Readings for 10th Sunday after Pentecost | July 25, 2021

• 2 Kings 4:42-44 and Psalm 145:10-18  
• Ephesians 3:14-21  
• John 6:1-21 or Mark 6:34-44

Mathematical Miracle, sermon by Rev. Fred Kinsey
I think we can call the Feeding of the 5,000 a Mathematical Miracle!  It is, a miracle story, in the vein of the coming Kingdom or realm of God, revealing to us the singular generosity of God who desires all to be fed, in a world that has ‘enough for all.’ 
 
It’s also symbolic in its math.  5 loaves and 2 fish, equal the number 7, or perfection, in Jewish symbolism.  The 12 baskets of bread left over, symbolize the fruitfulness of the 12 tribes of Israel, in the new order that Jesus is ushering in.  And the 5,000 represent the multiplication of the 5 books of Moses, the Torah, or the greatest gift of God to humanity.  (Joel Marcus, Mark 1-8, Anchor Bible, pg. 419)
 
It’s no wonder, that, besides the Passion narrative at the end, and the Baptism of Jesus in the beginning, the Feeding of the 5,000 is the only other complete story that is recorded in each of the four gospels. 
 
This is also the story we picked to go with our Unity Vision Statement.  “Unity’s vision is to be an urban green space, welcoming everyone into a holy encounter, where we are changed, that all may be fed, as Jesus feeds us.” 
 
In the next four weeks we’ll be reading from the Gospel of John, as he unpacks the meaning of, food, eucharist, Torah, manna, welcoming, bread enough for all, and much more, in what’s called the Bread of Life series. 
 
In this Mathematical Miracle we’ve read from Mark today, the first thing that Jesus does is, he takes stock of the way things are: “How many loaves of bread do you have” Jesus asks the disciples?  The twelve wanted Jesus to send the crowd away, all 5k+ of them, to go and fend for themselves at the nearest fast-food establishment!  What are we supposed to do, they ask?  We don’t have any money; and we’d need a half year’s salary to be able to buy enough, for even a meager meal, for all of them! 
 
So, the second thing Jesus does, is to organize them.  After he takes stock of ‘the way things are,’ he doesn’t panic when he finds out it’s only 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish!  He knows, “we” are the ones who will care for our people, the people of God.  “And he commanded the disciples to make them all recline, eating-group by eating-group on the green grass.  So, the people sat down, cluster by cluster, in groups of, a hundred, and in groups of fifty…”  That’s what organizing people, Jesus-style, looks like!  Which comes from, believing in what is right, and just, and heaven sent. 
 
This is a story, a Mathematical Miracle, about God providing enough.  About feeding regular everyday hungry families.  And living in the presence of the kingdom and realm of God, together. 
 
But acceptance of, ‘enough for everyone,’ is threatened by what we might call, Mathematical Misappropriation(malevolence)  – the message, and false belief, that we must compete for limited or scarce resources.  Mathematical Misappropriation indoctrinates us into an acquisitive competition, that anyone can be a millionaire if they try hard enough.  And, if for some reason you’re not, it’s your own darn fault.  As if we aren’t already working our tails off!  When we buy into this message, we have been co-opted by, Mathematical Misappropriation.  But, the millionaires have set up the rules to favor their own advancement, and any concern for ‘enough for everyone’ is somewhere way down the list, subordinate to, self-enrichment. 
 
We are all caught up in it to some extent, unless, we’re actively working against it.  Even then, it’s darn near impossible to escape, unless we’re organized to sit people down together, to expect, and demand what God wants to give us – the Mathematical Miracle. 
 
The reason I’m on this hobby-horse this week, is the one, very large example, of, this Mathematical Misappropriation.  And that’s, Billionaires blasting off into space!  Which is, of course, an amazing mathematical feat, a spectacular achievement, a testament to working hard, like we all do, but in this case, there are only three in the club: Branson, Bezos, and Musk. 
 
Maybe you’ve followed these stories, and are an admirer.  And once again, I say, totally spectacular achievement!  Miraculous!  But for me, I can’t square the gospel circle. 
 
Jeff Bezos, the most recent space traveler, who is 57, has a vision for what he’s doing.  It includes creating solar energy to be sent back to earth.  Which sounds good, but the reason, he says, is “I’m pursuing this work, because I believe, if we don’t, we will eventually end up with a civilization of stasis, which I find very demoralizing. I don’t want my great-grandchildren’s great-grandchildren to live in a civilization of stasis. We all enjoy a dynamic civilization of growth and change,” he says.  But is that really true?  Isn’t he talking more about himself?  More about a relative few, these days, who get to ‘enjoy the growth and change of a dynamic’ society, a lot more, than most of us!    “[S]tasis would be very bad, I think,” Bezos said.  And this is where I get very nervous!  When one famous person starts to decide what our values should be, all by himself.

In another interview at Cape Canaveral in 2017 he admitted, “I have won this lottery. It’s a gigantic lottery, and it’s called Amazon.com. And I’m using my lottery winnings to push us a little further into space. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do that.”
 
Upon returning to earth Bezos, the richest man on the planet, who’s been cashing in a billion dollar’s of stock a year to pay for his space program, awkwardly thanked "every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this. Seriously, for every Amazon customer out there and every Amazon employee, thank you from the bottom of my heart very much. It's very appreciated," he continued. 
 
Of course, Amazon employees, like the rest of us, don’t have any choice in Bezos’ decision to spend his riches on a tourist ride to space.  Neither has Bezos entered into dialog even with his own workers for their pleas for better working conditions, like time enough for a bathroom break, or the ability to form a union.  Instead of trusting and organizing together, Amazon surveils its drivers and warehouse workers; and workers quit at nearly twice the rate of other retail jobs. 

Bezos is a convenient target, of course.  The richest man in the world.  And, truth be told, we’re all beholden to the same Mathematical Misappropriation system, to some extent.
 
So, the gospel message I want to convey is that, we can do something different, something gospel oriented, together.  We can listen, and hear, what Jesus is telling us about the Mathematical Miracle that comes from organizing ourselves.  First, we have to believe in the Son, the favored child of God, and the Good Shepherd’s goal of “enough for everyone.” 
 
Too often we’re like the disciples, fearful of a world that is hungry, or worse, blaming them, for their plight.  Our answer then, is, go away.  You can buy something in town if you’re hungry.  Why should I help?  I’m poor too! 
 
So, following Jesus is full of hard decisions.  Believing he is ‘the bread of life’ is more than just ‘liking’ it, on social media.  It has to be how we live, and what we live for, too. 
 
Instead of panicking, Jesus organizes us.  I’m sure Bezos, Brandon, and Musk have lots to organize in their high-tech quest for space exploration.  But that’s not the kind of organizing Jesus is talking about.  Billionaires have lots of freedom and little accountability.  At least in the 1960’s and 70’s the space race seemed like a national community effort and was paid for by our common fund, the national budget.  Private space trips, on the other hand, are not held to any accountable standard, by the people.  There is no conversation going on about their singular decisions. 
 
Organizing by Jesus, is community organizing.  It comes from the grassroots, who are invested, in our case, in the enterprise of becoming followers, those who are on the way to the cross and resurrection of Jesus. 
 
And so, in the story of the feeding of the 5,000, we can see that, at first, the people arrive in disarray.  They’re looking for a shepherd to lead them.  The disciples are not quite ready to be organizers yet, so Jesus organizes them, sitting them down, eating-group by eating-group, on the green grass – like the grassy hill of Psalm 23, where the sheep are organized and cared for by the Good Shepherd.  Jesus’ order is further envisioned by Mark when he describes the eating-groups as reclining, cluster by cluster, in groups of, a hundred, and in groups of fifty, lined up like those ready to study Torah, God’s Word. 
 
And so, following in the mold of Moses, who organized the Israelites to stay together 40 years on the way to the Promised Land, Jesus organizes us to come together and support one another, to share our food, and trust and know, that God provides enough for all. 
 
In Toni Morrison’s book, Beloved, she describes the transformative power of this belief in a Good Shepherd: “She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.” 
 
St. Teresa of Avila said, “God has no hands but our hands.”  Which is a lot like our ELCA slogan: God’s Work, Our Hands! 
 
Let us organize ourselves into clusters of eating, and living, and advocacy-groups, believing and trusting in the Mathematical Miracle, of the Feeding of the 5,000, that all may be fed as Jesus feeds us.   

Readings for Pentecost 4B, Sunday June 20, 2021

• Job 38:1-11 and Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32  
• 2 Corinthians 6:1-13  
• Mark 4:35-41

Sermon: "Margins of Our Lives" by Pastor Fred Kinsey
We now have two Independence Days in our country.  Finally, a celebration for blacks, as well as whites.  A Holiday, not just for those with an abundance of power and privilege, but also for those who have been marginalized.  And indeed, the crossing from one shore to the other, may be more passable, with the passage of Juneteenth Day, here in Illinois, and on the federal level, just this past week! 
 
