a refugee crisis greater than that of the Second World War, the fear and uncertainty created by the current regime’s carless and often cruel words and executive actions, a culture that so often confuses might with right and the loudest voice with virtue, and the legitimate wounds of so many of our people – of every race, class and gender – that are crying out for redress: Bonhoeffer’s witness can help us be part of a moral resistance to fear, lies and evil.

Conclusion
Jesus admonished us today to be salty – bringing zest, hope and joy into the hardness of life – and not abstractly but physically, politically, economically and socially. Jesus challenged us to live as lights in the darkness – not in private, but out in public – not hidden under fear or political expediency or intimidation. How does our text put it? I need your work for righteousness – dikaiosuné in New Testament Greek that literally means justice - to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. These scribes and Pharisees are not being highlighted as bad guys here, although Christian anti-Semitism likes to portray them that way. No, the scribes and Pharisees were often the best and most public people living into Torah – the justice, mercy and steadfast love of the Lord – so Jesus is telling us: I need you to do it better! Do it more publically! Do it with a greater vigor and physicality that makes my Father’s kingdom visible and real for all with eyes to see!

Another way to say this would be: fulfill Torah in your life – not treat Torah like it is over – but rather fill it full with all the love you can muster and all the Spirit can inspire. Do you get the difference? Fulfill means fill it full – full of justice – full of love – full of mercy. Do this and people will see the beauty and value of the Lord.

For is not THIS the fast I choose? To feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the lonely, set free the imprisoned and stand up for the forgotten? We are those who make the kingdom visible. By the inspiration of the Spirit and our confidence in grace, we are the vessels called to fill life full of God’s love. We won’t always get it all right, but anything less is cheap grace. And that’s what I need to share with you today. If you want to raise questions or concerns with me, I’ll meet with you right here after worship. But for now let those with ears to hear, hear and give thanks to the Lord made flesh in our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen

before you reaffirm your faith in the majesty of a loving God...

Earlier this week both Di and I got whacked with a stomach virus that's rendered us

woozy and out of sorts. Not fun. At the same time laying low has given me time to keep reading Bonhoeffer and I am grateful for small blessings. Today is Brother Dietrich's 111th birthday and, not surprisingly, a number of allies are quoting him with greater frequency. Two quotes are worth sharing.

+ The first comes from a 1934 sermon preached in London re: II Corinthians 12. It speaks of the weakness of Christ, the foolish wisdom of the Lord and the necessity for Christians to practice a measure of separation from those who hold political and economic power.

What is the meaning of weakness in this world? We all know that Christianity has been blamed ever since its early days for its message to the weak. Christianity is a religion of slaves, of people with inferiority complexes; it owes its success only to the masses of miserable people whose weakness and misery Christianity has glorified. It was the attitude towards the problem of weakness in the world, which made everybody to followers or enemies of Christianity. Against the new meaning which Christianity gave to the weak, against this glorification of weakness, there has always been the strong and indignant protest of an aristocratic philosophy of life which glorified strength and power and violence as the ultimate ideals of humanity. We have observed this very fight going on up to our present days. Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its apologia for the weak. – I feel that Christianity is rather doing too little in showing these points than doing too much. Christianity has adjusted itself much too easily to the worship of power. It should give much more offense, more shock to the world, than it is doing. Christianity should take a much more definite stand for the weak than to consider the potential moral right of the strong.

Lest there be any ambiguity, I am not aligned with the part of the Christian community that is driven by fear or cowering before an authority of any type. There are clearly millions who live under this spirituality and, while it breaks my heart, it is not my burden. I love them as part of the broken family but I serve the Lord of love who made everything I can grasp about God clear in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In a word, God's wisdom and power are revealed in the Cross. As Bonhoeffer made clear, both theology and discipleship are different ways of talking about Christology. Not making deals with the Devil. Not selling our for a Supreme Court justice (or two.) And certainly not betraying the Man for Others to one who is crass, mean-spirited, ignorant and willfully harsh to the least of my sisters and brothers. Old line fundamentalists and evangelicals claimed a pass during the election calling the President "a baby Christian." Others said, "We must give him time as he is still learning." 

That is naive and intentionally deceitful sophistry: Mr. Trump is not "learning" the ways of Christ, nor is he nourishing his spirit in a faith community or exploring the necessity of confession. He is engaging in the cheap grace of the powerful and trusting that this charade will suffice until he can consolidate his power. All of us are sinners who fall short of God's glory. Check it out in Romans 3: 23. But not everyone who cries "Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt. 7: 21)  And while all of us can change direction (that is repent) for the time being this quote to Republican pollster Frank Lutz stands re: asking God for forgiveness:"I am not sure I have. I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don't think so, I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don't bring God into that picture. I don't." As in everything else, the President understands himself to be a law unto himself.

