In January 2009, The Africa University Choir will be in concerts of praise and worship at two United Methodist locations in the Baltimore region. The first concert will be at Mt. Zion UMC in Bel Air, MD, and the second will be hosted by a group of six Baltimore city congregations at Ames Memorial UMC in west Baltimore. These two events point to the connectional nature of the church, and the value of ongoing partnerships in ministry – both locally and globally.
Mt. Zion is a congregation that has become known for its extraordinary generosity in mission - having established an orphanage and school in Namibia – the Children of Zion Village - where many of the children living at the orphanage are infected with HIV/AIDS. The church’s work has been recognized by the White House, and local and national media.
The six Baltimore city congregations that will host the second concert, four of which are part of Communities of Shalom in Baltimore - Ames Memorial, John Wesley, New Covenant, Monroe Street Churches - along with Mt. Washington-Aldersgate Churches, are each engaged in vital ministries that offer hope, shalom and transformation in communities challenged by poverty, violence, drugs and dis-ease in the city.
It is no small irony that these six churches have chosen to share in the opportunity to connect with the choir from Africa University. Africa University - a Pan-African, United Methodist-related institution - is located in Zimbabwe a few miles outside of Mutare. In June 1999, almost 10 years ago, I, along with Bishops John Schol, Felton May, Marcus Matthews, and Peggy Johnson and about 20 others, was privileged to visit Africa University, and parts of Mutare. It was a life-changing experience for me.
A part of our work in Zimbabwe involved providing training for several congregations to become Communities of Shalom. One of these Shalom Zones was established at the Hilltop UMC in Old Mutare Village. I recall walking through the community that sits below Hilltop Church. The community was unlike anyplace I had ever been in America. It was obvious that all of the people in the neighborhood lived in abject poverty. There was no running water, no electricity, and no sewage system. In the midst of this, the people welcomed us into their neighborhood with kindness, warmth, and signs of peace.
I also recall walking back up the hill to Hilltop Church, and looking down into the neighborhood that we had visited, and realizing that it was the church that offered real hope for that community. The Shalom Zone at Hilltop would offer hope for children affected by HIV/AIDS, educational opportunities for those who would otherwise not have access to schooling, and the means of addressing numerous other real needs. In the years that followed our visit, the Baltimore-Washington Conference and the Multi-Ethnic Center for Ministry continued to support Communities of Shalom in Zimbabwe, along with other churches and the Africa University through ongoing mission support, educational support and technical assistance.
The visit of the Africa University Choir to the Baltimore region in a few days will afford yet another opportunity to witness the church at work through our global connections.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Unwrap the Gift
(This sermon was delivered this evening, December 24, 2008 at the Christmas Eve Worship Service for Aldersgate and Mt. Washington United Methodist Churches in North Baltimore.)
Luke 2:1-7; Matthew 2:7-12
The reciprocal nature of the Christmas holiday season is found most vividly in the giving and receiving of gifts. The season has been termed by some the season for giving. And if the truth is told, it is also the season when many persons expect to receive.
This act of giving and receiving will be played out from house to house. On Christmas morning, children across the land will share in the ritual act of rushing to the Christmas tree, looking under the tree, finding those gifts that have been placed there for them, and beginning to unwrap their gifts. Young faces will be filled with wonder and joy, as they unwrap their gifts and discover what has been given to them.
These acts of gift-giving, while offering joy to some, should also lead us to reflect upon the very commercialism that has come to so permeate the season, the materialism that has come to consume so much of our collective conscious during Advent and Christmas. This type of "affluenza" – which Marion Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund describes in terms of "us having too much that is worth too little" – in some ways has become even more pronounced in the economic down-turn that affects us all today.
It seems that at the birth of Jesus, the world was similarly uncertain about its future as we are today. In the light of this, there was a certain buzz afloat as to the significance of the birth of this child. The magi – the wise men from the East – had observed – they had seen the Lord’s star at its magnificent and glorious rising. In this star, the wise men were convinced that they had witnessed a marvelous sign of the birth of the Messiah – the Savior of the world - and they wanted to pay him homage. And so as they entered the house where Jesus was, they opened their treasure chests and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2:7-12)
What significance does this have for us today? I believe the birth of Christ and our celebration of Christmas help to remind us of the ways in which God has broken into history in the unlikely person of Jesus Christ. Jesus was born into poverty, uneducated, and unconnected to the established social and political order of his day. He was a “nobody” - an unlikely Savior he was.
That Jesus was born poor and homeless, that his earthly father was a working class man and his mother was unmarried – a single parent - offers us a cause for pause and reflection in the light of the relative elaborateness of the season of Christmas for so many.
That, according to Luke’s account - Jesus was born in a manger, and that his mother wrapped him - not in fine clothing but in swaddling clothing, gives us cause for pausing yet again to reflect upon who it is that we worship, who it is that we follow, who it is we seek to imitate, and who it is that we celebrate during this season.
And so it is that we might take a few moments amidst the hustle and bustle – amidst the hurriedness of the season to reflect upon the real meaning of Christ. What do all the signs of the season mean to us? What do all of the candles, and lights, and gifts really mean? How have we stopped to pay homage to Jesus? What hope does Christ bring to our fractured world today? Where do we see signs of the presence of the Messiah in our lives – in our world today?
The gift that is Christ is one that if are to really unwrap it, helps us to see that he is for the poor among us – for he was poor. If we unwrap the gift that is Christ, we discover that he is for the immigrants and exiles among us because he was born to travelers. If we unwrap the gift that is Christ, we see the unfolding of the reality that he is for the bound, as he came to set at liberty those who were bound.
If we are to unwrap the gift that is Christ, we find one who healed the sick and fed the hungry in his day. He ate with sinners and blessed untouchables – lepers and those who were demon-possessed.
If we are to unwrap the gift that is Christ, we’ll realize that he calls us to live in solidarity with those who will sleep outdoors on our city’s streets tonight, with the estimated 20 million children who live without adequate health-care, with children who will awaken tomorrow with no food to eat, let alone gifts under the Christmas tree.
Unwrap the Gift. I am reminded of the story of a little boy who one year decided that what he wanted for Christmas was a wagon. In each of the days leading up to Christmas, the little boy would pass by a church where there was a statue of Jesus in front of the church. Everyday, the boy would pass by, and he would pray, “Jesus if you give me a wagon for Christmas, I will give you a ride… Jesus, if you give me a wagon, I promise, that I will give you a ride.”