Jesus, in our gospel today, loads his Disciples into a fishing boat to make a passage, to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  It’s a voyage of great intentionality for the Master.  Mark’s gospel envisions bridging this chasm, despite the fear of the journey, from the comfortable center of the home shores, to those on the margins – in this case, the Gentiles, those who live east of Lake Galilee and the Jordan River, on the outer edges of Israel. 
 
In the boat, Jesus, tired, after healing and teaching in parables, finds a cushion to stretch out on, and immediately falls asleep.  Afterall, four of his disciples come from a fishing background on this very lake, and who better to leave the skipper responsibilities to?! 
 
But, as can happen on the Sea of Galilee, a great windstorm arose, almost more than the fishing boat could handle.  They were taking in water, and large waves and swells were causing great alarm.  The Disciples, their worst fears realized, call out in a panic, sure they are about to capsize.  And seeing Jesus still enjoying his nap, without a care, they were all the more aggravated and annoyed.  They actually had to shake him up out of his slumber, like a sleeping teenager, to get his attention and plead with him to save them.  Jesus then, immediately exorcised, the demon-waves, crying out to the sea, “Peace, Be still!” 
 
Jesus amazes his Disciples with his divine power.  But what I’m mostly interested in today, is how closely this story follows, the Jonah and the Whale story.  For the disciples, as it turns out, are eerily, mirror-images of Jonah, the reluctant prophet.  The obstinance of Jonah, had grown out of his low regard for the people of Nineveh, his Gentile neighbors.  He is far from convinced that he must go and preach repentance to them.  They are, admittedly, wicked and not God-fearing, and way too far on the margins, thinks Jonah, for him to be concerned with them. 
 
So Jonah hops a boat going in the opposite direction from Nineveh, away from where God was so purposefully directed him to go.  And so, with Jonah, the same thing happened to him that happens to the Disciples.  A great windstorm arose and threatened to swamp the boat.  And God eventually has to save Jonah. 
 
The Disciples, of course are saved by the Son, by Jesus.  Not just because it’s what the disciples want and plead for, but because God has a mission on the margins, for them, just like God did for Jonah.  Jesus is focused-in, on going to the other side, to save and reconcile with the wrongly enslaved, in Gerasene, of the Decapolis – present day Jordan. 
 
Conquering our fear of the evil Sea monster, and raging storm, is all part of the journey.
 
In 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was finally published – the Revolutionary War, of course, already underway – the beauty and clarity of the right to freedom was forever enshrined, in its words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 
 
Fine rhetoric by the Founding Fathers, except that, men meant men, and not women.  And as was defined a decade later in the Constitution, men also meant white men, and not negro slaves.  Independence, freedom, and democracy, were only applicable to the monied few, a minority of citizens, at the birth of our country. 
 
July 4th was never a holiday, and day of celebration, for African Americans in the U.S., for the most part.  And that is why, the long struggle to make Juneteenth a national holiday is so important. 
 
It was on June 19, 1865, nearly three years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation that “a” last group of slaves in Galveston, TX received the news that: “all persons held as slaves … shall be then, thenceforward and forever free…”  Major General Gordon Granger, had taken a long time, traveling as he was by horseback, to get the word, all the way out, to the margins.  He read the proclamation at a number of locations, including “the Negro Church on Broadway, as Reedy Chapel-AME Church was referred to then.”  And Reedy Chapel, held perhaps the first Junteenth celebration the very next New Year’s Day!   (https://www.galvestonhistory.org/news/juneteenth-and-general-order-no-3)
 
Slowly but surely, the celebrations spread across Texas, and the whole country.  And forever after, black Americans have celebrated Juneteenth as their Independence Day.  Their, Freedom, Liberation, and, Emancipation Day.
 
God, in Jesus, calls us to the margins, to continue the work of liberation.  To set the captives free, to proclaim the year of our Lord, a Jubilee Year.  The aim is to lift up the downtrodden, and bring low the mighty.  To make a level playing field, where no one is denied equity. 
 
Jesus knew that didn’t mean aiming for, a color-blind society, because that is a society which, in and of itself, is blind to institutions and systems of racism.  Jesus’ quest to travel to the margins, was embarked upon with, open-eyes, and there he declared liberation and salvation, in word and deed, teaching and healing. 
 
Also on the margins, I think we could say, especially as we celebrate Pride Month, was Angel Haynes, a transgender woman, murdered because of her identity, this past October, and who we have been praying for every Sunday.  “Angel was taken away from her mom, grandmother, uncle…she was taken away from all of us unexpectedly,” said her best friend, Takia Weddle.  She was just 2 months shy of her 26th birthday. “She was a caring, determined, funny, smart and, giving woman. Unfortunately, our time with her was cut very, very short,” added Takia, at her vigil, the weekend after. (https://avp.org/ncavp-mourns-the-death-of-angel-haynes-25-year-old-black-transgender-woman-memphis/) 
 
Jesus faced great opposition in going to the margins, as we see in his boat ride with his Disciples, across the Sea of Galilee.  Just as Jonah’s uncaring attitude, landed him in the storm, needing to be saved by a big fish, so the Disciples needed saving by Jesus from their unfaithfulness to those on the margins. 
 
We know that the wind and the waves were against Jesus’ mission.  But more significantly perhaps, so were the Disciples.  They had little regard for the Gentiles on the margins, on the other side, even though Jesus had taught them to love your enemies.  They were afraid, not just of the rough seas, but, of what they would find on other shores.  They never would have gone, without Jesus as their slumbering, all-powerful, captain!  
 
Jesus calls us, to the margins, especially from our privileged positions of dominion.  I am confident, that -we here- are not counted among the Insurrectionists, who are the wind and waves of evil.  But: ?Are we regularly traveling with Jesus to the margins, on the other side?  Do we walk as allies with Black Lives Matter?  Are we speaking up against the historic and invisible barriers of racism, that persist, and still regularly occur, each and every day in our land? 
 
The storm that threatened to swamp the boat with Jesus and his disciples, was indeed the raging battle of evil that surrounded them.  But like Jonah, the disciples had gotten into deep waters because of their complete lack of concern for the Gentiles, those on the margins.  And, it was their silence, that invited the specter of death. 
 
This is our battle today, too.  Silence is complicity.  Silence, and in-action, will swamp our boat.  The boat we are all in together. 
 
Let us forego Jonah’s boat, that is fleeing responsibility, and our call, to follow God’s ways.  And let us get in the boat with Jesus, however fearful it may seem to cross over.  And let us head, directly and purposefully, to the margins of our lives.  Let us go to the other side, knowing that our liberation and salvation, cannot be found without enrolling in our baptismal calling, and taking the voyage, every day. 
 
Let us trust in God’s beloved Child, our slumbering Savior, who commands the wind and waves!  

Readings for Fourth Sunday of Easter

• Acts 4:5-12 
• Psalm 23  
• 1 John 3:16-24  
• John 10:11-18

"Our Cornerstone," Rev. Fred KInsey
Peter and John, and all the disciples, were building their lives anew, in Jerusalem.  Jesus had told them to wait there, the day he ascended to the clouds, and they would receive a ‘new’ kind of power.  And after Pentecost, it started to come together.  They had built their lives on following Jesus, during his life.  But what were they to build their lives on, after he died and was raised, and on the 40th day, ascended to God’s right hand? 
 
In our reading from, The Acts of the Apostles, today, we see Peter and John filled with a new confidence in their building project.  A confidence they never quite had with Jesus, in the flesh. 
 
Sometimes, they had asked for power, like when John and James, the sons of Zebedee, who were once part of the family fishing business, asked for special places, to sit, one on either side of Jesus, in the kingdom to come; in their visions of that victorious Davidic kingdom! 
 
Peter had confidence too when he correctly named Jesus as the Messiah, in the midst of that swanky Roman resort town, on their northern border.  But all those moments of braggadocio, were short lived, as Jesus necessarily, and decisively, dashed their hopes, and corrected their false expectations.  All their dreams of being on easy street, becoming royalty and princes in a Davidic Shepherd-King monarchy were misplaced. 
 
Jesus didn’t even try, really, to let them down easy, but told them boldly, and directly, that these were visions of earthly kingdoms, built on faulty foundations.  Yes, they would learn more of the heavenly built kingdom if they continued to follow Jesus.  But they should know, his, was a servant-based model.  A kingdom and realm that challenged the earthly powers, built on human-made power, with the subversive power of God, built on communities of justice and love, and constructed in solidarity and faithfulness, with communal banquets for the poor, the humble and meek. 
 
John and Peter, once they received Jesus’ Spirit at Pentecost, the spirit of life, in this alternative, sharing, prophetic movement, spoke in a new way, now, says the writer of Acts.  They spoke, boldly!  Nothing enrages the earthly powers more than bold prophetic speaking, especially when it stirs up, and ignites, God’s people; when it, gives them, hope! 
 
Take Alexi Navalny!  He knew full well when he returned to Russia he would be arrested and thrown into jail.  Even though it was the Kremlin who tried to assassinate him by poisoning, not too long ago.  But because Navalny speaks boldly against the sins of Putin, against his falsely earned riches and the Herod-like power he wields, nothing could be more challenging.  Bold speech aimed in the right direction, can have the power of creation itself. 
 
