"Clarence Odbody's Revenge"

Homily for the First Sunday after Christmas  – 27 December 2015

What has come into being in him was life.  John 1:3b-4a

Is it really “a wonderful life”?

That’s the question journalist Wendell Jamieson raises. He’s talking, of course, about It’s a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra’s 1946 holiday season staple.

Now, truth-in-advertising: Holiday staple it may be, it’s not to everyone’s taste. Hard to believe, I know. But, in the interests of full disclosure, I liked It’s a Wonderful Life the first couple of times around. And then, with increased exposure year after year after tinsel-spiked year, I began to find the ending ― especially the line “Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings” (cue ting-a-ling from a bell on the creeping-cheer Christmas tree) ― I just find all that to be sufficiently saccharine as to rot one’s teeth.

And yet, if you ― like me ― consider your TV remote a bionic extension of your arm, the past few days and spilling into the coming week, click away as you may, you can run from It’s a Wonderful Life but you can’t hide. It will find you out!

Now, on the off-chance you've been in media lockdown for roughly the last half-century or so, It’s a Wonderful Life stars James Stewart as George Bailey. After repeatedly trying ― and failing ― to abandon his underwhelming hometown of Bedford Falls in order to pursue his dreams out in the wider world, George thinks his life is nothing short of a disaster. He looks in the mirror and all he sees is “Loser.”

So, in a fit of exquisite timing ─ not! ─ on Christmas Eve, no less, he attempts to take his own life … appropriately at the falls of Bedford Falls fame.

George’s flirtation with suicide gains the attention of his guardian angel-of-questionable-competence, Clarence Odbody.

Spoiler alert: In church-type circles, we talk a lot about “saving your life by losing it.” But, in order to save George’s life by not losing it, Clarence helps him reframe his life by showing George a series of “what if” alternate universes: “what if” roads-not-traveled that show what Bedford Falls and the lives of those who actually have been touched by George would have been like had George never lived.

It’s Clarence Goodbody’s revenge on Ebenezer Scrooge, who is invited by a similar spirit, of sorts, to see how dreadfully things will turn out if Scrooge’s life continues on its course. Grim.

Well, what Clarence reveals ─ by George’s absence, his very nonexistence ─ isn’t pretty either. And it’s a wake-up call for George. As a result, channeling Susan “I Want To Live” Hayward, he calls off the suicide and ― in a “Merry-God-bless-us-everyone-Christmas” of tears and cheers ― George concludes that, yes, all things considered, “it’s a wonderful life!”

But is it? Is George Bailey’s life a “wonderful life” after all?

That’s what Wendell Jamieson asks. What’s his answer? “Wonderful? It’s a pitiful, dreadful life”! because, Jamieson suggests, “It’s a Wonderful Life is a terrifying, asphyxiating story of living among bitter, small-minded people … a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children and your oppressively perfect wife.”

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

What’s fueling Jamieson’s jaundiced view of this red-letter day icon?

Well, all that abusive behavior, for one.

Then there’s the economy. In the “what if” scenario ― without George around ― Bedford Falls is renamed Pottersville ― not after Harry Potter, but the scheming, Bernard Madoff-type banker named Mr. Potter, played to the snarling teeth by Lionel Barrymore.

Who can deny, Jamieson points out, that alternate-universe Pottersville ― with its smoke-heavy nightclubs packed with raucous gamblers and “boogie-woogie” showgirls ― is infinitely more interesting, and ─ like the casino towns of Connecticut ─ more profitable than former manufacturing towns like Bedford Falls … and Malden?

Disclaimer: This isn’t a pitch for gambling! But if you go in for 40s-era Vegas-style fun and a booming service economy, Pottersville wins hands down over Bedford Falls.

What’s more, Jamieson alerts us to something the film fails to tell us. In real-life Bedford Falls, before he heads for the bridge to end it all, George commits a bit of bank fraud. Even though the shortfall is eventually covered by his friends, George is still liable to prosecution and just might end up serving time. That is, if you rob a bank and later return the money, you’re still guilty of robbing the bank. This plot hole gets under Jamieson’s skin.

But to enjoy the film, it’s best not to get tripped up on this anomaly, because immunity from prosecution adds one more outcome ─ intended or not ─ to the wonders of George Bailey’s so-called wonderful life … a wonderful life that answers ─ for George ─ the question the movie consequently puts to each of us: Would the world be better off if you hadn’t been born?

Great question. But this is the Christmas season. And the birth we continue to celebrate is Jesus’ birth, not George Bailey’s, and not our own. So, we could ask, “What kind of a world would this be if Christ had never been born?”

But as Liza Minnelli says when she’s asked to sing her mother’s signature tune, “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” “It’s been done.” In other words, the question (“What kind of a world would this be if Jesus had never been born?”), it’s been done. A lot of people have explored this already.