Well, on Christmas, the little boy went downstairs, and under the tree… he found the wagon that he had prayed to Jesus for.
And so the boy went outside with his wagon… As he was riding, a police officer stopped the boy and said to him, “We have a report that a statue of Jesus is missing from the church down the street, and I notice that you have one in your wagon.” The boy said to the police officer, “Sir, I’m just keeping the promise I made to Jesus that I would give him a ride.”
I believe we are like the little boy, and we owe Jesus a ride for the gifts not only that he has given to us, but for the gift that he is to us.
Unwrap the Gift. And so it is that the real gift of Christmas is Christ. And when we unwrap this gift, we discover real peace amidst a warring world. We find true joy amidst joy that often feels vapid and false. We find hope in the face of the apparent insurmountabilities and utter despair of life.
And ultimately, the gift of Christ is our redemption. (Titus 2:14) This is what would lead Job in the midst of his own despair to declare, “I know that my redeemer lives.” (Job19:25) In these days of uncertainty and fear, Christ makes real claims upon the church, our communities and the world, and real claims on each of our lives.
These are days when most stores offer instant rebates for many of the things that we have bought. In days past, I can remember my grandmother collecting S&H Green Stamps for the things she would buy… When she had collected enough green stamps, she would go to the store to cash in the stamps - redeem them - for something she had been waiting to buy.
Ultimately, that is what Christ has done for us. He came into the world, and has entered into our lives to be our redemption. He came to buy us back, to redeem us, and claim us for God. This is really the gift that we unwrap during this season, Christ, our redeemer, Christ, the redeemer of the world.
Luke 2:1-7; Matthew 2:7-12
The reciprocal nature of the Christmas holiday season is found most vividly in the giving and receiving of gifts. The season has been termed by some the season for giving. And if the truth is told, it is also the season when many persons expect to receive.
This act of giving and receiving will be played out from house to house. On Christmas morning, children across the land will share in the ritual act of rushing to the Christmas tree, looking under the tree, finding those gifts that have been placed there for them, and beginning to unwrap their gifts. Young faces will be filled with wonder and joy, as they unwrap their gifts and discover what has been given to them.
These acts of gift-giving, while offering joy to some, should also lead us to reflect upon the very commercialism that has come to so permeate the season, the materialism that has come to consume so much of our collective conscious during Advent and Christmas. This type of "affluenza" – which Marion Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund describes in terms of "us having too much that is worth too little" – in some ways has become even more pronounced in the economic down-turn that affects us all today.
It seems that at the birth of Jesus, the world was similarly uncertain about its future as we are today. In the light of this, there was a certain buzz afloat as to the significance of the birth of this child. The magi – the wise men from the East – had observed – they had seen the Lord’s star at its magnificent and glorious rising. In this star, the wise men were convinced that they had witnessed a marvelous sign of the birth of the Messiah – the Savior of the world - and they wanted to pay him homage. And so as they entered the house where Jesus was, they opened their treasure chests and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2:7-12)
What significance does this have for us today? I believe the birth of Christ and our celebration of Christmas help to remind us of the ways in which God has broken into history in the unlikely person of Jesus Christ. Jesus was born into poverty, uneducated, and unconnected to the established social and political order of his day. He was a “nobody” - an unlikely Savior he was.
That Jesus was born poor and homeless, that his earthly father was a working class man and his mother was unmarried – a single parent - offers us a cause for pause and reflection in the light of the relative elaborateness of the season of Christmas for so many.
That, according to Luke’s account - Jesus was born in a manger, and that his mother wrapped him - not in fine clothing but in swaddling clothing, gives us cause for pausing yet again to reflect upon who it is that we worship, who it is that we follow, who it is we seek to imitate, and who it is that we celebrate during this season.
And so it is that we might take a few moments amidst the hustle and bustle – amidst the hurriedness of the season to reflect upon the real meaning of Christ. What do all the signs of the season mean to us? What do all of the candles, and lights, and gifts really mean? How have we stopped to pay homage to Jesus? What hope does Christ bring to our fractured world today? Where do we see signs of the presence of the Messiah in our lives – in our world today?
The gift that is Christ is one that if are to really unwrap it, helps us to see that he is for the poor among us – for he was poor. If we unwrap the gift that is Christ, we discover that he is for the immigrants and exiles among us because he was born to travelers. If we unwrap the gift that is Christ, we see the unfolding of the reality that he is for the bound, as he came to set at liberty those who were bound.
If we are to unwrap the gift that is Christ, we find one who healed the sick and fed the hungry in his day. He ate with sinners and blessed untouchables – lepers and those who were demon-possessed.
If we are to unwrap the gift that is Christ, we’ll realize that he calls us to live in solidarity with those who will sleep outdoors on our city’s streets tonight, with the estimated 20 million children who live without adequate health-care, with children who will awaken tomorrow with no food to eat, let alone gifts under the Christmas tree.
Unwrap the Gift. I am reminded of the story of a little boy who one year decided that what he wanted for Christmas was a wagon. In each of the days leading up to Christmas, the little boy would pass by a church where there was a statue of Jesus in front of the church. Everyday, the boy would pass by, and he would pray, “Jesus if you give me a wagon for Christmas, I will give you a ride… Jesus, if you give me a wagon, I promise, that I will give you a ride.”
Well, on Christmas, the little boy went downstairs, and under the tree… he found the wagon that he had prayed to Jesus for.
And so the boy went outside with his wagon… As he was riding, a police officer stopped the boy and said to him, “We have a report that a statue of Jesus is missing from the church down the street, and I notice that you have one in your wagon.” The boy said to the police officer, “Sir, I’m just keeping the promise I made to Jesus that I would give him a ride.”
I believe we are like the little boy, and we owe Jesus a ride for the gifts not only that he has given to us, but for the gift that he is to us.
Unwrap the Gift. And so it is that the real gift of Christmas is Christ. And when we unwrap this gift, we discover real peace amidst a warring world. We find true joy amidst joy that often feels vapid and false. We find hope in the face of the apparent insurmountabilities and utter despair of life.
And ultimately, the gift of Christ is our redemption. (Titus 2:14) This is what would lead Job in the midst of his own despair to declare, “I know that my redeemer lives.” (Job19:25) In these days of uncertainty and fear, Christ makes real claims upon the church, our communities and the world, and real claims on each of our lives.