And Navalny is not only popular at home but around the world.  His spirit, is much greater, than his fleshly existence.  As soon as he walked off his Lufthansa flight, he was arrested and put in a Soviet jail, and apparently, they are trying to poison him again, in there.  But world pressure has come to his rescue, at least for the time being.  Death and resurrection, takes many forms.
 
Peter and John are thrown into jail for speaking boldly about the power of, resurrection, forgiveness, and new life; and because all the people of Jerusalem were listening and thousands believed.  And the people believed, because, Peter and John healed a man that couldn’t walk, like Jesus had done. 
 
It was late in the day when they were arrested, so the authorities waited until the morning to bring them before the high court, and they asked Peter and John, not about resurrection, but about what power, what name, did they use to do this healing?  Because first of all, they couldn’t believe that Peter and John were speaking so well, so boldly, knowing that they were “uneducated and ordinary men.”  And secondly, where did they get this power, a power that was so very threatening to the high courts’ existence.  This was an ‘existential problem’ for the priests. 
 
But the power, “the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,” the crucified and raised one, Peter, was happy to tell them!  If it were, you and I, we might think we were being more crafty, if we didn’t say that, so, directly.  We might realize how it could get us in trouble in that situation – you know, if we spoke too boldly.  But Peter knew what he was doing.  He knew it was an existential problem, and that it could cost him.  He didn’t do it foolishly, but confidently.  Boldly, as a new servant-leader.  This name of Jesus, this power of Jesus, his Spirit, his gift and promise of resurrection for all, was so much greater than any threat, from the offended, confused, high court, that Peter was happy to talk about it, all day long. 
 
And so he did, inspired now, quoting Psalm 118: “this Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders’…” that is, the high court that Jesus had roundly criticized for its worldly thinking and hypocrisy – the same rulers who were caretakers of the temple building.  And, “this stone that you rejected,” said Peter, still singing from his Psalm book, “has become the cornerstone,” a new foundation of a living building, the one by whom all “mortals,” of every nation, may find healing and salvation. 
 
And here, the high court had thought, in rejecting him, that they had saved their jobs and positions.  But now, the crucified one was clearly back, in a whole new form.  The spirit of Jesus had risen and taken residence in his disciples, and thousands of followers. 
 
So, Peter and John were, once again, following their Master and Lord.  Only now, finally, it was in spirit and truth, not with eyes closed, but with new eyes altogether, fixed on the for-real prize.  Peter and John were building their house, their lives, on the cornerstone, the cornerstone that they too, had rejected, not too many days before. 
 
Yet, that’s how they knew to, share the good news, to invite others, boldly – these priests included.  For like them, Peter and John had mistaken Jesus for a rival political power, but they had come to find, that the true Messiah was a cornerstone of a whole new building, of a new power rarely seen on earth, because its origin was from the heavenly realm, the Lord of Life – one who didn’t need to be in rivalry with anyone, or anything, else. 
 
Jesus is the stone that is a stumbling block for so many, who exposes false earthly-powers, but who is also at the same time, the foundation of a new temple, whose stones cannot be thrown down – a new spiritual construction that has no ending.  Jesus is that new cornerstone, that new temple.  If we follow, we build our lives on this crucified Messiah, the Savior of the world. 
 
For Peter and John, it was existential too.  It was life and death.  The authorities of this world could order them, to be crucified too, but Peter and John rested in the promise of, life in the new age, the promised resurrection that was already holding them up, and sustaining them every minute, of every day; the foundation and cornerstone that was their rock and their salvation; the new temple that they rejoiced in, and at whose feet they worshipped, and who they could talk about, without end. 
 
Let us build our lives on the sure foundation, the stone that is so often rejected, but which God has made the cornerstone of our very existence.  The foundation that holds us up, and lives and breathes, everywhere we go.  Jesus Christ of Nazareth, our life and our salvation.  

Readings for 3rd Sunday of Easter, 4/18/21

• Acts 3:12-19  
• Psalm 4  
• 1 John 3:1-7  
• Luke 24:36b-48

"Innocent Victim," Rev. Fred Kinsey
We kind of stumbled into the protest rally for Adam Toledo on Friday evening in Logan Square.  I thought it was supposed to be on Saturday, but the hoards of people walking down the boulevard past our apartment carrying, Justice for Adam signs, was unmistakable. 

We had already ordered our pizza from Reno, a restaurant right across from the Monument and public square where the protest rally was getting underway, so we quickly put on our coats and rushed out the door to join in.  Not ideal, but we had a half hour before our pizza was ready to pick up! 
 
It was by far the biggest rally I’d seen in Logan Square.  Bigger than last year’s BLM protests in the same spot.  Though, I would say, this was a continuation of that movement.  And, part of the growing attraction here, has been, you can easily march to Mayor Lightfoot’s house, which is just a few blocks away. So, this particular gathering wasn’t just 50 or 100 people scattered on one side of the LGSQ Monument, but was filled all the way around, and spilling out into the round-about street circling the Monument, where Milwaukee Ave, Logan Blvd, and Kedzie intersect. Police were out, redirecting traffic, all around, for blocks.  Most people were wearing face coverings, but around the Monument protestors were packed-in pre-pandemic style, and social distancing was scarce, except towards the fringes, where Kim and I found space. 
 
As we gazed at all the protest signs: No Justice, No Peace; Defund the Police, and Justice for Adam, amongst others, Kim reminded me how Daunte Wright’s mother had said, “there’s never going to be justice for us. [to me] Justice would bring our son home to us.”  And I recalled, that after Adam Toledo’s family had viewed the video, of his last moments of life, earlier in the week, the thing they urged Chicago to do now, was to focus on changing the systems that killed Adam: “The Toledo family implores everyone who gathers in Adam’s name to remain peaceful, respectful and nonviolent, and to continue to work constructively and tirelessly for reform,” as they stood in front of cameras they had never wanted to see.
 
The unyielding resoluteness, to yet another senseless death, this time of a young teenager, 13 years old, seemed to pervade this gathering, like a vigil as much as a protest.  Just a day after the tragic video was publicly released of the needless death of Adam, city officials were framing the shooting in ways to protect the police and demonize the child. 
 
But traumatized protestors were disbelieving.  Jasmine Rubalcava, who lives “minutes away” from where Adam Toledo was shot in Little Village, brought her four-year-old son to the [LGSQ] protest. Like many Chicagoans, she opted out of watching the footage, saying, “no matter what’s in the video, he didn’t deserve to die.”  (https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/04/16/thousands-march-in-chicago-to-protest-police-killing-of-13-year-old-adam-toledo-adam-deserved-to-live/ )
 
Karina Solano, an organizer with Únete La Villita, said, “Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing excused CPD having shot and killed him. Nobody deserves to die at the hands of the police, especially not kids. We don’t need to see the video to know that Adam deserved to live,” Solano said.  (ibid.)
 
It is this idea of ‘the innocent victim’ that theologian James Alison identifies in the gospels, and in our Gospel Reading from Luke today.  Jesus, the innocent victim, having been raised on the third day, just as he said he would, has revealed in his death and resurrection, the victory of love and peace and justice.  Nothing, nothing, nothing, can excuse the death of Jesus, the innocent victim.  Just as Peter says in his sermon from our Acts reading today: “Jesus…,” “the Author of life,”  whom you handed over and rejected… though he… [deserved] release,” you killed, and instead let go, a guilty man, Barabbas, in his place.  This is the fear of the families of George Floyd, Daunte Wright and Adam Toledo, but also of black and brown families everywhere, in America.  The fear of their sons, becoming ghosts.
 
When Jesus appears to the disciples, in the evening, on Easter day, according to Luke, they are still confused and not yet, the believing Apostles, as we think of them today.  Out of nowhere, Jesus suddenly stands among the disciples, like a ghost. And the first thing he says to them is, “Peace be with you.”  Because, they are startled!  You and I couldn’t do that, suddenly appear.  But Jesus addresses their fear, and the inner dialog they are having with themselves, still so full of confusion on this Easter resurrection evening. 
 
So, to assure them he’s not just a ‘spirit, a ghost,’ as was fairly common for people to do, then, and now, Jesus asks for something to eat to demonstrate he is more than a scary apparition.  They gave him a piece of broiled fish, which he chewed and digested before them. 
 
But his appearance as a New Being, an eschatological promise of new life, and the first-fruits of ‘the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come,’ had more meaning than the prosaic debate between, spirits and physicality. 
 
Jesus has returned like this, to confirm to them that he is the Messiah, the one who is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and thus, be our Lord of Life.
 
As Brian Robinette says, “The resurrection awakens true memory. It unseals the collective amnesia that has allowed us to suppress the injustice of our violent exclusions and expulsions,” as we did with Jesus, and like the world would have us do with Adam Toledo and Daunte Wright, and like we sometimes do to any person who is not allowed in as a full human-being, but is victimized.   
 