Their conclusion? Along with all the positives ― the great charitable enterprises of the Church (the hospitals, ministries, and justice work) … and the great conversion stories like Francis of Assisi … and complex stories like Mother Theresa of Calcutta (who, it turns out, experienced dark nights of the soul) ― along with all that, you get the downside: the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Salem Witch Trials.

So the verdict on what kind of a world would it be “if Jesus had never been born” is decidedly mixed. No news on that front.

But to reframe the question by narrowing it, chances are there’s another, more immediate question no one has answered: What about your life? What kind of person would you be … if Jesus had never been born?

What would be your values and priorities?

What would you do with your money?

What would you do with your time?

What would your relationships be like? Who would you hang around with? Whom would you love? Who would love you?

What people just wouldn’t matter to you?

Add it all up and my hunch is, it’s a less-than-ideal “what if.” Read: a not-so-wonderful life.

The good news is, it’s our conviction that  Jesus was ― in fact ― born!

Good news: God ― in fact ― chose to live ― in Jesus ― a chaotic, painful, dangerous, edgy, free, far-from saccharine wonderfully human life!

The angel did ― in fact ― bring “good news of great joy to all people”! … because to you … to you … to YOU … “is born in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

To you!

Bottomline: It’s not always about you or any one of us. And yet, what difference ― because Jesus was, in fact, born ― “born to you a Savior” ─ what difference does Jesus’ birth make … to you?

Are you better off ― not well-off ― but better off ― better off living an abundant life of purpose and challenge and creativity and possibilities, hope, healing, and fulfillment?

Are your neighbors ― those you know, like the people next door, as well as your neighbors on the far perimeter of your radar ― are all your neighbors better off … because Jesus has been born … to you?

Is your family, this community, the world, this planet, better off because Jesus Christ has been born … to you?

In other words, are you more tolerant of others different from you? 

Are you more likely to identify with and help people less fortunate than you?

Are you more ready to ask, “What can I do to make life more bearable, more abundant, more just for the neighbors God has sent my way?” … because, as John the Evangelist attests, “What has come into being in him ─ in Jesus ─ was life, and the life was the light of all people.”

Bottomline: What, as a result of your encounter with the Babe of Bethlehem, prompts you ― with all your family and friends and neighbors of all stripes to say ― because of that First Christmas … because of this Christmas reborn in you … “It is a wonderful life”?

Amen!

"Shopping 101"

Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent – 13 December 2015

The people asked John the Baptist, “Teacher, what should we do?”

                                                                                                    Luke 3:10

News flash. It’s not beginning to look a lot like Christmas. It started looking a lot like Christmas months ago. But you already knew that. And yet, given all that time, with stocking stuffers or a big ticket item or two left outstanding, you might be in the mood to sharpen your competitive purchasing skills with a free download of “Christmas Shopper Simulator.”

You people think I make this stuff up.

Think again, because you can go online and check it out for yourself. “Christmas Shopper Simulator” is billed as the “original, ground-breaking simulator that exactly replicates the eye-gouging panic and frustration of Christmas shopping.”

And who could turn down a pitch like this: “Generic human faces! Stores with queues and thieves! The color red! Accurately-textured ceiling tiles!”

What’s not to get your pulse racing? Unless we hit the “pause” button and ask, “Why is Christmas shopping such a big deal in the first place?” Or more to the point, “Why do we shop? Period.”

Social critic Jennifer Michael Hecht has some answers.

First, she cautions, there are a lot of opinions about shopping out there. Some think the buying frenzy ─ typified by Black Friday ─ is vulgar, especially while so many go hungry. Others counter with a bit of anxiety: We’re not shopping enough to fuel the recovering economy.

There’s obviously no consensus, then, on the phenomenon of shopping. So Hecht goes to the “why” of shopping. Specifically, real face-time, brave-the-hordes shopping. And not what I think is a god-send: online shopping.

We venture out of our homes to shop, Hecht says, because holiday shopping looks a lot like religious rituals in the past ─ rituals that got a lot of people with no obvious connection to one another … all together in one place … focused on roughly the same thing, whether it was appeasing God or the gods, celebrating the harvest, or renewing the community.

It’s a human thing. That’s because there’s a part of our humanity, Hecht suggests, that can be aroused only when we act in tandem with a big crowd engaged in keeping a tradition. Just look at Super Bowl Sunday … or the Esplanade on July 4 … or Black Friday. I mean, Black Friday has got to be about more than bargain-hunting with a side of masochism, no?

And that might explain why, year after year, we just keep jumping into the mêlée of Christmas shopping with both feet. It makes us part of something bigger than ourselves. And ─ whether it’s jostling with other sharp-elbowed shoppers at Walmart or breaking bread in the company of strangers in the food court at the mall ─ it creates a shared experience.

Self-disclosure: When it comes to shopping, my as-yet-to-be-published Costco Survival Guide advises, “Head down. Lower gaze.” Or, eyeball-engage with other shoppers? It’s the first step to unconditional surrender.