These are days when most stores offer instant rebates for many of the things that we have bought. In days past, I can remember my grandmother collecting S&H Green Stamps for the things she would buy… When she had collected enough green stamps, she would go to the store to cash in the stamps - redeem them - for something she had been waiting to buy.
Ultimately, that is what Christ has done for us. He came into the world, and has entered into our lives to be our redemption. He came to buy us back, to redeem us, and claim us for God. This is really the gift that we unwrap during this season, Christ, our redeemer, Christ, the redeemer of the world.
Monday, December 15, 2008
High Hopes - Partners in Ministry
While in seminary many years ago, I wrote a research paper on the life of Susanna Wesley. Susanna Wesley was the mother of John and Charles Wesley two of the leading figures in the development of the Methodist movement in England in the 18th century. Through my study of Susanna Wesley’s life, I was impressed with her devotion to God and her family. She and her husband Samuel – an Anglican priest - had nineteen children, ten of whom lived to adulthood. Through untold tragedy, Susanna steadfastly provided spiritual guidance to her children, setting aside an hour each week for each child’s spiritual instruction and nurture.
Today, I had a chance to visit the Susanna Wesley House in Baltimore. Located downtown in the Mt. Vernon Historic District, this house is a ministry of the United Methodist Women of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, and provides transitional shelter and social services to up to nine families. Currently seven families of women and their children reside at the house. Recent news reports have pointed to the rise in domestic violence against women and children. This rise in domestic violence - coupled with the current economic downturn which has a more pronounced effect on those already poor or living on the margins - makes the work of the Susanna Wesley House and other homes like it extremely important.
Among the most impressive aspects of the work of the Susanna Wesley House are the partnerships that it shares with many churches. A story was shared of the people of Linden-Linthicum United Methodist Church in Clarksville, MD who had recently come to help with decorating the house for Christmas. The joy of children placing lights and decorations on the Christmas tree, laughing with each other and with sisters and brothers from another community, points to the high hopes that we should all share during the Advent season. Thanks be to God for those who partner in offering hope, peace and joy to all as we look to Christmas.
Today, I had a chance to visit the Susanna Wesley House in Baltimore. Located downtown in the Mt. Vernon Historic District, this house is a ministry of the United Methodist Women of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, and provides transitional shelter and social services to up to nine families. Currently seven families of women and their children reside at the house. Recent news reports have pointed to the rise in domestic violence against women and children. This rise in domestic violence - coupled with the current economic downturn which has a more pronounced effect on those already poor or living on the margins - makes the work of the Susanna Wesley House and other homes like it extremely important.
Among the most impressive aspects of the work of the Susanna Wesley House are the partnerships that it shares with many churches. A story was shared of the people of Linden-Linthicum United Methodist Church in Clarksville, MD who had recently come to help with decorating the house for Christmas. The joy of children placing lights and decorations on the Christmas tree, laughing with each other and with sisters and brothers from another community, points to the high hopes that we should all share during the Advent season. Thanks be to God for those who partner in offering hope, peace and joy to all as we look to Christmas.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Signs of Hope - Partners in Ministry
Last night, the reported temperature outdoors in Baltimore was 19 degrees. There were many persons across the city who slept outside, and many others who slept in places where there was inadequate heating. Many of these persons were children. Many awakened this morning and stepped outside into the deadening cold. Some did not own a coat to provide adequate warmth. The day after Thanksgiving, has come to be known in commercial circles as “Black Friday,” and is one of the biggest shopping days of the year. This year's news reports showed people lining up at stores across the country hours before doors opened in order to be ahead of the line in taking advantage of sale items. Monroe Street United Methodist Church in southwest Baltimore offered an alternative to “Black Friday” for persons who could not afford to shop. The church, in partnership with Glen Mar United Methodist Church in suburban Howard County, held a coat give-away on Monroe Street. Persons lined up around the church to receive free coats, and over 53 families were helped through the generosity of these two congregations. Monroe Street reports that as it has done for a number of years, Glen Mar Church has made a commitment to sponsoring at least 8 families for Christmas in the southwest Baltimore area surrounding Monroe Street Church. Signs of hope are seen in the partnerships in which churches share in ministering to those who have the least among us.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
There is Hope for the City
(The following is the Hope for the City report to the 224th Session of the Baltimore-Washington Conference in May 2008.)
In November 2006, the Connectional Table directed that there be a study of the state of the United Methodist churches in Baltimore. The study was to be designed to take a comprehensive look at what has and is occurring in the life the churches of the Baltimore metropolitan area, and to offer recommendations as to how we might strengthen the United Methodist presence in Baltimore as we have moved into the 21st century.
Over the course of the next year, the Baltimore Strategy Core Team, comprised of twelve persons representing the Baltimore region, engaged in the task of analyzing the state of the churches and communities of Baltimore, and developing a comprehensive plan for urban ministry in the metropolitan area. The document, Hope of the City - Adventure Pathways towards Transformation (A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR MINISTRY IN BALTIMORE) was presented to the Discipleship Council and Connectional Table in November 2007.
A number a learnings emerged from the study. First, it was learned that persons in the churches of the Baltimore region and across our conference continue to appreciate the historic significance of Methodism in Baltimore. In-fact, Baltimore is the home of Methodism in America, and the city which served as the place of impetus for the early Methodist movement. We learned that Methodism in Baltimore traces its roots back more that 230 years. Churches like Lovely Lane, Sharp Street Memorial, Old Otterbein, and Centennial-Caroline are some of the oldest worshipping communities in all of Methodism, and today continue to offer vital ministry to their respective communities.
We also learned that the churches of the city continue invariably to be community congregations. Baltimore is a city of 26 distinctive communities. Each of these communities have specific histories and identities, and the 48 United Methodist congregations that minister in each, have continued in their efforts to address the particular spiritual and social needs of these distinct communities.
We learned that there are many cases of congregations that are bearing Acts 2 fruit in the city. Many churches continue to offer worship that is vital and relevant to their settings, develop ministries that help to make and grow disciples of Jesus Christ, and engage in mission and outreach to those in need.
We learned of the tremendous faithfulness, resourcefulness and spirit of United Methodists across the city and the entire region. This spirit can be summarized in hope. People invariably expressed a hopefulness that the United Methodist churches in Baltimore and the surrounding communities would continue to actively engage in ministry that would transform lives.