+ The second Bonhoeffer quote is taken from an essay written in 1933, "The Church and the Jewish Question." Like so many Christians of that era, Bonhoeffer still affirmed the heresy of supersessionism that believed Christianity replaced Judaism and nullified God's first covenant in Jesus. (This was only dismantled by the Roman Catholic Church in 1965 with the work of Vatican II's Nosrra Aetate', but still runs rampant in too much of the Church today. In time, B had a clear change in heart but was martyred by the Nazis before being able to live more fully into his new understanding.) His point re: the Church and social engagement however, is what I want to highlight and in it the witness of Bonhoeffer remains useful:  

A state that threatens the proclamation of the Christian message negates itself. There are thus three possibilities for action that the church can take vis-à-vis the state: first, … questioning the state as to the legitimate state character of its actions, that is, making the state responsible for what it does. Second, is service to the victims of the state’s actions. The church has an unconditional obligation toward the victims of any societal order, even if they do not belong to the Christian community. “Let us work for the good of all.” (Gal 6:10) These are both ways in which the church, in its freedom, conducts itself in the interest of a free state. In times when the laws are changing, the church may under no circumstances neglect either of these duties. The third possibility is not just to bind up the wounds of the victims beneath the wheel but to fall [ours-elves] within the spokes of the wheel itself. Such an action would be direct political action on the part of the church. This is only possible and called for if the church sees the state be failing in its function of creating law and order, that is, if the church perceives that the state, without any scruples, has created either too much or too little law and order. It must see in either eventuality a threat to the existence of the state and thus to its own existence as well.

When challenged as to why I am putting so much time into calling out the current regime, forsaking any subtlety for clear words like evil and dangerous, I find sustenance from Bonhoeffer's analysis in his own time. The Muslim ban - for that is what it is beyond all parsing - the invitation to emasculate regulations on Wall Street banking, the uncritical attempt to abandon the Affordable Care Act without a viable replacement, the mocking and ignorant tone at the National Prayer Breakfast, the belligerence towards our allies in Mexico, Europe and Australia, the executive orders allowing toxic coal waste to be dumped into rivers and rescinding a ban that would keep weapons out of the hands of those wrestling with mental illness all point to an administration hellbent on causing harm. Already 60,000 - 100,000 US visas have been nullified causing no added safety to the American homeland  but immeasurable suffering to vulnerable sisters and brothers in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt as well as students, scholars and high tech allies. Challenges - both legal and moral - are proactive based on the evidence of what has been promised - and already delivered.

And so, taking Frederick Buechner's challenge from his days with Union Seminary professor James Muilenburg, I struggle to affirm the glory of God in Jesus as he lived in the real world and take some solace even when I come up lacking.

"Every morning when you wake up," Muilenburg used to say, "before you reaffirm your faith in the majesty of a loving God, before you say I believe for another day, read the Daily News with its record of the latest crimes and tragedies of mankind and then see if you can honestly say it again." He was a fool in the sense that he didn't or couldn't or wouldn't resolve, intellectualize, evade, the tensions of his faith but lived those tensions out, torn almost in two by them at times. His faith was not a seamless garment but a ragged garment with the seams showing, the tears showing, a garment that he clutched about him like a man in a storm.

sabbath, rest, beauty and quiet...

Today is our Sabbath: for nearly 25 years Dianne and I have mostly claimed Fridays as a time

away from work, phones and all business. There have been times when that was not always possible. But as a rule, it is one of the ways we claim a measure of order in the midst of so much chaos. And a bit of beauty, too I must say for we often taken in films, walks in the woods and un peu de festin aussi! Today we're both feeling run down and weary so life will be very chill:  Lucie needs a romp and we need a few simple groceries and then it is resting, candles and quiet music.