In the likely event you choose to ignore my curmudgeonly advice, you may discover ─ against all odds ─ shopping creates community.

And that, I think, is what John the Baptist is up to. All the shouting and the haranguing and the baptizing? It’s about creating community that looks a lot like holiday shopping ─ a specific kind of messy community that, against all odds, impacts the way we interact with all sorts of people … especially people common sense says we should have little or nothing to do with.

But if it’s a specific kind of community John is organizing, what sets it apart from others?

It’s a community that “bears good fruit ─ fruit worthy of repentance.” That’s how John the Baptist describes it.

Frankly, I don’t think you can hang much on that. And neither do the crowds hanging on John’s every word. So they demand, “Be more specific! What should we do?”

John obliges. He gives specifics ─ specifics that capture the real question he is putting to each and every person within earshot of his baiting voice: “What does your neighbor need?”

In other words, John says, if you have just enough clothing and more ─ beyond your needs … and more than enough food ─ beyond your needs ─ give to those who lack sufficient (read: warm) clothing. Give to those who lack sufficient food to sustain them on a daily basis (aka the “daily bread” we pray so much about).

Tax collectors ─ guilt written all over their faces ─ ask John the same question: “What should we do?” And again, he gets specific. Basically, “Place your appetites in stark relief to your neighbor’s unmet needs. Stick to the 1040 tax tables. And stop extorting extra revenue that makes you rich and richer by making your poor neighbor poorer.”

Soldiers ─ they’d be today’s police ─ then get in on the act. “What should we do?” John tells them to get beyond their own ego feed and biases. That is, stop being cops-gone-bad (like the Chicago officers in the Laquan MacDonald shooting-murder and subsequent cover-up). Stop extorting money ─ or “other favors” (like sex) ─ from innocent, otherwise law-abiding, or not-so-law-abiding, citizens.

John’s point? God is invested in a Holy People positioned to give the coming Messiah ─ who turns out to be Jesus ─ a running start in pulling off his creation-wide makeover. To give the Messiah a leg-up, John demands, “Ask not, ‘What are my wants?’ Ask, rather, ‘What are my neighbor’s needs?’”

John's bottomline: Against all odds, connect to people we have no obvious connection to, especially the people God is partial to. Hint: They’re not the One Percent.

Against all odds, share with them all we've got beyond our essential needs … so they can meet their essential needs.

Against all odds, keep your cotton-pickin’ hands off what’s not yours … because God insists that essentials ─ like food, heat, clothing, affordable housing, healthcare, education, a decent wage, violence-free neighborhoods, gun-free public spaces, especially schools ─ are everyone’s right.

Interesting experiment, then, for these waning days of Advent: What do all those people on your Christmas shopping list need?

Now, you can push back and say, “Giving people on my list what they want will make them happy … and the kids docile.”

Behavioral scientist Daniel Goleman begs to differ. His research shows, “Once people leave poverty and are able to satisfy their basic needs, there is little-to-no correlation between earnings [or other compensation, like gifts] and happiness.”

Sounds like he’s channeling Teresa of Ávila. “Our body,” she said, “has this defect: the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds.”

What, then, should we do?

Look at the people on your shopping list … over the age of 8, lest the pre-reformed Grinch rear his ugly head. Would it be a crime against Christmas not to give everyone on your list what they want … but to give to a needs-based cause in their name?

Examples: High-impact, direct-care agencies like Heifer International … Episcopal Relief and Development … Housing Families … shelters for abused women … Planned Parenthood … the Human Rights Campaign … Nets for Life. (Note: Nets for Life combats the spread of malaria by distributing something as simple ─ and effective ─ as mosquito-inhibiting nets to protect the sleeping areas of our far-off neighbors.)

And there are so many other causes. The list seems endless … because there seems to be no end to the need.

But John the Baptist couldn’t be clearer. Community ─ a truly Holy People preparing for the Advent of Christ ─ created by more and more of us giving to satisfy the needs of more and more of our neighbors ─ is the answer ─ the only answer to the question: “What should we do?”

Amen.

“The Fix Isn't In”

Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent  6 December 2015

“All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”  Luke 3:6

Pop Quiz. The category is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

True or False? Tiny Tim has always been the youngest and sickliest of the Cratchits’ children.

Answer?

False.

That’s because, before settling on Tiny Tim, what were the names Dickens tried on for size? Little Larry. Puny Pete. Small Sam.

How Tiny Tim ever won out beats me. My vote is for Puny Pete. Yes, I think Puny Pete could have done a yeoman’s job squeaking out, “God bless us, everyone!” And yet, now Tiny Tim is every bit an icon of Christmas culture as A Christmas Carol itself.

In fact, according to Boston Globe columnist Joan Wickersham, A Christmas Carol isn’t just an icon. It’s a formula Dickens invented for an entire genre of holiday tales that now gild the tinsel.