This hope, as found in our churches, is to be viewed against the backdrop of a city that is in many ways in peril. Baltimore continues to rank near the top in the nation in rates of HIV/AIDS infection, heroine and cocaine addiction, and murder and other violent crimes. In 2007, there were over 270 persons murdered in the city, making Baltimore the second most violent city in the nation. Baltimore also ranks near the top in the rate of high school dropouts, poverty, and infant mortality.
On December 7, 2007, Bishop John Schol led us in a prayer vigil and press conference at John Wesley United Methodist Church in west Baltimore. On that day, more than 350 persons gathered from churches and communities across our conference to pray, worship, and commit to engaging in efforts to in address violence in the communities of the city, and bring about the shalom that God intends for us.
As a part of our prayer vigil on that day, we visited three sights where persons had been murdered within the previous 12 months. Two of the persons who had been murdered at these sights were 18 year old men, and the other was a 36 year old man. On that day last December, what we were reminded of most is that the church’s presence in the city is still vitally necessary if we are to experience God’s shalom.
The implementation of the Hope for the City Ministry Plan and the Bishop’s Initiative to address violence in the city, have begun to give impetus and evidence to the hope shared across our churches. In partnership with the Board of Childcare and our Conference Camping ministries, we have committed to providing a camping experience this summer and in years to come to children across the city who have experienced the death of a loved one due to violence.
We have developed the framework and have begun to offer pastoral counseling to persons victimized by violence. We are in conversation with city police officials to establish a process for churches to assist in the turn-in of guns and other weapons across the city. Recently, one of our congregations in Northeast Baltimore – the New Life United Methodist Church – hosted the first city-wide forum of gang violence in the city.
There’s hope for the city. Through the Hope for the City Ministry Plan – with the coordinating leadership of the Hope Council and Dr. Bruce Haskins – eight congregations in Baltimore are in the process of becoming new communities of Shalom in partnership with the National Communities of Shalom and Drew University. These congregations and their teams will begin Shalom Zone training in June.
One of our existing Shalom Zones in Baltimore, the Christ Church of the Deaf and Dr. Peggy Johnson, recently received an award from the state of Maryland for their leadership and involvement in transforming communities across the region. At our recent General Conference in Ft. Worth TX, two of our Baltimore congregations, which are shalom sites, Christ Church of the Deaf (an existing site) and Christ Church east Baltimore (one of our 8 new sites) were privileged to lead the General Conference in worship. Our efforts in piloting eight new shalom sites received recognition at the gathering for the National Communities of Shalom in Ft. Worth.
There’s hope for the city. The strategic ministry plan has also served as an impetus of us being at the forefront of an emerging partnership between churches and the Baltimore City Department of Social Services. The Baltimore-Washington Conference recently received recognition for our leadership in establishing Family Asset Centers in several churches in various parts of the city. At least three of our Baltimore congregations have recently partnered with the Patterson Memorial Association to engage in innovative projects in their churches. The partnership between the Baltimore Hispanic Congregation and Justice for Our Neighbors provides a vital ministry with immigrant persons in the city.
There’s hope for the city. Recently, in response to a rash of violence in the public schools in Baltimore, a call went out for at least 500 volunteers to commit time to working with children in the schools. We give thanks that two of the persons providing leadership in this effort, among many others, are United Methodists – Mr. Michael Carter of Unity United Methodist Church, and Rev. Giovanni Arroyo of Salem-Baltimore Hispanic Ministries.
The United Methodist Men of the Baltimore region and across the conference have heeded a call to help restore hope. The Men have recently made a commitment to consolidate their volunteer efforts to work on the upkeep of historic Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Southwest Baltimore.
There’s hope for the city. As together we continue to our efforts to implement the short-term and long-range plans for ministry in the metropolitan Baltimore area, we are committed to strengthening and developing urban lay and clergy leadership, partnering to strengthen existing congregations and start new congregations where opportunities may arise, and identifying resources that we will assist congregations and leaders in our ongoing efforts to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
There is hope for the city. Our prayer is that all of us will share in this hope, and that together, and with God’s help, we will work toward the vision of Baltimore becoming a model for urban ministry across our connection.
In November 2006, the Connectional Table directed that there be a study of the state of the United Methodist churches in Baltimore. The study was to be designed to take a comprehensive look at what has and is occurring in the life the churches of the Baltimore metropolitan area, and to offer recommendations as to how we might strengthen the United Methodist presence in Baltimore as we have moved into the 21st century.
Over the course of the next year, the Baltimore Strategy Core Team, comprised of twelve persons representing the Baltimore region, engaged in the task of analyzing the state of the churches and communities of Baltimore, and developing a comprehensive plan for urban ministry in the metropolitan area. The document, Hope of the City - Adventure Pathways towards Transformation (A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR MINISTRY IN BALTIMORE) was presented to the Discipleship Council and Connectional Table in November 2007.
A number a learnings emerged from the study. First, it was learned that persons in the churches of the Baltimore region and across our conference continue to appreciate the historic significance of Methodism in Baltimore. In-fact, Baltimore is the home of Methodism in America, and the city which served as the place of impetus for the early Methodist movement. We learned that Methodism in Baltimore traces its roots back more that 230 years. Churches like Lovely Lane, Sharp Street Memorial, Old Otterbein, and Centennial-Caroline are some of the oldest worshipping communities in all of Methodism, and today continue to offer vital ministry to their respective communities.
We also learned that the churches of the city continue invariably to be community congregations. Baltimore is a city of 26 distinctive communities. Each of these communities have specific histories and identities, and the 48 United Methodist congregations that minister in each, have continued in their efforts to address the particular spiritual and social needs of these distinct communities.
We learned that there are many cases of congregations that are bearing Acts 2 fruit in the city. Many churches continue to offer worship that is vital and relevant to their settings, develop ministries that help to make and grow disciples of Jesus Christ, and engage in mission and outreach to those in need.
We learned of the tremendous faithfulness, resourcefulness and spirit of United Methodists across the city and the entire region. This spirit can be summarized in hope. People invariably expressed a hopefulness that the United Methodist churches in Baltimore and the surrounding communities would continue to actively engage in ministry that would transform lives.