But, Robinette continues, “the risen One appears to [us] in the midst of an unbreachable divide to restore communication … and offer [us] a renewed innocence, a second innocence. This new innocence is the offer of forgiveness. Just as Peter welcomes those responsible for Jesus’ murder to embrace the forgiveness offered to them by God, so too do we find running[,] throughout the New Testament[,] the intimate association of resurrection, forgiveness, and newness of life.” 
 
And so precisely in our gospel today, the innocent victim, Jesus, inspires Luke to encourage us, “that repentance and forgiveness of sins are to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.” 
 
Why is it that the families, and especially the mothers of their black and brown sons, are the ones calling for peace, even amidst receiving the news of their own sons’ becoming “innocent victims?!” 
 
There is something that the mother’s, and families, and now even spreading to Chicagoans, and dare we say beyond, have experienced, in the loss of such unnecessary lynching’s.  The transformation through death and deep grief, comes only in walking through, anger, denial, depression and every other emotion, that creates in us a holy resolution, to somehow move forward, to demand not just justice, but, new life, a new reality, a well-deserved healing and peace, a new way of being. 
 
Never again do we want to see innocent victims!  And so, it’s on all of us to demand and create the change Jesus came to give us.  We can’t opt out because of white privilege; we can’t opt out even when our own dear child has been taken.  We can’t rest on our laurels, knowing that Jesus gave his life for us 2,000 years ago.  The ‘new life’ is a gift from God, but only if we make it into who we are, if we pray and work for it to come equally for all of us. 
 
As we see in our Gospel reading today, it’s almost impossible to understand Jesus in his resurrected body, that first-fruit of the new creation God is making, already, now, through him.  Was he spirit or flesh?  Ghost or person?  How could he be like us in the ordinary function of eating, but so unlike us in appearing and ascending? 
 
But what is possible, is to love Jesus and love the Word of God, and thus to share in the journey of ‘understanding’ how he is ‘fulfilling scripture’ as our ‘suffering’ Savior, and our risen “innocent victim.” 
 
In the midst of gathered communities every week, God is opening our hearts and minds to understand “that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations... You are witnesses of these things.”

Readings for Fourth Sunday in Lent | March 14, 2021

• Numbers 21:4-9  
• Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22  
• Ephesians 2:1-10  
• John 3:14-21

In the Air, Rev. Fred Kinsey
In the new season of Queen Sugar, love is in the air! All three Bordelon children have landed in a good place.  Nova and Calvin have finally resolved their issues and settled into a committed relationship.  Charlie has finally decided to let all her rebound relationships go, and concentrate on being there for her son Micah who’s starting college at Xavier, her alma mater.  And Ralph Angel and Darla are getting married! 
 
But, as you might expect, love is not the only thing in the air, this season.  Like all sitcom’s, Queen Sugar is dealing with multiple tensions.  It’s the unseen stuff, in the air, good and bad, that’s always hard to get a handle on.  And now they’re having to deal with the virus of Covid-19, on top of the virus of 1619.  
 
The three grown Bordelon children – Nova, Charlie, and Ralph Angel – were brought together on the family farm, just outside New Orleans, in season one, when their father died unexpectedly.  Only Ralph Angel, the youngest, had stayed on the farm, and had, at least a rudimentary understanding, of the sugar cane business.  Nova the oldest was nearby in New Orleans, a journalist and traditional healer, which was nothing lucrative, not like her younger sister, Charlie, who had built a multi-million dollar company around her husband, an NBA star on the west coast. 
 
But – stuff is in the air – and Charlie’s, handsome but hapless husband, turns out to be sleeping around, and they soon divorce.  Nova writes a book that’s wildly popular, but in it, she exposes all the failings and secrets of her family members, who then, in their anger, shun her.  Ralph Angel, is trying to prove he can manage the farm and be a good father to Blue, his son with Darla, but until this season, he continued to make bad decisions, going in and out of prison, a couple times. 
 
As one of the few African-American families who farm in St Josephine’s Parish, they are always fighting the invisible virus of 1619 too, which, like an unseen aerosol, is floating in the air all around them.  The virus finds a welcome host in the old Anti-Bellum Landry family.  They own the Parish’s only Sugar Mill, and all the black families are forced to pay their oppressive prices.  When Charlie heroically starts a new Sugar Mill for the black farmers, the Landry’s vow to put them out of business.  Charlie is able to defend her mill, at great risk to her financial investment, staving off every attack, until the Landry’s, never able to give up their historic supremacy, clandestinely have it burned to the ground. 
 
The air of Queen Sugar is filled with relationships of, love and sadness, triumph of the spirit and heartbreaking falls, hard won pride and devilish deceit, in every episode of all five seasons.  (A great show created by Ava Du Vernay, on Opra’s OWN network.) 
 
The theme’s in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, struck me in a similar way, with its contrast of, grace and wrath, love and sinfulness.  One of the Pauline Epistles penned from prison, Paul knows what it’s like to suffer unjustly, because you pose a problem to the authorities.  As a follower of the Way, a disciple of Jesus, Paul would push up against the Roman Empire in each new city he preached the gospel in the public square.  Christianity was not yet legal, and its members were seen as trouble-makers, something like Ralph Angel was perceived to be, as a young black man growing up in the south. 
 
Paul’s zeal for preaching the gospel in Hellenized cities, far from Jerusalem, put him up against cultures and people who had little or no knowledge of Judaism or its new offshoot of Jesus followers.  They were pagans, not monotheists.  And that put them at a disadvantage, Paul believed.  They hadn’t yet encountered God’s Law – the laws, like in the 10 Commandments, yes – but what he really meant was that they didn’t even yet know, that they were sinners.  The law hadn’t convicted them in their conscience, yet.  They “were dead through the trespasses and sins” in which they lived every day.  They just didn’t know it. 
 
That’s what was in the air, for them.  And that’s what Paul was addressing, when he said: “1You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3All of us once lived among them… and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.” 
 
Turns out, “the ruler of the power of the air,” that Paul mentions, (I had to look it up!) was the ancient belief that evil spirits lived in the air, one of the four basic elements of, earth, water, air, and fire.  And air, they believed, was the murky, polluted region between the planet earth and the moon in which the four elements are mixed.  Air, is where both, good, and evil, angels dwell.  (NIB, Pheme Perkins; pg. 390) 
 
Something was in the air, alright, the very air they breathed.  And they didn’t know what it was until Paul began to teach them that there was a standard, a law, that God had set up that they were ignorant of – and thus, they were dead in the lives they were leading.  They didn’t even know it – they didn’t know the God who was One.  Jesus had summed up the Law and the Prophets into one standard measure: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.  That was a universal truth, a rule that everyone could learn and agree to live by.  And yet, knowing it, still, we fail.
 
And, says Paul, that was me too.  No one worked harder than me to obey the law, and love the LORD.  And what did I do?  I persecuted the followers of Jesus, helped throw them in jail, and approved the stoning of St. Stephen.  And that’s when the Word of God in Jesus, finally came to me.  It’s not that the law has been abolished, but something else entered the world, God-sent, that lives in the very air we breathe.  For, “God who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made me -us- alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…” as Paul wrote to the Ephesians, from his prison cell.
 
This, is the good news, that’s in the air!  The One God, who has created the world and everything in it, loved us even when we were dead, even when we didn’t know it, even when we tried our best and failed, even when we did nothing wrong and were treated as second class citizens or less-than human, even when we don’t like ourselves – even then, God loves us.  This, is the grace of God.  Let it wash over you, and let your former life go – turn around, and follow the Messiah, Christ our Savior, God’s Son, who was sent into the world to reveal God to us. 
 
“The ruler of the power of the air” has been conquered by the power of grace.  The polluted spaces, and invisible viruses, have been met by the mightiest vaccine of them all, the power of the cross, and the gift of the Holy Spirit (the true ruler of the air).  “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, in the same way the son of man had to be lifted up, so that everyone who trusts in him may share in the life of God’s new age.” 
 
Good or bad, can happen to us, whether or not, we, are intentionally, good or bad.  But, in the love and grace of God, we too can live a life of forgiveness and love for our neighbor.  Both powers, are in the air.  And God, in Christ Jesus, has already won the decisive battle. In Lent we learn to turn around and go in the direction of our merciful Savior, knowing that nothing can compare, as Paul says, to “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness, toward” us, that we have found “in Christ Jesus” – our love, that’s in the air!   

Readings for Third Sunday in Lent | March 7, 2021

• Exodus 20:1-17  
• Psalm 19  
• 1 Corinthians 1:18-25  
• John 2:13-22

Direct Action, Rev. Fred Kinsey
On our walk the other day, down Milwaukee Avenue – a beautifully clear day, for a change – Kim suddenly caught sight of the skyline downtown.  Look, she said wryly, it’s Emerald City!  I understood the joke immediately.  We haven’t been downtown for, at least a year now, because of the pandemic.  Haven’t been on the CTA Blue Line, once.  So, it almost seems like the fabled Chicago skyline, is a distant mythological façade.  Is it, really, real?  We hope so, because, it is, something to behold, and with any luck, we’ll visit again, some day soon! 
 