In these stories, Christmas is universally transformative: Things are bad. Then Christmas comes along and makes everything good.

For example, Christmas turns nasty people into nice people. Take Scrooge. After his run-in with the three Christmas spirits, Dickens tells us, “It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.”

Then there’s the Grinch who stole Christmas. What’s his starting point? “Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot, but the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville … did not!” But come Christmas, “in Whoville, they say that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day!”

What’s more, Christmas turns depressed people into happy people. Look at Charlie Brown in ─ what else? ─ A Charlie Brown Christmas.

And where would suicidal people be without James Stewart’s George Bailey in the Christmas staple I love to hate, It’s a Wonderful Life?

Speaking of cynics, Christmas turns cynics like me into believers. That’s the whole point of Miracle on 34^th Street.

As Wickersham argues, this Christmas genre “makes all kinds of things happen that we don’t really believe in. It isn’t about what we believe. It’s about what we wish we could believe.”

Now, for the churchy set in the run-up to Christmas, there’s a hefty genre of tales that grip our Advent imagination, especially, Isaiah’s platform of transformation re-purposed by John the Baptist: Every valley filled. Every mountain and hill made low. The crooked straight. All topped by the most preposterous claim of all: “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

Great stuff. What’s not to like? But I’m stuck on “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.” No one left out. Really? That’s something I’m not sure everyone believes. I’m not even sure everyone wishes we could believe it.

Because the “salvation of God”: What does it mean?

That depends, because “salvation” has been hijacked by the likes of televangelists and people with a much clearer understanding of the mind of God than I have or even God has let on. These sanguine purveyors of certitude expend a lot of bandwidth ─ and hot air ─ getting right one talking point and one alone: getting “saved.”

That is, to hear them talk, the project of every single one of us ─ not us together ─ but each of us as individuals (me-me-me) from cradle to grave is to “get saved.” To “get saved” from the fires of hell, or, to put a more positive spin on it, to “get into” heaven.

Think I’m just talking about Pat Robertson spin-offs? Check out Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, former Vatican spokesman on healthcare issues. In the magazine Pontifex, he pronounced something along the lines, “Without the shadow of a doubt, transgendered persons will not enter heaven.”

I would be interested to learn how the cardinal might reconcile his take on a particular class of people being barred from “getting into heaven” with John the Baptist’s bold and unqualified assertion that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

And John, let’s remember, may read like a quintessential hellfire-and-brimstone preacher, but he preaches that God intends that all ─ “all flesh” ─ enjoy the blessings of God’s kingdom. Because John, Luke tells us, “went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance” to reach, in essence, the tipping point that would trigger real world, macro transformation: God’s kingdom come at last in its fullness. No one left out. No one left behind. That’s transformation.

Transformation. A non-negotiable of 4^th century Church Father, Basil the Great. What makes Basil so “great”? He asks questions like:

What keeps us from giving now? The hungry neighbor is dying now. The naked neighbor is freezing now. The homeless neighbor is abandoned now. And we want to wait until tomorrow? We do wrong to everyone we could help by failing to help.

In other words, achieving justice ─ what all are owed as persons made in the image and likeness of God: Is that bedrock Christian impulse something we believe? Or is it something we wish we could believe?

So, are we looking at some pie-in-the-sky, warmed-over Scrooge-Grinch-Charlie Brown-George Bailey-Miracle on 34^th Street transformation in ourselves and all creation we wish we could believe? Or do we really believe it?

Take the scourge of almost weekly mass shootings in our communities. People, pundits, politicians have been all over the map in reacting to the horror in San Bernardino last week: 14 innocent lives taken … 21 hospitalized … the two shooters ─ two lone-wolf terrorists ─ ­dead.

My hunch is that most people would agree, as I stressed last week in the wake of the Planned Parenthood mass shooting in Colorado Springs: Enough is enough. End mass shootings. End gun violence ─ its causes, its overkill weaponry, its loopholes ─ once and for all.

That’s transformation talk. Sounds like we believe transformation is possible, even inevitable: transformation from the bloody slaughter we’re relentlessly witnessing … to a violence-free future that not only staunches the bleeding of the innocent and the guilty alike, but prevents it altogether.

Or is it transformation we wish we could believe?

Case in point: Of 16 candidates in next year’s presidential contest who commented on the San Bernardino carnage ─ prior to knowing the identities of the attackers ─ 13 reacted with condolences (“Our thoughts are with the victims’ families”) and calls for prayer … only. Prayer and condolences ─ only ─ to combat the swelling crimson tide of mass shootings.

Now, is it bad to pray for the victims and offer condolences to the families of those gunned-down? Of course not. But only three candidates of the 16 advocated taking action ─ legislative action ─ to fix the problem: Stand up to the NRA. Enact substantive gun safety laws to end the unfettered spread of ever-more-powerful firearms ─ a pandemic that relies on the fatal illogic spouted by the arm-yourself-to-the-teeth mob: “Guns aren’t the problem. Guns are the solution.”