This hope, as found in our churches, is to be viewed against the backdrop of a city that is in many ways in peril. Baltimore continues to rank near the top in the nation in rates of HIV/AIDS infection, heroine and cocaine addiction, and murder and other violent crimes. In 2007, there were over 270 persons murdered in the city, making Baltimore the second most violent city in the nation. Baltimore also ranks near the top in the rate of high school dropouts, poverty, and infant mortality.
On December 7, 2007, Bishop John Schol led us in a prayer vigil and press conference at John Wesley United Methodist Church in west Baltimore. On that day, more than 350 persons gathered from churches and communities across our conference to pray, worship, and commit to engaging in efforts to in address violence in the communities of the city, and bring about the shalom that God intends for us.
As a part of our prayer vigil on that day, we visited three sights where persons had been murdered within the previous 12 months. Two of the persons who had been murdered at these sights were 18 year old men, and the other was a 36 year old man. On that day last December, what we were reminded of most is that the church’s presence in the city is still vitally necessary if we are to experience God’s shalom.
The implementation of the Hope for the City Ministry Plan and the Bishop’s Initiative to address violence in the city, have begun to give impetus and evidence to the hope shared across our churches. In partnership with the Board of Childcare and our Conference Camping ministries, we have committed to providing a camping experience this summer and in years to come to children across the city who have experienced the death of a loved one due to violence.
We have developed the framework and have begun to offer pastoral counseling to persons victimized by violence. We are in conversation with city police officials to establish a process for churches to assist in the turn-in of guns and other weapons across the city. Recently, one of our congregations in Northeast Baltimore – the New Life United Methodist Church – hosted the first city-wide forum of gang violence in the city.
There’s hope for the city. Through the Hope for the City Ministry Plan – with the coordinating leadership of the Hope Council and Dr. Bruce Haskins – eight congregations in Baltimore are in the process of becoming new communities of Shalom in partnership with the National Communities of Shalom and Drew University. These congregations and their teams will begin Shalom Zone training in June.
One of our existing Shalom Zones in Baltimore, the Christ Church of the Deaf and Dr. Peggy Johnson, recently received an award from the state of Maryland for their leadership and involvement in transforming communities across the region. At our recent General Conference in Ft. Worth TX, two of our Baltimore congregations, which are shalom sites, Christ Church of the Deaf (an existing site) and Christ Church east Baltimore (one of our 8 new sites) were privileged to lead the General Conference in worship. Our efforts in piloting eight new shalom sites received recognition at the gathering for the National Communities of Shalom in Ft. Worth.
There’s hope for the city. The strategic ministry plan has also served as an impetus of us being at the forefront of an emerging partnership between churches and the Baltimore City Department of Social Services. The Baltimore-Washington Conference recently received recognition for our leadership in establishing Family Asset Centers in several churches in various parts of the city. At least three of our Baltimore congregations have recently partnered with the Patterson Memorial Association to engage in innovative projects in their churches. The partnership between the Baltimore Hispanic Congregation and Justice for Our Neighbors provides a vital ministry with immigrant persons in the city.
There’s hope for the city. Recently, in response to a rash of violence in the public schools in Baltimore, a call went out for at least 500 volunteers to commit time to working with children in the schools. We give thanks that two of the persons providing leadership in this effort, among many others, are United Methodists – Mr. Michael Carter of Unity United Methodist Church, and Rev. Giovanni Arroyo of Salem-Baltimore Hispanic Ministries.
The United Methodist Men of the Baltimore region and across the conference have heeded a call to help restore hope. The Men have recently made a commitment to consolidate their volunteer efforts to work on the upkeep of historic Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Southwest Baltimore.
There’s hope for the city. As together we continue to our efforts to implement the short-term and long-range plans for ministry in the metropolitan Baltimore area, we are committed to strengthening and developing urban lay and clergy leadership, partnering to strengthen existing congregations and start new congregations where opportunities may arise, and identifying resources that we will assist congregations and leaders in our ongoing efforts to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
There is hope for the city. Our prayer is that all of us will share in this hope, and that together, and with God’s help, we will work toward the vision of Baltimore becoming a model for urban ministry across our connection.
A Future with Hope
(I preached this sermon at the 40th Anniversary celebration of the Ecumenical Instutute of Theology, St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore on November 15, 2008).
A Future with Hope
Jeremiah 29:11
The writer of the book of Jeremiah offers a vision for the hopefulness of a people experiencing exile in a strange city. Here the Israelites were in Babylon – alienated from their land, alienated from their God, and alienated – many of them - from their loved ones.
We can imagine that the Israelites here experienced what some philosophers have come to refer to as a certain nihilism – where a certain nothingness, meaninglessness, lovelessness, and hopelessness comes to define the existence of a people. It is against this backdrop of nihilism that Jeremiah writes these words of hope.
“For surely, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare (shalom,
wholeness), and not for your harm, plans to give you a future with hope.”
Certainly hope could have been a fleeting – abstract - concept in times like those in which Jeremiah wrote. Those were the same times that would lead Jeremiah earlier to offer provocative questions to the same people –
“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no healing there? Why then has the health of my
people not been restored? “
These were the same times and conditions that would lead the psalmist to write other familiar words of a people in exile –
“By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat and we wept when we remembered Zion. And
our captors asked us to sing to them the songs of Zion… How can we sing the Lord’s song in
a strange land?”
Perhaps the context in which Jeremiah wrote is not much dissimilar from that of our days. In many ways hope today seems fleeting - with political unrest, social disarray, family distress, and economic uncertainty.
I would suggest that Jeremiah’s words of hope here offer us today an important backdrop for thinking about where we are as communities, the church, and as an institution - and also where we’ve been and where we may be going.
Two weeks ago, I was honored to have been invited to give a lecture here during our Open House dealing with the matter of the church and race relations over the past forty years, and whether it is possible - or even desirable - for us to strive to become color-blind. In my reflections, I recalled some of what was occurring in America in the late 1960’s. It was a time of great racial tension. In 1968, the Kerner Commission Report, which President Lyndon B. Johnson had requested in light of the riots that had broken out in several cities across the country, summarized the state of race relations by noting that “America is a nation of two societies, one black and one white, separate and unequal.”
The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968 spawned a proliferation of violence in cities across the nation. In cities like Detroit, Washington, DC and Baltimore, in the aftermath of King’s death, we witnessed communities turn upon themselves in acts of violence and destruction. The images of large business corridors, residential communities and places of worship being looted and burned are still vivid in many of our memories.