It also symbolizes, I think you could say, an elite, upper-class life-style, and perhaps even, like it or not, the corruption that plagues our city.  Chicago was recently named the #1 corrupt city in our country. Again!  But still, it doesn’t cost anything, to gaze at the magnificence of our, Emerald City! 
 
Something like that was going on in Jesus time, in the city of Jerusalem.  Both, the outstanding beauty of the Second Temple, recently rebuilt by Herod the Great, and also, in the corruption of Jerusalem’s elite: its Roman overlords, and the scribes and other elites who benefited from their patrons.
 
If you visit Jerusalem today, of course – which Kim and I did in 2005 – the beauty which adorns the ancient Temple Mount is the 7th century Islamic, Dome of the Rock, with its shining cylindrical gold crown.  The Second Temple was destroyed by Rome in 70A.D., just a few decades after ‘Jesus was killed, and on the third day rose again,’ so that, only the western wall of the Mount was left standing, or what’s affectionately called today, the Wailing Wall, where Jews, and others, go to pray, converse, and imagine how it once was. 
 
And, it was, magnificent!  It was rebuilt to the detailed biblical specifications in 1 Kings, and at the time of Herod’s rebuilding project, was the largest Temple in the Ancient Near East.  And like the Dome of the Rock, it too was glittery with gold trim, reflecting the sun’s light for miles around, though structurally, in traditional squares and rectangles, instead of the rounds and circles, of the Muslim shrine.  (You’d have to ask Rodrigo what the proper terms are!) 
 
Our gospel reading today has long been called the “Cleansing of the Temple,” as if Jesus had come to purify, and scrub clean, the holy building, from any visible form of money, ever again.  For a long time, churches seriously prohibited holding Bake Sales, based solely on this passage.  But no one – not Jesus, or any of the pilgrims coming to the Passover festival from around the known world wherever Jews lived – was scandalized that you had to convert your local currency into the Temple’s currency, in order to buy your sacrificial animal or jug of oil.  Money in the Temple was not the problem.  Animals were not the problem.  Jesus was after something much deeper and more fundamental.  It wasn’t a Cleansing of the Temple.  It was a Symbolic Direct Action, on the Temple!
 
The first clue we get, is Jesus’ deliberate reconnaissance, the day before.  If you backup 4 verses from our text today, and read verse 11, you notice Jesus did what all good organizers do in preparation for a direct action.  They scout out the building, plaza, or Temple where you’re planning it, and get the lay of the land.  When the right people, or wrong people, are around, who controls the doors, what’s considered public, and what’s private, etc.  Verse 11 says, “Then Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.” 
 
Jesus scoped it out!  He looked around, at ‘everything,’ says Mark.  Then, because the sun would be setting soon, he went to Mary and Martha’s home in the nearby suburb of Bethany, with the disciples. 
 
!Not sure how well Jesus slept that night, but the next day, he gathered the disciples and headed right back, to the ‘Emerald City.’  They snacked on figs on the way, and ‘immediately’ upon entering the Temple he began to enact his well-constructed, plan, designed to shock and gain attention, and to show who was in control (God).  No people or animals were harmed in this active non-violent, Symbolic Direct Action. 
 
Jesus had two immediate targets: the changers of money who sat at their tables, or “banks,” and symbolically represented the larger banking industry that was profiting off, the mostly poor pilgrims.  And, the “sellers of doves,” the sacrificial animals that the pilgrims were required to buy to make an offering. 
 
Jesus had already made clear, back in Galilee, that he was opposed to the exploitation of the poor, lepers, and women, by the religious leaders.  Now, arriving on their territory in Jerusalem, at the heart of the cultic system, Jesus demonstrates in protest form, that he is serious, that God is demanding change. 
 
Mark says, “he drives out,” the exchangers of money and the sellers of doves, using the exact same word, ‘drive out,’ as Jesus uses when sending the demons out of people in his exorcisms.  This, is the kind of wholesale cleaning Jesus did!  And then he turned upside down, their tables and chairs.  For this, Mahatma Gandhi once said, “[Jesus] was the most active resister known, perhaps, to history. His was non-violence par excellence.” (Gandhi, Non Violence in Peace and War, Volume I, p. 16)
 
I remember the direct action we planned, against Illinois’ richest citizen, at his building in downtown Chicago, presumptuously called, the Citadel.  He was the #1 donor to Bruce Rainer’s campaign, that helped elect him.  And when Gov. Rauner was refusing to sign a state budget, an unprecedented impasse that lasted over 2 years, our action, with the support of hundreds of local leaders, shut down his idolatrous Citadel, in the middle of the business day. 
 
The media was on hand to capture the dramatic banners and signs, pleading for a corrupt Governor to sign a budget and end the suffering of the poorest of the poor, in Chicago and the state of Illinois.  Police arrived in minutes, but it took a long time to cut us out of the PVC pipes linking the 5 of us together, who had agreed to be taken to jail, giving the rest of the team outside ample time to get the message out.  A direct action that, planned over some weeks, helped end the cynical budget impasse.  Trudy and Michael might remember, being part of this action, too! 
 
When Jesus, literally, and symbolically, turned the tables, Mark says, “he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.”  That is, Jesus shut it down, so that, like in every good action, he could give a defiant speech.  Jesus probably went on for some time, but according to Mark, the heart of it was about overturning the corruption of the whole temple system, which 1) was extracting wealth from the poor, to which he used the words of prophet Jeremiah against them, “you have made it a den of robbers.’  But 2) mainly, this temple is supposed to be, “a house of prayer for all nations,” Jesus insisted, now quoting Isaiah, and that the temple was made for growing the movement of believers, and enhancing the lives of people from near and far that loved their Creator, demonstrated by all the pilgrims flooding Jerusalem. 
 
Ideally, the temple was like a Tree of Life, with branches to the sky, and roots entwined throughout the earth, a symbol of God’s life-giving grace for all, on earth, as it is in the heavens.  All the pilgrims coming to this Passover festival, came to worship their God, who was a God of promise, deliverance and redemption, and who honored them back. 
 
Jesus’ Direct Action plan was Symbolic of what he wanted to accomplish with his whole life.  He was clear that he was not taking over the Temple on this day for more than a few hours.  There were temple guards, as he knew, and he was not aiming for a military coup.  But he was serving notice that, in the tradition and warning of the prophet Jeremiah, the Temple would be “destroyed” if its leaders did not repent from their idolatrous ways. 
 
And if they didn’t, Jesus was offering himself as a replacement for the temple.  It was more explicit in the later edition of the gospel of John.  There, the temple leaders ask for a sign, of his sending out the sellers and overturning the tables, and Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  And John adds, “he was speaking of the temple of his body.” 
 
But, where are we to understand that the temple of Jesus body is today, after Jesus rose, and now sits at the right hand of the Father?  As Ched Myers says, “The new site [of the temple] is neither geographical nor institutional but ethical; the difficult but imperative practice of mutual forgiveness within the community [is the new site]… The community becomes truly the ‘priesthood of all believers,’ the place of prayer ‘for all peoples.’” 
 
Jesus’ courageous, Symbolic Direct Action, which led to the giving of his life, was orchestrated perfectly, by Jesus – for us.  And now, we, all these centuries later, are the direct beneficiaries of his legacy of justice and love.  We hold his gift gracefully in our hands, literally, and symbolically, in the bread we receive each Sunday, along with his words, ‘the body of Christ, given for you.’  
 
In this way, we are now empowered, to organize, grow followers, and build a city of God, beyond exploitation, oppression, and exclusion, by which, as baptized believers, the power of the Holy Spirit may wash and cleanse the temple of our bodies daily, that God’s kingdom may be revealed. 

Readings for the Second Sunday in Lent | Feb 28, 2021

• Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16  
• Psalm 22:23-31  
• Romans 4:13-25  
• Mark 8:31-38 or Mark 9:2-9

"Quite Openly," Rev. Fred Kinsey
They said it quite openly – all over the internet.  Be there, January 6th in Washington D.C.  It’s going to be wild!  The Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, Jericho Wall, Q-Anon, and numerous state militia groups.  They weren’t shy!  The FBI had been following them, and the press reporting on them.  It was said quite openly ahead of time.  It was a lot like the white supremacist Militia that tried to lynch Michigan’s Governor, quite openly, back in October.  In fact, the FBI had been tracking domestic terrorism on social media since the beginning of the year, in 2020, and noting its rise.  It was all done quite openly, and was not a secret. 
 
They brought zip-ties, (plastic handcuffs), and dressed in military gear.  But, they were surprised when they couldn’t find any of the Representatives or Senators in the Capitol, who had started to certify the votes of the Electoral College, just before they arrived.  Little did they know how close they were to apprehending their targets, as they wandered the halls.  Stop the Steal, had been the cry, and someone set-up a noose on a platform, like a good-olde lynching, still, not yet, illegal, in the U.S.  Two bombs were planted nearby.   
 