Honoring Sabbath not only gives my mind and body a break from work, it also grounds me in a rhythm that blends activism with contemplation, challenge with comfort, and conflict with beauty. I saw today that a colleague will be hosting an arts and resistance event next Wednesday in Williamstown:  Reviving Our Hearts for Justice. The church describes it like this:

Now is the time to revive our hearts for resistance and action. Through song, poetry, dance, speakers, this special evening will inspire our hearts for the urgent work of justice and peace that is so threatened in our nation. Think of it as a community gathering to galvanize moral dissent to the injustice unleashed against so many people, particularly refugees, immigrants, and people of color. Community and student organizations are invited to table before and during the event. ( for more information check it out @ https://www.facebook.com/events/261223564315556/)

There will, of course, be speakers but also choirs, dancers, jazz, gospel and some surprises, too. This is something faith communities must support - this event, for sure - but parallel ones, too so that we keep nurturing the soul for the long haul. I am working on a "Songs of Solidarity" gig that I hope we can pull off in early March that will bring interfaith musicians together along with group singing. Americans have lost the art of singing together - there's not much time or interest to practice it these days outside of worship - and most people don't worship. But so much is gained when we learn to listen to one another in song, support one another with our small contribution and experience the resounding power of a group making music with their bodies. 

why bonhoeffer and why now...?

Not only did I move into semi-retirement this week, but I've set out to do a four week worship series on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As I have publicized this within the church, now is the time to take a fresh look at Brother B's insights.

Drawing from the wisdom of the German theologian’s final work, Letters and Papers from Prison, this worship series will both introduce contemporary people to the insights of Bonhoeffer (perhaps for the first time!) We will also explore four broad themes that hold continued significance for the living church of Jesus Christ. As February ripens, our conversation will include:

February 5, 2017:"  An Introduction to the Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer "(worship will include Holy Communion)

February 12, 2017: "Jesus as “the Man for Others” (this is heart of Bonhoeffer's Christology and how he explained both why Jesus was important to non-believers and how Jesus matters to those within the Church.)

February 19th: “Religionless Christianity” (Bonhoeffer called believers to live without empty piety, sentimentality or superstition so that faith, science, art and politics became allies rather than enemies in the contemporary world.)

February 26th: "Living in “a World Come of Age” (our realm requires women and men who are able to take responsibility for ethical living in cultures that are sophisticated yet often confused about sacrificial love.)

Some of the martyred theologian's poems and hymns will be included in my presentations, too as I make the case for a religionless Christianity in 21st century America.  Already, some have asked me to be clear about WHY I am going deeper into Bonhoeffer?  So let me clarify beyond confusion.  Our body politic is now enmeshed in a struggle for the soul of nation.  Under the Trump Regime. we have started to sacrifice the common good for the emotional well-being of the shrinking White middle class. But rather than honestly and practically redress their legitimate grievances, a tragic course of pandering to our lowest common denominator has been set in motion. Such cruelty is destined to collapse in time - Dr. King was right that "the arc of the moral universe tilts ever so slightly towards justice" - but we will destroy countless innocent lives along the way. In ten days time the United States has already become pariah in Western Europe as our oldest allies explain the Geneva Convention and the purpose of NATO to the amateur-in-chief. In his opposition to the polices and practices of the Nazis in Germany, Bonhoeffer linked acts of radical social justice and compassion with the heart of the Cross. To follow Jesus is to live fully into the foolish wisdom of solidarity with the least of the Lord's sisters and brothers (Mt. 25).

Another has to do with strengthening the heart of Christian resistance to this Regime. In Bonhoeffer's day he noted that a number of people of good will had left the church because it was sentimental and superstitious. This has only intensified in our era. That is why he worked so hard to speak about Christian values and ethics in language potential allies could comprehend. In early January, for example, over 2,000 strangers joined together in our small town for a March and Rally for Freedom. There were over 1,400 in our Sanctuary and another 400 in the Fellowship Hall listening to a remote audio feed. The organizing coalition grasped that when we discern common ground, people will respond - and they did. Bonhoeffer worked tirelessly to help the people of his day translate their good intentions into deeds of resistance. We can do nothing less today as we strive to disrupt the Regime's rush into American fascism.

And the third reason I am committed to exploring and learning from Bonhoeffer is this: our history in the USA shows that periodically our politics erupt into acts of racist and nativist violence. Think post-Reconstruction, think the rise on the new KKK in the American heartland of the early 20th century, think the reaction of the Dixiecrats and Klan to the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s, think David Duke and the neo-Nazi rallies of the 80s economic slump, or today's unholy obeisance to the President. Just beyond the obvious bubble of liberal habits, manners and social sobriety is a long history of lynchings, fear-mongering, rape culture, political demagoguery, and violence. But NEVER by the entire populous - only by an agitated and well-organized minority. And what has been true in the past is true today: when people of good will are energized and our faith communities help interpret the call to action as part of our witness to the Lord, then the vile hatred is stopped for a season. Now is the time to engage our people so that we stop this train wreck before it careens out of control.