However, these images of violence are to be viewed against the backdrop of a growing spirit of ecumenism and cooperation among religious communities throughout the 1950’s and 60’s. Developments which emerged as a result of the Second Vatican Council, as well as the development of the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches, along with other ecumenical and interfaith bodies, led to a growing understanding among faith communities as to the role of religion in facilitating dialogue and collaboration across and within the various forms of diversity that had theretofore served as points of division and disagreement.
The founding of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology in Baltimore serves as one shining example of such collaboration, where in 1968, St. Mary’s Seminary and University initiated this program of graduate theological education for laity and clergy from Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish traditions. From its inception, the Ecumenical Institute has cultivated an environment of cross-racial, cross-cultural and cross-denominational discourse. Today, 40 years after its founding, the Ecumenical Institute of Theology continues to function in this spirit.
And today, given the growing change and diversity that is a part of the social and religious landscape, even as in 1968, there remains a critical need for institutions which offer a context for the convergence of cultures and ideas.
A few years ago, an interesting exercise was developed which offered a glimpse of our contemporary world, and the diversity that now shapes our existence. The exercise is entitled A Village of 100 People, and points out that if we could reduce the world’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this:
· The village would have 60 Asians, 14 Africans, 12 Europeans, 8 Latin Americans, 5 from
the USA and Canada, and 1 from the South Pacific
· 51 would be male, and 49 would be female
· 82 would be non-white, 18 white
· 67 would be non-Christian, 33 would be Christian
Of 67 non-Christians, 20 would be Muslims, 13 would be Hindus, 6 would be Buddhists, 2 would be atheists, 12 would be non-religious, and the remaining 14 would be members of other religions
· 80 would live in substandard housing
· 67 would be unable to read
· 50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation
· 33 would be without access to a safe water supply
· 5 would control 32% of the entire world’s wealth; all 5 would be US citizens
· 33 would be receiving - and attempting to live on – only 3% of the income of “the village”
· 27 villagers would be under 15 years of age, and 7 would be over 64 years old.
By the end of a year, one villager would die and two new villagers would be born so thus the population would climb to 101.
In the courses that I teach, I often ask students to pause to look around their classroom, and observe the makeup of their classes in terms of race and ethnicity, as well as gender and theological diversity. Then I ask the students to imagine what our class may have looked like 40 years ago. It invariably becomes clear that the diversity of our classes today was not reflected in the classes of generations past.
In the summer of 2006, I had the privilege of leading a study group of 22 scholars from Wesley Theological Seminary in a doctoral immersion course that retraced many of the steps of the Civil Rights movement across Alabama. Our group reflected much of the diversity of the church and society. We were Hispanic, Native American, Caribbean, white and black, female and male, Baptist, Episcopalian, African Methodist Episcopal and United Methodist. In the spirit of the Civil Rights movement, we prayed, sang, and shared our thoughts together as we traveled. Dr. Eileen Guenther, a professor at Wesley Seminary and a part of our study group, offered that it was a spiritual sung by many choirs, “I’m Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table,” that played in her head throughout this experience (see The American Organist, November 2008).
Dr. Guenther says that she thought about the variety of tables that we encountered as we traveled through Alabama and how these were hopeful signs for her:
· Lunch counters of restaurants where all had not been welcome (in the past);
· The dining room table in the parsonage of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, in Montgomery,
where we were told, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formed;
· The kitchen table of the same parsonage where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. searched his
soul and felt God telling him to press on with his work;
· The tables at which the people at 16th Street Baptist Church served us lunch, tables placed
adjacent to the site of the tragic bombing in September 1963 that killed four young girls;
· The tables around which members of our group gathered to share stories as victims of
discrimination, of their courageous work in the Civil Rights movement (and other
freedom movements), and their lament over a lack of awareness of what was going on at
that time in our country’s history.
I sense that our experiences in Alabama are emblematic of the blessings and burdens facing the churches today. To talk about the contemporary church is to talk about Christianity that is being lived out in a post-Christian, postmodern context. This means that many of the assumptions about God, Christ and the church that may have shaped a collective understanding of faith communities in the past, can no longer be made in the same ways.
In light of declines across much of the church over the past 40 years, a primary theological task of today’s church is to be self-critical as it pertains to issues such as the proliferation of the prosperity gospel, the lack of activism in many circles, and the inability or unwillingness of the churches today to speak prophetically on matters of contemporary concern such as the war in Iraq, the widening gap between the rich and the poor in America and around the world, the ongoing proliferation of racial bigotry, and the marginalization of others in our society, along with the generally violent and misogynous nature of hip hop and other forms of popular culture.
Also, it is the churches’ task to articulate a framework for thinking and speaking about God amidst apparent hopelessness. A question that I believe we must continue to ask is one posed by Howard Thurman in his seminal work, Jesus and the Disinherited. Thurman asked, “What does the religion of Jesus have to say to people who have their back against the wall?” In other words, how does Christianity today offer hope to the disinherited among us – the poor, the voiceless, the violated, and the oppressed?
What is this hope of which we speak? In one of his later sermons, "The Meaning of Hope," Martin Luther King, Jr. defined hope as that quality which is "necessary for life."[1]
"The hopeless individual is the dead individual." In King's view hope had a transformative quality that keeps human beings "alive" both spiritually and psychologically.[2] Hope, therefore, is "one of the basic structures of an adequate life."
Furthermore, King asserted that hope was to be viewed as "animated and undergirded by faith and love." In King's mind, if you had hope, you had faith in something. "Hope is generated and animated by love, and is undergirded by faith."[3]
Hope helps us to look ahead with eyes of faith. Hope helps us to see the future with hearts of anticipation. Hope is the refusal to give up “despite overwhelming odds.”
This is what Jeremiah sought to intimate to the Israelites who found themselves mired in apparent hopelessness:
“For surely, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare (shalom,
wholeness), and not for your harm, plans to give you a future with hope.”
I believe that ours is a future with hope. On numerous occasions, Martin Luther King pointed out that the nature of the hope that many in the church have found in the resurrected Christ is imbedded in the questions posed by the prophet Jeremiah: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no healing in the land?” (Jeremiah 8:22)
King intimated that the miracle of faith is that many were able to convert the question marks of the prophet’s lament, into exclamation points as they affirmed their faith and hope in the living and life-giving God. So they could sing the Negro spiritual with hope:
There is a balm in Gilead,
to make the wounded whole
There is a balm in Gilead,
To heal the sin-sick soul
Sometimes I feel discouraged
And think my work’s in vain
And then the Holy Spirit
Revives my soul again![4]
[1] Garth Baker-Fletcher, Somebodyness, 132.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] See Songs of Zion, 123.