Back in the summertime, police were deployed in overwhelming numbers, dressed in riot gear, backed up by tanks, just to protect the Lincoln Memorial from peaceful BLM protestors – Protestors who demanded change and reform from within the system. 
 
The domestic terrorist groups that the FBI were tracking all year were advocating overthrowing our government, quite openly.  Not asking for justice-for-all, but threatening a successionist take over.  But even when they arrived in large numbers, even when the U.S. President fired them up and clarified their target, even then – because they looked like the authorities, no one seemed alarmed – Ironically, though they saw them coming, they couldn’t imagine there would be trouble.  When the window-smashing, bear-spraying Insurrectionists breached the Capitol, some Guards were talking casually, with those who had just broken the law.  Others were seen gently escorting such rioters out, hands full of Congressional papers and property.  Can you imagine if that was BLM!
 
What’s wrong with this picture? 
 
It’s a picture Jesus would have been familiar with, and indeed was, in our Gospel reading today.  31“Jesus began to teach [his disciples] that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.”
 
Jesus had been teaching his disciples, all along the road on their journey across Galilee, until this point.  Anybody who was following, would have had a pretty good idea what he was talking about.  But, to be fair, this is the first time he says it in those words, quite so openly. 
 
This was right after Jesus had polled his disciples, asking, who do you say that I am?  And Peter answered, you are the Messiah, which set off a heated discussion, a truly apocalyptic struggle, between Jesus and Peter.  Jesus – though he was the Messiah – asked his disciples to keep it a secret, “sternly ordering them not to tell anyone about him.”  Jesus, of course, had already attracted the attention of the authorities, for his ministry of preaching and healing, and announcing the kingdom, and had been threatened once, early on, with a kind of lynching, a death threat by the most popular party in the country (Pharisees; Mk. 3:6). 
 
That’s when Jesus describes to them the new kind of Messiah he is, just to his disciples for now, ‘on the way,’ at this mid-point in his ministry.  And Jesus uses the same title the prophet Daniel had, calling himself the Human One, and predicts this means he must suffer and die, to expose the truth about this world.  This is not the triumphalist return, of political king-making, ala King David, everyone envisioned – Peter included – but rather, a divine inversion of the corrupt human-made kingdoms of this world, a transformation into God’s kingdom and realm, creating truth and love in every heart and institution.  This is what Jesus said, ‘quite openly’ to the disciples.  The opposite of a wild takeover, it was a subversion of violence, that would enable the justice of God to shine its light on earth, as it is in heaven. 
 
But Peter rebukes him, when he hears that Jesus must suffer and die.  Peter was on the side of, a triumphal Messiah, like David, as most everyone was.  Why not heal, teach, AND attack and overthrow their Roman oppressors? 
 
But Jesus quickly pulls Peter aside and rebukes him!  “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” 
 
Rene Girard, explains well how Peter is a threat to Jesus, and his mission as God’s Son, the Messiah, and how we are and can be, as humans, at least to the extent that we are part of the worldly powers:
Peter is a good example [says Girard]. When Jesus first announces that he will suffer at the hands of the people, Peter is scandalized. His ideal is the same as ours, worldly success, and he tries to instill it into his master. He turns his own desire into a model that Jesus should imitate. This is how Satan operates, of course. Hence the famous words: “Move behind me Satan, because you are a scandal to me.” If the scandalized disciple had succeeded in [mimetically] transmitting his own [mimetic] desire to his master, he would have scandalized Jesus straight out of his divine mission.
 
So, having retaken his authority back, from Peter, Jesus then calls the crowds, along with his disciples, to teach them all about being part of his movement, and becoming a follower.  Just as I must take up my own cross, you must take up your cross… ‘for what will it profit you to gain the whole world and forfeit your life?  Indeed, what can you give in return for your life?’ 
 
In being candid, and quite open about what kind of Messiah Jesus was, he risked losing his following.  He came quite close that day in Caesrea Phillipi with Peter and the disciples.  It was a spiritual battle, and for Jesus, as the Messiah, there could be no compromising with the powers of evil, and ruler of this world.  It was the battle he was waging throughout his ministry, and for which, to win the war, he came to give his life for. 
 
One of his sharpest weapons in such battles, was his Word.  His Word was truth, but as we saw, it created scandal in those who were possessed by their own human desires for power and control.  And so, Jesus didn’t start in Jerusalem with his spiritual opponents directly, but started in Galilee, where he could gather followers and believers, first.  Speaking the truth, the Word of God, out in the open, will attract some evil stuff!  Jesus knew that.  And that’s what we see in this passage, mid-way in Mark’s gospel.  Even his closest most passionate disciple, Peter, almost turned against him, when Jesus said quite openly, that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, be rejected, and be killed. 
 
When BLM led protests over the murder of George Floyd last summer, this time they weren’t quite as alone or so easily exploited.  Lots of white folks joined in, exceeding even the scale of the 60’s civil rights movement.  Quite openly, America was saying enough, they could see the truth of racism, and they were now going to be part of telling the truth and not backing down.  They were, many of them for the first time, going to rebuke the powers aligned against them. 
 
Q-Anon, Proud Boys, Militias, etc. are organizing from un-truth, from wild conspiracies.  But their backlash, their reasons for Insurrection, are real.  They are opposed to the now, open truth, that white supremacy must be rebuked and made to stand down.  They will try to cloak it, in any, and every kind, of wild conspiracy and half-truth.  But they are reacting to, the spiritual truth, which is now quite open, that we are moving toward a new creation, a multi-racial society, marked by the fact that, people of color are becoming the majority, and the Caste system that has ruled since 1619, is slowly, but surely, being exposed and renounced. 
 
As Christians we have a stake in this spiritual battle.  We have no doubt that the war will be won, by Christ, who has risen from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father.  But Jesus calls us to live as if the realm of God is already here.  We have fought and lost many battles, back and forth, since Jesus spoke quite openly about who he was.  And the backlash to the truth is enormous.  But we know God sees no division, black, white, and brown, in this created order.  And despite the danger, Jesus, God’s chosen Child, spoke and worked openly on our behalf to include the meek and humble, the poor and outcast – to level the playing field, bringing down the mighty and lifting up the down-trodden. 
 
Every day, as followers of Jesus, we are in a battle with the powers of this world, that come disguised, often looking just like us.  This moment in time, in our history as a country, seems closer to winning, or losing, something important, more than ever. At stake, at the heart of the matter, is the battle for the truth.  That God, in the life and death of Christ Jesus, is the only realm, that can pull us forward, toward justice and love. 
 
And so, we know that, in the kingdom and realm of God, there is no room for white supremacy.  Jesus was willing to suffer and die, to get this truth out.  He said it quite openly.  And after three days, he rose again – where he sits at the right hand of God, now, and forever.  

Readings for Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, January 24, 2021

• Jonah 3:1-5, 10  
• Psalm 62:5-12  
• 1 Corinthians 7:29-31  
• Mark 1:14-20

"Discipleship Adventure," Rev. Fred Kinsey
Now, after John the Baptist was arrested by Herod and put into prison in Jerusalem, a vacuum of liberating-leadership opened up in Israel.  Herod didn’t want to make a martyr out of John by executing him for his preaching in the wilderness, and his ministry of getting people ready for the new Israel, washed and baptized in the Jordan River.  But later, that’s exactly what he did.  That is, Herod would later order the beheading, of John the Baptist, after his wild Bacchanalia birthday party, where the daughter of Herodias danced for him, and he promised her anything she wanted from his kingdom, before all his elite guests, that evening. But for now, Herod had things under control – sort of.
 
Little did Herod know that 80 miles north in Capernaum, after the arrest of John, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming ‘good news,’ to fill the vacuum.  No one but the Emperor had ever used that term, “euangelion” or ‘good news’ before, except the Emperor.  For him it was commonplace.  “Good News,” the emperor has conquered France.  “Good News,” the emperor announces peace will prevail in the whole Roman Empire – that it had mercilessly conquered.  “Good News,” the emperor announces that Herod the Great shall rule over Israel. 
 
Those are the kinds of Good News, “euangelion” announcements, that were expected.  And that’s the scene upon which Jesus arrives, announcing that, the time has been fulfilled, and the kingdom and realm of God has come very near, inviting people to turn around from the direction they were going, and to place their radical trust, with all their being, in the Good News of God, the “euangelion” that Jesus brings. 
 
And, that the realm of God, is close at hand –has come very near in Jesus– is also a unique expression in the New Testament – meaning something like God’s profound imminence, even liminality. (Myers, p.131)  But that meaning, will only be revealed, as the gospel story progresses, and as the signature teaching, indeed, the new school of Jesus, is unveiled. 
 