Complication: Caught in this snare of spiraling violence, moral leadership demands doing something. And not just something, but doing the decisive and heroic thing: finally standing up to the greed of weapons peddlers … freeing the hostages they have taken in Congress … drafting and passing sensible-but-effective gun control laws ─ like banning the unevenly-regulated sale of military-grade assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and the handguns of choice used by criminals. And certainly banning gun sales to anyone on the terrorist watchlist. But that seems to be a bridge too far for trigger-happy elected officials … or officials sent to Washington by trigger-happy voters.

In other words, leadership ─ doing the right thing ─ and doing the right thing, by God ─ is believing in transformation that overcomes obstacles in order to advance God’s kingdom. “Every mountain and hill made low,” as John the Baptist preached.

I mean, why tell the story of John the Baptist at all, if we don’t at least wonder: John stood up to Herod. Can’t we stand up to the NRA?

Prayers, thoughts, and condolences, then? Great. Knock yourself out. But minus taking a stand, that’s just window-dressing … transformation, at best, we wish we could believe.

Or, as Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy tweeted after the San Bernardino Massacre, “Our ‘thoughts’ should be about steps to take to stop this carnage. Our ‘prayers’ should be for forgiveness if we do nothing … again.”

That means The New York Daily News front page headline the day after the attack got it right. The headline was the tabloid’s entire front page and may as well have come from a full-throated John the Baptist: “God Isn’t Fixing This.”

Meaning: Free-floating prayers, thoughts, and condolences not tethered to comprehensive ─ read: transformative ─ gun-control reform? That’s throwing in the towel. That’s thinking God ─ and God alone ─ is going to fix this.

Once again. God. Isn’t. Fixing this.

Only people, convinced that our shared survival depends on “beating swords into plowshares” are going to fix this.

Only people ─ a grassroots, groundswell of people ─ some acting on God’s behalf (like each of us) ─ are going to fix this.

Only people ─ courageous people ─ committed, passionate, armed with facts, organized ─ are going to fix this.

Only people, who truly believe in transformation by acting on that belief ─ lobbying on that belief ─ voting on that belief ─ will create the reality: “All flesh ─ all! ─ will see ─ live to see … the salvation of God.”

Amen.

End Timers' Dead End

Homily for the First Sunday of Advent  29 November 2015

Jesus said, “People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world.”   Luke 21:26a

“Wh-e-e-e-e-re will it enduh?” Pastor Lovejoy’s lament.

Pastor Timothy Lovejoy, The Simpsons’ American Reformed Presbylutheran minister of The First Church of Springfield. Rueful he is about many things, not the least of which is the “tall Episcopal church across the street.” Where will it end?

Where will it end? Or how ─ with a bang or a whimper? Or when: today, tomorrow … when you least expect it … when Michele Bachmann pronounces “any moment now” or the next fundie Svengali to come along purports to pinpoint the year, the day, the hour of The End ─ just in time to cash your tax-free gift?

Where? How? When? They’re pretty much all the same question. And, in the run-up to Christmas, it’s the question the Season of Advent poses and struggles to answer, or, at the very least, brings to our attention. Just where, when, how will it end?

And what is “it” anyway? The planet? The universe? The lives and cultures, the parties and politics, the religious systems (or lack of them) of people we don’t happen to agree with?

If you follow the whipped-up hysteria of fundamentalists of any stripe, The End of everything-as we-know-it is the point when God sees everything and everyone going to hell in a handbasket, and God says, “Enough is enough! It’s payback time!”

Or, if you prefer a more purely secular approach: Galaxies and stars, solar systems, planets and moons come and go. When is The End for our speck in a sea of stars?

Or, as some suggest, is The End merely our own, personal end? Length of days depleted. Mortality, when we must yield ─ freely or kicking and screaming ─ to the regrettable inevitable: death by dying.

But whatever we think is the focus and scope of finitude, we most likely can settle on one issue: In a cause-and-effect universe, The End surely can’t just come out of the blue. There are data and phenomena ─ what edgy religious folk call “signs” ─ leading up to The End. Even Jesus seems to advance the idea of signposts along the way, pointing to a “time appointed.” And it doesn’t look pretty.

But most of the doom-and-gloom soundbites these days are sucked up by “The sky is falling! Jesus is coming soon! Look busy!” apocalypticism. It reads as “We are living in the End Times.” This is just clock-ticking talk. But there’s a lot of it.

For example ─ to be really immediate (and, to a certain extent, trivial) ─ never mind Friday’s mass shooting at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. Never mind the carnage in Paris, Beirut, Egypt, and Mali. The problem, some imaginatively suggest, is Black Friday. They charge that Black Friday is proof we’re in the End Times. If you fall for this, don’t count on being around to return anything after Christmas, or even paying off your shop-till-you-drop credit card.