A Future with Hope
Jeremiah 29:11
The writer of the book of Jeremiah offers a vision for the hopefulness of a people experiencing exile in a strange city. Here the Israelites were in Babylon – alienated from their land, alienated from their God, and alienated – many of them - from their loved ones.
We can imagine that the Israelites here experienced what some philosophers have come to refer to as a certain nihilism – where a certain nothingness, meaninglessness, lovelessness, and hopelessness comes to define the existence of a people. It is against this backdrop of nihilism that Jeremiah writes these words of hope.
“For surely, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare (shalom,
wholeness), and not for your harm, plans to give you a future with hope.”
Certainly hope could have been a fleeting – abstract - concept in times like those in which Jeremiah wrote. Those were the same times that would lead Jeremiah earlier to offer provocative questions to the same people –
“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no healing there? Why then has the health of my
people not been restored? “
These were the same times and conditions that would lead the psalmist to write other familiar words of a people in exile –
“By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat and we wept when we remembered Zion. And
our captors asked us to sing to them the songs of Zion… How can we sing the Lord’s song in
a strange land?”
Perhaps the context in which Jeremiah wrote is not much dissimilar from that of our days. In many ways hope today seems fleeting - with political unrest, social disarray, family distress, and economic uncertainty.
I would suggest that Jeremiah’s words of hope here offer us today an important backdrop for thinking about where we are as communities, the church, and as an institution - and also where we’ve been and where we may be going.
Two weeks ago, I was honored to have been invited to give a lecture here during our Open House dealing with the matter of the church and race relations over the past forty years, and whether it is possible - or even desirable - for us to strive to become color-blind. In my reflections, I recalled some of what was occurring in America in the late 1960’s. It was a time of great racial tension. In 1968, the Kerner Commission Report, which President Lyndon B. Johnson had requested in light of the riots that had broken out in several cities across the country, summarized the state of race relations by noting that “America is a nation of two societies, one black and one white, separate and unequal.”
The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968 spawned a proliferation of violence in cities across the nation. In cities like Detroit, Washington, DC and Baltimore, in the aftermath of King’s death, we witnessed communities turn upon themselves in acts of violence and destruction. The images of large business corridors, residential communities and places of worship being looted and burned are still vivid in many of our memories.
However, these images of violence are to be viewed against the backdrop of a growing spirit of ecumenism and cooperation among religious communities throughout the 1950’s and 60’s. Developments which emerged as a result of the Second Vatican Council, as well as the development of the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches, along with other ecumenical and interfaith bodies, led to a growing understanding among faith communities as to the role of religion in facilitating dialogue and collaboration across and within the various forms of diversity that had theretofore served as points of division and disagreement.
The founding of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology in Baltimore serves as one shining example of such collaboration, where in 1968, St. Mary’s Seminary and University initiated this program of graduate theological education for laity and clergy from Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish traditions. From its inception, the Ecumenical Institute has cultivated an environment of cross-racial, cross-cultural and cross-denominational discourse. Today, 40 years after its founding, the Ecumenical Institute of Theology continues to function in this spirit.
And today, given the growing change and diversity that is a part of the social and religious landscape, even as in 1968, there remains a critical need for institutions which offer a context for the convergence of cultures and ideas.
A few years ago, an interesting exercise was developed which offered a glimpse of our contemporary world, and the diversity that now shapes our existence. The exercise is entitled A Village of 100 People, and points out that if we could reduce the world’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this:
· The village would have 60 Asians, 14 Africans, 12 Europeans, 8 Latin Americans, 5 from
the USA and Canada, and 1 from the South Pacific
· 51 would be male, and 49 would be female
· 82 would be non-white, 18 white
· 67 would be non-Christian, 33 would be Christian
Of 67 non-Christians, 20 would be Muslims, 13 would be Hindus, 6 would be Buddhists, 2 would be atheists, 12 would be non-religious, and the remaining 14 would be members of other religions
· 80 would live in substandard housing
· 67 would be unable to read
· 50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation
· 33 would be without access to a safe water supply
· 5 would control 32% of the entire world’s wealth; all 5 would be US citizens
· 33 would be receiving - and attempting to live on – only 3% of the income of “the village”
· 27 villagers would be under 15 years of age, and 7 would be over 64 years old.
By the end of a year, one villager would die and two new villagers would be born so thus the population would climb to 101.
In the courses that I teach, I often ask students to pause to look around their classroom, and observe the makeup of their classes in terms of race and ethnicity, as well as gender and theological diversity. Then I ask the students to imagine what our class may have looked like 40 years ago. It invariably becomes clear that the diversity of our classes today was not reflected in the classes of generations past.
In the summer of 2006, I had the privilege of leading a study group of 22 scholars from Wesley Theological Seminary in a doctoral immersion course that retraced many of the steps of the Civil Rights movement across Alabama. Our group reflected much of the diversity of the church and society. We were Hispanic, Native American, Caribbean, white and black, female and male, Baptist, Episcopalian, African Methodist Episcopal and United Methodist. In the spirit of the Civil Rights movement, we prayed, sang, and shared our thoughts together as we traveled. Dr. Eileen Guenther, a professor at Wesley Seminary and a part of our study group, offered that it was a spiritual sung by many choirs, “I’m Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table,” that played in her head throughout this experience (see The American Organist, November 2008).
Dr. Guenther says that she thought about the variety of tables that we encountered as we traveled through Alabama and how these were hopeful signs for her:
· Lunch counters of restaurants where all had not been welcome (in the past);
· The dining room table in the parsonage of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, in Montgomery,
where we were told, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formed;
· The kitchen table of the same parsonage where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. searched his
soul and felt God telling him to press on with his work;
· The tables at which the people at 16th Street Baptist Church served us lunch, tables placed
adjacent to the site of the tragic bombing in September 1963 that killed four young girls;
· The tables around which members of our group gathered to share stories as victims of
discrimination, of their courageous work in the Civil Rights movement (and other
freedom movements), and their lament over a lack of awareness of what was going on at
that time in our country’s history.