So, instead, we find ourselves suddenly back in the mundane world of the first 4 disciples, Peter and Andrew, James and John, two pairs of brothers who are fishing on Lake Galilee.  Mark is keenly aware of the Messianic expectations that live and move and have their being, in 1st century Palestine, and also their convergence in a very ‘triumphant nationalism,’ because, as his Gospel shows, Jesus will be careful to steer his disciples away from any organized holy war or insurrection, which can grow from that kind of news – the most famous example being another Galilean, Judas, a Zealot, who in the year 6, when Jesus was maybe 10 years old, organized much of northern Israel to refuse to take part in the Roman Census, and in an act of domestic terrorism, even burned down Jewish homes and requisitioned their cattle, if they didn’t comply. 
 
So when Jesus enters Galilee, as Mark says, and announces his ‘good news,’ it is also aimed at the old order, and ruling elite – but purposefully, to turn it around, using a kind of active non-violence, to reorient his followers toward the realm of God. 
 
So, Jesus turns first to his home turf in Galilee, especially the fishing industry around the Sea of Galilee – also appropriately named, the Sea of Tiberius, after the Emperor.  Afterall, the lucrative fishing business, and thus the lake itself, is occupied by Rome.  The Emperor owns the Sea, and all the trade that takes place there. 
 
And just like we have sport fishing licenses for fishing now-a-days, they had licenses too.  But their licenses were tailored towards family-based consortiums of fishers.  This was Rome’s way of encouraging the success of the fishing industry, but of course, for their own benefit; a business which was full of long, long hours, not only catching fish, but mending the nets and boats, processing the fish, and selling it on the market.  And Rome heavily taxed the profits at every point along the way.  Family and economy were intricately woven in one socio-political system, whereby the fishers were locked into a subservient impoverishment by the corrupted Jerusalem leaders, and the local magistrates of Herod, they were in league with. 
 
So, the Gospel Good News that Jesus brought to the fishers on Lake Tiberius, and to his first four disciples, was that they were being released from this dead-end, no-way-out, oppression.  Their lives finally had a measure of hope, as they turned to go in a new direction, as followers of Jesus, to be baptized and reborn in the one who was creating a new community. 
 
The first pair of brothers, Simon and Andrew were casting a net from the shore as Jesus happened by.  Jesus bids them, follow me and I will make you fish for people.  And they don’t just ‘leave’ their nets, but as the Greek word means, they “released, or let go,” their nets.  As John Petty says, “they ‘let go’ of their economic livelihood, and ‘released’ their participation in the current market system.” 
 
And barely a few steps down the shoreline Jesus saw James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were mending their nets in their boat and he called them too.  James and John released themselves, from their family, says Mark, and from the business altogether.  They let go of their prescribed narrow hopeless existence and trusted their whole selves to Jesus, repenting of the old, and signing up for a new family, the kingdom and realm of God, which had appeared in the man from Nazareth. 
 
This was good news of a different sort.  Not the Good News of a far-away Emperor’s proclamation, that only resulted in more taxes, poverty, and dehumanization, but the Good News that had come very near in the words of Jesus, addressed to them and their situation, that illuminated the truth, and led to a new way of life, a new system of liberation and love. 
 
This was the good news, of a whole new community that Jesus was forming; blessings for those who were meek and humble and poor.  They too would be freed to dine as God’s royalty at the banqueting table Jesus offered.  Fishers and farmers, tax collectors and prostitutes, rich and poor, men and women, and eventually, Jew and Gentile, would all dine together in this new community of love and equity.
 
They didn’t know that Jesus would also have to be arrested, like John was, and that he would also have to die, and then, that they – the Disciples, and all followers – would be called on to fill the vacuum, left by the Ascension of Jesus.  But his death would also be the final and the ultimate eschatological revealing of God’s desire for them, and the world he came to save. 
 
Jesus’ death, was accompanied by the Good News, of his Rising.  Being sacrificed and scape-goat-ed, for the economy of the kingdom of Rome, was transformed into self-sacrifice for, and citizenship in, the new community inaugurated by Jesus.  Justice and love were God’s gracious gifts of the kingdom, that were ‘imminent’ in Christ’s banqueting table of Jubilee and equity for all, and which broke through the old systems of Rome’s enslavement, and death-dealing-Good-News, announcements.  
 
The 12 Disciples were only the beginning of this new University of wisdom.  Every follower of Jesus, to this day, enrolls in this new and different kind of school.  Not like our schools, with a set curriculum, and day of graduation.  But as Ched Myers says, “The call of Jesus, …is absolute, disrupting the lives of potential recruits, promising them only a ‘school’ from which there is no graduation… [and] a discipleship adventure!”  (Binding the Strong Man, p. 133)
 
The call of Jesus, is never to individuals alone, but always to all who are invited to enroll in this school of followers who are forming the new community, Jesus inaugurated.  A community of justice, hope, and love.  A community that has turned away from an economy of enslavement, inequality, and insurrection, and sits down together at the same banqueting table that has no graduation, only more lessons of life, in the kingdom and realm of God. 
 
This is the community we are called to form together at Unity, and with our neighbors in the world.  Let us leave our boats on the lakeshore, and come and follow.  

Readings for the 24th Sunday after Pentecost, Nov. 15, 2020

• Judges 4:1-7 and Psalm 90:1-8
• 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11  
• Matthew 25:14-30

Harsh Master & Jesus, by Rev. Fred Kinsey
This is the last of the parables Jesus tells, before the big reveal, his stunning conclusion, there in Jerusalem, just before Holy Week is about to start.  Of course, that’s out of cinque for the seasons of our Church Year.  We’re not presently, in the midst of Lent!  But, it does fit with the theme of the end times we are about to enter, in the season of Advent, in two weeks.
 
The stunning conclusion, by-the-way, will come next week – to put it in context – on Christ the King Sunday, with the story of the Son of Man, Jesus, who comes in all his glory saying, “Whoever did it to the least of these – the hungry, the thirsty, the naked – did it unto me.”  Christ is the one who suffers along with the outcasts, the downtrodden, all the marginalized of this world.  Our calling is to address this disparity, that of the favored few in the center of society vs. the vast majority of those left out on the margins.
 
That Christ came to save us from our sin, and the structures of sin that create these disparities, so that the kingdom and will of God, may dawn ‘on earth, as it is in heaven;’ that Christ the Bride, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, prepared for her husband, that is, for us, may come to pass – Jesus came to save us, not just spiritually, but in every facet of our lives: physical, mental, economic, social, and political. 
 
So, in this last parable before the big reveal – in our parable today – we see the disparity of Luther’s Two Kingdoms, in this story of a rich landowner, a point 1 percenter (0.1%).  He’s about to go off to do business with other multi-nationals, wherever they met in those days.  Perhaps Caesarea Philippi, in northern Israel, the playground of the rich and famous that Herod’s son, Philip built in honor of Caesar Augustus.  It was a hotbed of paganism, and a swanky retreat of the privileged. 
 
But this landowner was gone a long time, so perhaps he went much farther: to Babylon in the east, or Rome itself in the west?  He would have gone off to make connections with those who could further enrich his estate.  But before leaving, he has this brilliant idea to give his holdings to his slaves, to see what they can do for him, while he’s away. 
 
To one he gives 5 talents, to another 2 talents, and to the third, one talent.  A talent, in the Gospels, doesn’t have anything to do with our English use of the word as an ability, or gift we have.  But Talent is the largest portion of currency in the Near East that there is, equal to maybe 10 years of wages, a huge amount for them.  When the Master finally returns from his business trip, he is eager to settle accounts with them.  And he lines them up, so they can come one at a time before him, to make a report. 
 
We, the reader, already know what they have done with the Talents, but not how the Master will respond.  So, the one who was given the equivalent of 50 years of wages, the 5 Talents, brought 5 more, he had traded for, doubling the Master’s money.  And the one who was given 20 years wages, did the same, making 2 more Talents.  And the Master commends them lustily, ‘well done, good and trustworthy slaves, you have been trustworthy in a few things, now I will put you in charge of bigger things, so you can make more money for me.  You have brought me great joy – come and join me in my “earthly kingdom.” 
 
Then the lowly one who had only received one Talent came forward, with no little fear and trembling.  He had a different business plan.  But he summoned up all the courage he could muster, to (in all honesty) tell his Master the truth:  ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, procuring your wealth off the backs of others, unaccustomed as you are to the hard work of farming or carpentry; 25so I admit I was afraid, and I decided to go and hide your talent in the ground for safe keeping.  So then, here it is, I return it to you intact, every last penny.’ 
 
You knew! said the Master, that I profited off of others without putting in an honest day’s work, as you say!  Did you?!  Well then, why didn’t you do likewise and put it in the stock market and make me a bundle?!  You’re just like all the other low life’s who can’t lift themselves up by their bootstraps.  I’m going to send you back to the outer darkness from which you came. 
 
Give his one Talent to the richest slave, said the Master.  For the rich shall be richer, and the poor shall be poorer! 
 
And so, what’s most upsetting in the parable of the greedy landowner and his laize faire, libertarian values, is the picture of the third slave, the one fearful of this Master, the one who didn’t ‘get it’ how he was supposed to invest his Talent, and how easy it is, if you were to just deposit it in the bank and gain some interest – probably because Usury was against the Levitical laws.  But, it’s difficult to digest, mostly because this is the character that Jesus’ disciples would have identified with!  Not with the favored other two.  The Disciples were relative beggars, having left family and spouse, to follow Jesus, and depend on the kindness of strangers. 
 