That’s the opinion of ‘The End Times Prophecy Report.’ A graphic on their website gloomily trumpets, “Black Friday: Tis the Season of Greed. “It’s a recipe,” they scowl,“for the brawls, fistfights, and other displays of extreme greed featured on Black Friday, the most appropriately-named day of the year.”

I never thought the day would come, but I’m with them on the “extreme greed” critique, although I can’t fault folks for bargain-hunting. But when bargain-hunting turns into body-slamming and fisticuffs and literally-crushing fatalities, I mean, if you’re at all sensitive to Jesus’ assertion that heading toward The End, “neighbor will turn against neighbor,” you might be inclined to stay home and opt for online shopping. Or opt not to shop at all on Black Friday, as a protest against mercantile manipulation.

So, on the greed-as-greed front, I’m with ‘The End Times Prophecy Report.’ But then, as you can imagine, they go off the rails and we part company. “Black Friday,” they agitate, “is just another spectator sport for apostate church-goers who prefer to keep alive the lie that they are Christians.”

Okay … I had never thought of looking at it that way. I thought Black Friday was a way for retailers to get a head-of-steam going into the cash-cow holiday season.

But for the apocalyptical crowd, shopping apostasy is prelude. Prelude to The End. Duly noted.

And yet, earlier this weekend, I, too was thinking, “Where will it end?” … not in an End Times sense, but in a “how low can we go,” face-palm take when I was hit with the headline: “Cards Against Humanity Makes $71K on Black Friday by Selling Absolutely Nothing.”

Cards Against Humanity. It markets itself as a “party game for horrible people.” This billing is, of course, all part of the fun … because it is wildly popular, attaining cult status … perhaps because its fill-in-the-blank format lampoons circumspect speech by making the players say truly outlandish things ─ things they would never dream of saying in polite ─ and educated ─ company to get points.

The tone starts with their FAQ sheet. Asked a perfectly reasonable question, they’re dismissive. Basically, “If that’s your question, you’re too stupid to play this game.”

The point is to make the game humiliating, embarrassing, and self-revealing. Because it’s such don’t-take-yourself-too-seriously fun, I doubt Cards Against Humanity has been much of a hit among the End Times crowd … except when it comes to knocking the legs right out from under Black Friday. That’s because for all-day Black Friday, Cards Against Humanity offered a holiday deal unlike any other. Shell out $5 … and get nothing in return ─ absolutely nothing (zero, zip, nada).

How much money did they make in Black Friday sales? Over $71K from roughly 11,200 “buyers.” Modest in comparison to the take of big-box stores. But that $71K: that’s where it gets interesting. And gives a bit of insight into a different reading of The End than the End Timers try to pawn off, or any of the other options we’ve listed so far.

In other words, that $71K could help us understand how God might answer “Where will it end?”

Now, Cards Against Humanity is known for their charitable fundraising. Over $4 million so far, including full-ride scholarships to women getting degrees in science.

But this year, who got the money, the $71K-plus? From their website: “We're happy to announce that this time … we kept it all.”

Greed to the End Timers’ tune of apostasy? Not quite.

Sure, there’s team member Amy. She used some of the money to pay off 1.5 percent of her $100K-plus student debt. And she bought a PlayStation or two. But she earmarked most of her take for charity: the Wilderness Society and the Greater Chicago Book Depository.

And Henry. Among other gifts for himself, Henry set aside a big bundle for dinner-for-two at an obscenely swanky Chicago restaurant with the plea, “Oh God, please, someone eat fancy food with me!” By his own admission, Henry would be pathetic, except he also gave most of his share to DonorsChoose.org (they purchase essential supplies and computers for students and schools). He also gave generously to Planned Parenthood.

Matt used his haul to purchase a MacBook Pro with Retina Display, but most ($2.5K) he gave to Planned Parenthood.

You get the idea. Obviously, many of the spending decisions were made in the aftermath of the mass shooting at the Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs on Friday.

But the trend here is: They made their giving decisions with an eye toward changing the future ─ positively ─ for their neighbor … revealing the truth that Cards Against Humanity isn’t anti-humanity … but pro-people, pro-planet, pro-aware, pro-facts, pro-science … pro-sanity! Giving us pause to wonder, when we look at the raw and soaring hope that underpins their giving patterns, “What if The End isn’t all fire and smoke, earthquakes and hail, plague and pestilence?”

What if The End Jesus is talking about ─ once you get past all the astrophysics and seismic predictions designed to get our attention ─ what if Jesus’ point isn’t fear and trembling, but longing and action: a New Advent of charity … sparked with urgency? In other words, taking ─ on a dare ─ Jesus’ challenge to love, and embracing his urgency to make an end to all the stuff that diminishes our lives and the lives of our neighbors.

Meaning, an end ─ The End ─ achieved not by the impatient and violence-laced intervention of a “launch-the-auto-destruct-sequence” God, but by the persuasive movement of God’s Spirit in the hearts, heads, and hands of men and women everywhere … outstretched toward our elbows-rubbing neighbors, as well as our lumbering neighbor, the planet.