We should confess: the Regime is NOT the totality of America. It IS a well-financed coalition of uneasy collaborators including: political opportunists, disempowered white workers, neo-Nazi/ white supremacists, old line evangelicals obsessed with wedge issues, a cadre of aggressive entrepreneurs, some right leaning military leaders, and many good hearted souls who are nostalgic for the "good old days" when the White middle class was the majority (and let's not forget those who have a blind but well-nourished hatred of Mrs. Clinton.) But this is not a majority. Best estimates in our divided land put this coalition at about 40% of the population.  As is becoming increasing clear to those who have willingly signed on to this bargain with the Devil, however, the costs are increasingly ugly. Columnist David Brooks wrote recently:

Many Republican members of Congress (editor's note: who serve in majority White

communities) have made a Faustian bargain with Donald Trump. They don’t particularly admire him as a man, they don’t trust him as an administrator, they don’t agree with him on major issues, but they respect the grip he has on their voters, they hope he’ll sign their legislation and they certainly don’t want to be seen siding with the inflamed progressives or the hyperventilating media... the Trump administration is not a Republican administration; it is an ethnic nationalist administration. Trump insulted both parties equally in his Inaugural Address. The Bannonites are utterly crushing the Republican regulars when it comes to actual policy making. (check out the whole piece

@ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/opinion/the-republican-fausts.html?rref=collection%2 Fcolumn%2Fdavidbrooks&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection&_r=0

This is the time when people of faith must learn to see the face of our crucified Lord in those who are most wounded and vulnerable. We can disagree about the role of government. We can argue about whether a social democracy like Western Europe works better than the trickle down theories of President Reagan (hint: they do! And we can challenge one another about how to overcome race hatred, misogyny and homophobia. What we cannot do - but is already happening - is let mean-spirited amateurs run over precious human lives.  Brooks goes on to write:

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the aroma of bigotry infuses the whole operation, and anybody who aligns too closely will end up sharing in the stench. The administration could have simply tightened up the refugee review process and capped the refugee intake at 50,000, but instead went out of its way to insult Islam. The administration could have simply tightened up immigration procedures, but Trump went out of his way to pick a fight with all of Mexico. Other Republicans have gone far out of their way to make sure the war on terrorism is not a war on Islam or on Arabs, but Trump has gone out of his way to ensure the opposite. The racial club is always there.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer started as a bourgeois theologian born with a silver spoon in his mouth and tons of privilege.  In many ways, he remained one of the elite even as he practiced giving up more and more of his social and political advantages. When he was stripped naked and hanged just 10 days before the defeat of Germany, he had allied himself with Jews and all who opposed fascism.  He was living into a spirituality of faith from below - from the perspective of the oppressed - and while he died before this ripened, his martyrdom points to the class, race and gender suicide that guided his heart.

If any of this resonates with you, please join us on Sundays @ 10:30 am.

songs of solidarity and resistance...

Today was the start (and merely that) of my semi-retirement. Mostly my day was given to wrapping up a few church concerns. But after celebrating midday Eucharist - which we're moving to Tuesdays next week - I got time to take a nap and browse a bookstore before buying Mexican supplies for tonight's dinner.

The book that captured my interest resonates with my desire to understand this moment in time: an in-depth exploration of what led to the rise of Nazi Germany. As I've noted before, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between der Fuhrer and the Trump Regime, but there is an ugly, racist, authoritarian pseudo-populism at work in both camps - and constituencies - that I need to better understand. As part of my entree into semi-retirement, I took the time to listen to some of the best songs of protest that are shakin' it up right now. They include:

The most biting and harsh is Fiona Apple's "Tiny Hands." To a pounding dance groove she makes her point:  We don't want your tiny hands anywhere near our underpants. And let me say for the record that I am SO down with this!

Three others strike me as important, too:  The first is "Hallelujah, Money" by Gorillaz. I haven't given this group much time of late but this song cuts to the chase. It has been described as an apocalyptic mashup and is the first release from the band in six years. Dig it.


The combination of Canada's Arcade Fire with soul sister extraordinaire, Mavis Staples, creates an anthem for this era about the importance of solidarity as we rock steady in resistance. This is old school meets hipster for the sake of hope:  I give you power but I gotta be free - I give you power but I can take it away!

And how about Coco Rosie's "Smoke 'Em Out" with its house party groove with the proclamation that the "future is female!" Two weeks ago, the streets of the world made this clear as women - and their allies - took to the streets.

Honorable mention goes to my old Fairfield County homie: Moby and his ironic "Trump Is on Your Side." As more of the POTUS's crew experiences buyer's remorse this may become our national anthem. These are hard times, for sure, so let's hang tough.