From the very beginning of his gospel, Matthew has plainly shown how Jesus is a part of the marginalized, the 99% of society that God sent him to name blessed.  Jesus was born in a barn, raised in poor Podunk Nazareth, wandered as an itinerant preacher and healer, and reached out to lepers and prostitutes, fishers and tax collectors.  He was faithful to his religious traditions, but he also spoke (a heavenly) truth to power, against the worldly corruption in high places in Jerusalem, both to rulers in his own Hebrew house, and to the Roman overlords. 
 
Jesus did not subscribe to the kingdom of this world that reinforced the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer.  Neither did he come to claim power by a military coup, though many of his followers, awaiting a Davidic Messiah, apparently expected him to. 
 
Jesus came to fulfill God’s Third Way, the kingdom of heaven, as Matthew called it, the realm of God, already alive, here amongst us.  He came to suffer the violence of those rulers, who have rigged the system to profit off the backs of subsistence working class families, and who falsely portray it as sacred and ordained by God, though it is only an earthly kingdom.  And he came to go all the way to the cross to reveal how unjust that violence is, distorting the created goodness God intends for all to enjoy as a gift, and hold responsibility for. 
 
How are we called to respond to this kingdom imperative, amidst a world of terror, and terribly unfair violence, and repression?  How do we follow in Jesus footsteps and become disciples? 
 
Jesus didn’t just suffer violence as some kind of nice guy, or 99lb. weakling who didn’t like to fight.  He “decided” to suffer – made the conscious decision to endure, even death on a cross, to reveal, and live-out, and make manifest like never before, the futility and unjust way that the whole world was living, and that he would give up his life, to be God’s change factor, once and for all! 
 
Paul Nuechterlein thinks this illustrates what might be the most important verse in Matthew’s whole gospel, 11:12: “where Jesus straightforwardly tells us that the kingdom of heaven is revealed in choosing to suffer violence, while human regimes are only happy to take it by force.” 
 
The Disciples didn’t want Jesus to go through with the Passion.  They were still caught up in the binary choice of who would rule the kingdoms of this world – them or us.  But Jesus shows us a Third Way, the way that makes a conscious decision, for us, a collective decision, to embody God’s realm, as Jesus’ disciples, to not continue to perpetuate the cycle of violence, that always leads to another regime of injustice; Jesus’ way of suffering violence, that ushers in the reign of God on earth, as it is in heaven. 
 
We see how St. Paul did this by starting new communities, new house churches in Jesus’ name, all across the Roman Empire. 
 
Today, we are one of those communities, called to live the ethic of love for one’s neighbor, an ethic of ‘costly grace,’ (as Bonhoeffer said,) speaking God’s truth to earthly powers, yet ready to suffer the consequences.  For when they call us wicked and lazy, to use the harsh Master’s language, we know we are close to the big reveal!  Because the truth is, if anyone was wicked, it was the greedy landowner; and if anyone was lazy, it was the Master who could take off as much time as he wished, on the backs of his slaves, to venture out to enrich his earthly fortune. 
 
Here then, we see that God is at work in the third slave, exposing the Master as a fraudulent Messiah.  We too must reject the worldly kingdom of unjust vengeance.  But we don’t have to be fearful either, like the third slave was.  For we now know, on this side of the cross, that following Jesus, no matter how opposed that makes us to the world-as-it-is, it is our sacred journey that leads to true joy, and a fulfillment of God’s kingdom and realm that we are called to.   
 
In these dark times, the need for true disciples and followers is greater than ever.  Let us be followers of Jesus, that we may reveal the kingdom and realm of God.  

Readings for All Saints Sunday, November 1, 2020

• Revelation 7:9-17 and Psalm 34:1-10, 22  
• 1 John 3:1-3  
• Matthew 5:1-12

The Crossroads, Rev. Fred Kinsey

​“… Blessing and glory and wisdom
 and thanksgiving and honor
 and power and might
 be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
 
That’s the song being sung in the new age, the age that is already coming, where all the redeemed, that God names, have assembled before the Lamb and the Shepherd, as envisioned by John. 
 
We sing it in our ELW as the Hymn of Praise: This is the Feast of Victory for Our God! 
 
It was the vision John had! that was a reversal of the tribulation, so many believers were living at the turn of the 1st Century, especially under Emperor Nero, a time of persecution for the radiant and aspiring movement of Jesus followers, who were starting to gather as worshiping communities all across the Roman empire, before they were legal. 
 
Today, on this All Saints Day, we remember and celebrate, in song and acclamation, in our liturgy and in our hearts, all the saints who have gone before us, and especially those closest to our hearts, our loved ones and family members. 
 
In Revelation, John envisioned a universal choir of people “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne” of God “a great multitude that no one could count!”  Your loved one is included!  God’s grace effects a big yes to all the sinners of this earthly kingdom, we know not how or why, but only that it is so, because God is God.  Now, in this age, Jesus bids us enter by the narrow gate.  Then, in the age that the Lamb has ushered in, God is welcoming everyone from everywhere.  Go figure!  John’s vision is beyond our comprehension.  But by faith, we confidently turn ourselves over to the love and forgiveness of Jesus’ example, that we too might be an example, for our neighbor. 
 
This blessed-conundrum, is not unknown to us, but seems to have come to some kind of a head, this week.  We are at a crossroads as a nation, even as we celebrate All Saints Day, near the end of our Church Season – celebrating with joyful-tears, and anxious-hopefulness. 
 
The election, this week, will define who we are as a country.  Are we a nation of inclusive values, desiring to continue to overcome our early days of white male privilege?  Do we allow people of every race and language to vote and participate in our democracy?  Do we hold one another accountable, when the meek, and the merciful, and the poor, are abused, made fun of, and demonized?  Do we welcome the stranger, the refugee and immigrant, and come to their aid? 
 
On this All Saints, as the church year comes to an end this month, we hear from one of Jesus’ most universal and challenging teachings, the Sermon on the Mount, and specifically, the Beatitudes, or blessings.  Like the Revelation to John, in the gospel, Jesus envisions a world in which all believers no longer suffer a meaningless life, but the world order is reversed.  God’s kingdom is beginning even now in the words and deeds, in the preaching and healing, of Jesus, where the marginalized are blessed, as recipients of God’s kingdom:
         3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
  4“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
  5“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
  6“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
  7“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
  8“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
  9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
  10“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

American Lutherans have never been known to especially gravitate to this passage.  We have often rationalized, avoided or shied away from its demands and difficult sayings.  But one Lutheran theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, made it a center piece of his teaching on the Christian community.  In his conclusion to the Beatitudes in his book, The Cost of Discipleship, he said:
"Having reached the end of the beatitudes, we naturally ask if there is any place o[n] this earth for the community which they describe. Clearly, there is one place, and only one, and that is where the poorest, meekest, and most sorely tried of all [humans] is to be found – on the cross at Golgotha. The fellowship of the beatitudes is the fellowship of the Crucified. With him it has lost all, and with him it has found all. From the cross there comes the call ‘blessed, blessed.'”
 
Bonhoeffer, of course, found all and lost all, in Christ.  His earthly battle, even as he stayed true to his faith, was with the Nazi regime.  He could not run away from the call of the cross, and the fellowship of the beatitudes.  He tried rallying the faithful as a leader of the Confessing Church, but many capitulated.  He tried escaping to the United States, but couldn’t remain there with a clear conscience.  Back in Berlin, he aided the secret resistance, and was arrested, even as he wrote this book. 
 
Bonhoeffer met his crossroads, understandably, with great anxiety, but ultimately with great courage.  He preached and taught a costly grace, and lived it too – even by giving his life. 
 
Bonhoeffer knew the Christ of John’s Revelation who was both Lamb and Shepherd.  Jesus, the Lamb of God, gives his life for the sake of the world, the lamb that was slaughtered at the Passover, sacrificed at the high feast, that we, may wash our baptismal robes and make them white in his blood, only to witness Christ lifted up to the right hand of God, exalted and reigning as our king, like king David, the Shepherd who leads us into green pastures, and provides a kin-dom of peace and justice. 
 
Jesus the Christ, is our Lamb, and our Shepherd. 
 
And we are at a crossroads.  Who we choose on Tuesday – and elect, once all the votes are counted – will determine who we are as a country, for a long time to come. 
 
It will not change our faith, or our God, who reigns already from the throne, who our loved ones, we will name, know, worship and praise.  But for us here below, it will make for a crossroads in how we are called to live out our faith.  The cost of our discipleship will likely take on different paths, different shapes, perhaps costlier, choices. 
 
So let us rest in the promise, that, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” who is also our Shepherd, where one day we will join the “great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.”  Let us, the meek and the poor, and all the blessed, be joyful that we have done everything that has been asked of us, at this, and every crossroads of our lives.  Let us rejoice and sing with all the saints!
Alleluia!  Amen!