What if The End, then, is a realization ─ our own realization ─ long past realized by God ─ that “enough is enough!” As the Italians would say, “Basta!” Enough!

Read: Women and men mowed down in the everyday course of seeking basic ─ and legal ─ healthcare. Enough is enough!

Guns ─ military-grade assault rifles ─ everywhere. Enough is enough!

Children ─ all over the planet and in this, the most resource-rich country on earth ─ going to bed hungry … getting up in the morning, hungry … enduring the mid-day … hungry. Enough is enough!

Black people and other minorities targeted by cops for harassment, unwarranted arrest, choked, gunned-down to the point that they’re forced to conclude their lives don’t matter. Enough is enough!

Immigrant neighbors labeled by fact-deficient and morally-bankrupt demagogues as rapists, drug dealers, and criminals. Enough is enough!

Theatregoers enjoying the pleasures of the City of Light ─ any city or place ─ cut down and blown to smithereens by abyss-visioned extremists. Enough is enough!

Where, then, will it end — the “fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world”?

It ends the moment we believe that an end in fire and smoke isn’t inevitable.

It ends the moment we let sanity, critical thinking, cool heads, charity, action, God’s New-Advent Spirit prevail.

It ends the moment we realize the Apocalypse isn’t near … but the need to say with finality, “Enough is enough!” is now.

Amen.

"Massacre"

Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side.”

Mark 4:35b

3,446. That number resides now uneasily with the number 9: the number of innocent black men and women ─ ranging in age from 26 to 87 ─ murdered in cold blood last Wednesday evening in Charleston, South Carolina.

3,446. As the New Yorker’s David Remnick points out, “Between 1882 and 1968 ─ the year Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated ─ 3,446 black men, women, and children were lynched in this country.”

It cannot be argued otherwise. Each of those lynchings was a political statement ─ a statement about race, in particular. And a statement about ─ each perpetrator believed ─ the supremacy of the white race. That means, too, that each of those lynchings was a hate crime. Each of those lynchings was a terrorist attack designed to intimidate black men, women, and children as a class, as an entire race.

As we are still reeling amid grief, incomprehension, and soul-searching in the wake of nine sisters and brothers shot dead Wednesday evening at Emanuel AME Church ─ “Mother Emanuel” ─ in Charleston, it’s impossible for us not to conclude, as Remnick suggests, that we have witnessed a mass lynching … only by different means: a .45-calibre handgun.

But the vocabulary of the murderer is the same: “You [black people] rape our women,” 21 year-old Dylan Roof charged his victims, after he had finished the shooting. “And you’re taking over our country.”

“Our country.” Shades of the white supremacist epithets hurled at town meetings during the Obamacare debates. “We want our country back!” Read: Our country, as opposed to theirs: the country of blacks, Latinos, LGBT persons ─ all those other people not like us.

That is, if you’re not like the white-supremacist us, you don’t belong here. “You have to go,” as assassin Dylan Roof said, justifying ─ in his twisted mind ─ the Charleston slaughter.

And another armed and angry, hate-spewing citizen dispatches nine victims to join the ranks of those 3,446 lynched Americans and the gunned-down body count of Columbine, Aurora, Newtown, Baltimore, Ferguson, and Sanford.

How much longer can we go on like this?

How much longer can we go on like this as citizens of this country?

How much longer can we go on like this as followers of Jesus Christ? Certainly Jesus himself wouldn’t tolerate this status quo of carnage ─ carnage perpetuated by all-too-easy access to guns and triggered by hate.

In other words, as journalist Amy Davidson suggests, “Hate can serve as an accelerant of violence. So can a gun in the hands of a man like Dylan Roof.”

And for those who “want our country back” … for those who demand of people different from them, “You have to go” … or “You can’t vote” … or “You’re not entitled to a quality education, good jobs, and safe communities,” there is one question we have every right to demand they answer: “What will you say to Jesus Christ?”

What will you say to the Jesus of today’s Gospel: Jesus, the restless, the curious, the seeker, the explorer, the risk-taker who commandeers a boat on the Sea of Galilee and tells his disciples, “Let’s go across to the other side”? Put another way, “Let’s look at the world through the eyes of people not our kind, dear.”

Picture this: So far in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has been healing, teaching, and preaching to the people he knows best, to the people who best know him ─ people who think God made them best.

But Jesus is anxious to move on. He’s ready to move on from familiar, safe, home territory and the trap of predictability to step into the “unknown” of non-Jewish towns and villages across the Galilean Sea’s expanse to the east in order to prove that God’s Good News ─ God’s news of political, economic, and spiritual liberation ─ isn’t just for one people, one race … that it’s not just for people who look alike or even think and act alike. As a matter of fact, Jesus’ point in crossing over to the “other side” is that the Good News is designed to pull together people who neither look, think, nor act alike in order to get them to look and think and act more like God.

Bottomline: “Let’s go across to the other side.” That’s Good News.

But forces there be that just can’t take the expansive Good News Jesus broadcasts. That’s what’s going on in our story this morning when ─ once Jesus and the disciples set out ─ it’s all-of-a-sudden, small boat … wide sea … long night … BIG storm.

In other words, the storm-at-sea that threatens to swamp their boat is recorded here as a meteorological event, but it’s also metaphor. That’s because, in Jesus’ day, people think of the sea ─ the uncontrollable, unpredictable, and dangerous sea ─ as pushing back against God’s intention that every man, woman, and child live in safety, free from danger.

Now, if you look at the data ─ and not the NRA’s scandalous suggestion that clergy who don’t tote guns in church endanger their flock ─ most reasonable people would conclude, fewer guns = greater safety.

But some of those stormy forces say that this isn’t a gun-control issue at all. The Charleston gunman was deranged, they say. It’s a mental health issue.

We have absolutely no proof that the young man was out-of-his-mind. Fanatic, yes. But “certifiable”? No. We do have proof that this was a premeditated act. The gunman chose his targets and the location of the massacre fully aware of the iconic status of Emanuel AME Church in the black community and in the civil rights struggle.

And if Dylann Roof could plead insanity successfully, wouldn’t that actually point to legislating tighter gun controls to keep guns out of the hands of unstable people?

Other forces pushing back against tighter gun controls in the wake of Charleston try to say that this wasn’t a racist attack at all … that, in fact, because the gunman targeted a church, the shootings were an attack against Christianity and religious liberty (all of a piece with the ludicrous charge that religious liberty is under systematic attack by the push for same-sex marriage, among other progressive causes, like equal protection under the law).

Look. Dylann Roof appears to be a Lutheran in good standing, according to his pastor. And by the perpetrator’s own admission, it was a racist attack. Like many other gun-toting ideologues of his ilk in the past, he pointedly stated that he wanted to start a racial civil war. He wasn’t out to shut down any religious institution in this country, except maybe black churches as historically safe havens for people of color. But the capital-C “Church” wasn’t his target.

And then, there’s the unconvincingly bespectacled (but affable) presidential candidate who maintains that what happened in Charleston was just an “accident” … that the shooter was high on drugs … that, again, the rampage had nothing to do with racism.

Well, we’ve already proven that it was a racist attack. And we have no indication ─ so far, at least ─ that this was just a drug-driven, random, impulsive attack. No, it was planned far in advance. We know that.

Factoids: Dylann Roof went to Emanuel AME Church Wednesday night, knowing that there would be a Bible study/prayer meeting going on. He asked to see the pastor, the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who was also a state senator. Roof was welcomed into the group, as indeed people of all races and colors are at Emanuel. Roof sat next to the pastor. Almost decided against opening fire on them all because, he says, the people at Mother Emanuel were so nice to him.

But, at length, Roof started arguing with the pastor about black people. Then he took out the gun and kept firing until he did, as he said, “what he had to do.”

Premeditated, fatal racism: before … during … after.

So, there are those stormy critics who would prevent us from asking, “How much longer can we go on like this?” It’s easier not to address racism. Easier to let the good times roll for the gun manufacturers. Easier to keep the base riled up with specious threats of religious liberty under attack. Easier to stay on this side of the shore.

But the critics make easy targets for folks like me. They make it easy for us not to address our own racism. Make it easier for us to say that we don’t need to engage in a dialogue about race or even tighter gun controls in this country, because we’re already converted, immune to change.

And yet, Jesus says to us as well, “Let’s go across to the other side.”

Accompanying Jesus, then, to the “other side” means asking ourselves, “To what extent do we believe that the life of every single person in this church, in this community, in this country matters equally? Black, white, Jewish, Muslim, gay, straight, transgender, none-of-the-above. Even Dylann Roof’s life ─ so easily diminished now by his own murderous hands ─ do we believe his life matters equally?

… because we have no choice now. We have to answer these questions ─ each of us ─ for ourselves … all of us together because:

What would this country look like without a trace of racism?

What would this country look like if all Constitutionally-eligible citizens had equal access to the polls?

What would it look like if the citizens of this country had highly-restricted access to guns?

What would it look like on all these issues? In other words, how would it look like accompanying Jesus to the “other side”?

… because how long can we go on like this?

We can begin ─ now ─ to move on with Jesus, going across to the “other side” by first praying:

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move our own hearts and the hearts of the people of this land, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace. Then lead us, we pray, at the last, to that heavenly country, where we may be partakers in the inheritance of the saints in light, in the blessed company of the Martyrs of Charleston:

The Rev’d Clementa Pinckney
Ethel Lance
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton
Depayne Doctor
Cynthia Hurd
Susie Jackson
Tywanza Sanders
The Rev’d Daniel Simmons, Sr.
Mira Thompson

All this we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.