I sense that our experiences in Alabama are emblematic of the blessings and burdens facing the churches today. To talk about the contemporary church is to talk about Christianity that is being lived out in a post-Christian, postmodern context. This means that many of the assumptions about God, Christ and the church that may have shaped a collective understanding of faith communities in the past, can no longer be made in the same ways.
In light of declines across much of the church over the past 40 years, a primary theological task of today’s church is to be self-critical as it pertains to issues such as the proliferation of the prosperity gospel, the lack of activism in many circles, and the inability or unwillingness of the churches today to speak prophetically on matters of contemporary concern such as the war in Iraq, the widening gap between the rich and the poor in America and around the world, the ongoing proliferation of racial bigotry, and the marginalization of others in our society, along with the generally violent and misogynous nature of hip hop and other forms of popular culture.
Also, it is the churches’ task to articulate a framework for thinking and speaking about God amidst apparent hopelessness. A question that I believe we must continue to ask is one posed by Howard Thurman in his seminal work, Jesus and the Disinherited. Thurman asked, “What does the religion of Jesus have to say to people who have their back against the wall?” In other words, how does Christianity today offer hope to the disinherited among us – the poor, the voiceless, the violated, and the oppressed?
What is this hope of which we speak? In one of his later sermons, "The Meaning of Hope," Martin Luther King, Jr. defined hope as that quality which is "necessary for life."[1]
"The hopeless individual is the dead individual." In King's view hope had a transformative quality that keeps human beings "alive" both spiritually and psychologically.[2] Hope, therefore, is "one of the basic structures of an adequate life."
Furthermore, King asserted that hope was to be viewed as "animated and undergirded by faith and love." In King's mind, if you had hope, you had faith in something. "Hope is generated and animated by love, and is undergirded by faith."[3]
Hope helps us to look ahead with eyes of faith. Hope helps us to see the future with hearts of anticipation. Hope is the refusal to give up “despite overwhelming odds.”
This is what Jeremiah sought to intimate to the Israelites who found themselves mired in apparent hopelessness:
“For surely, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare (shalom,
wholeness), and not for your harm, plans to give you a future with hope.”
I believe that ours is a future with hope. On numerous occasions, Martin Luther King pointed out that the nature of the hope that many in the church have found in the resurrected Christ is imbedded in the questions posed by the prophet Jeremiah: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no healing in the land?” (Jeremiah 8:22)
King intimated that the miracle of faith is that many were able to convert the question marks of the prophet’s lament, into exclamation points as they affirmed their faith and hope in the living and life-giving God. So they could sing the Negro spiritual with hope:
There is a balm in Gilead,
to make the wounded whole
There is a balm in Gilead,
To heal the sin-sick soul
Sometimes I feel discouraged
And think my work’s in vain
And then the Holy Spirit
Revives my soul again![4]
[1] Garth Baker-Fletcher, Somebodyness, 132.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] See Songs of Zion, 123.
Hope insists on a color-blind church
(This essay was pubished by the United Methodist Connection, Baltimore-Washington Conference and United Methodist News Service on November 19, 2009.)
Recently, I was invited by a seminary in Baltimore to give a lecture dealing with the matter of the church and race relations over the past forty years, and whether it is possible - or even desirable - for us to strive to become color-blind. In my reflections, I recalled some of what was occurring in American in the late 1960’s. It was a time of great racial tension in America. In 1968, the Kerner Commission Report, which President Lyndon B. Johnson had requested in light of the riots that had broken out in several cities across the United States, summarized the state of race relations in America by noting that “America is a nation of two societies, one black and one white, separate and unequal.”
The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968 spawned a proliferation of violence in cities across the United States. In cities like Detroit, Washington, DC and Baltimore, in the aftermath of King’s death, we witnessed communities turn upon themselves in acts of violence and destruction. The images of large business corridors, residential communities and places of worship being looted and burned are still vivid in many of our memories.
A closer look at the state of race relations in the church - and society - today leads us to reflect on what might have been the hopes and dreams of those who engaged in earlier efforts toward racial reconciliation. Today, 40 years after the assassination of Dr. King, I suspect that many persons of all races would have hoped and expected that racism would no longer exist, and that perhaps the churches would be color-blind. We know that this is not the case.
In many ways, a pall remains over much – if not most - of today’s church with regard to how we have dealt with the race problem in America. In their 2001 book, Divided by Faith, Michael Emerson and Christian Smith developed a theory to explain why churches are racially exclusive enclaves despite Christian’s ideals about being inclusive: Americans choose where and with whom to worship; race is one of the most important grounds on which we choose; so the more choice we have, the more our religious institutions are likely to be segregated.
The authors point out that ninety-five percent of churches are effectively segregated, with 80 percent or more of their members being of the same race. The result is that about 5 percent of religious congregations in the U.S. can fairly be considered multicultural/multiracial, with the majority of Christians choosing to congregate with “birds of the same feather,” with their congregations reflecting ethnoracial particularism.
The recent presidential candidacy and election of Senator Barak Obama as the 44th president of the United States has served as a historical milestone for our nation. While Obama’s election as the first president of African descent has renewed the hope of many persons across the nation and the world, his candidacy offered a vivid snapshot of the state of race relations in the churches today. Much of the political discourse leading up to the election focused on Obama’s race and whether the nation was ready for a black president. These questions were raised almost 400 years after the first African slaves arrived on what would become America’s shores, and almost 150 years after the legal emancipation of slaves in America.
These questions were also raised against the backdrop of Obama’s former membership at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and his 20 year relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. On the surface, many of the concerns levied with regard to Obama’s relationship with Rev. Wright, centered on comments that Wright made in several sermons which offered pointed, and what many believe to have been derogatory, critiques of the Bush Administration in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks and in light of the current war in Iraq.
What seemed to be lost in the discourse – at least to some degree – was that Obama found spiritual resonance and a way of living out his Christian faith in a mainline congregation – Trinity UCC – which is deeply rooted in community activism and prophetic engagement. Also often lost in the discourse surrounding Obama’s candidacy is the fact that Senator Obama, as an African American, was a highly qualified presidential candidate who rose from an impoverished upbringing to become a person of exemplary achievement as a student at two Ivy League institutions, and as a community organizer and legislator.
One of the images that remains etched in my memory of the days leading up to the election are words that were displayed on a large marquee of a Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) in Bel Air, Md. The message on the marquee prominently announced the sermon for the two Sundays prior to the election, “Does God Love Obama?” As I drove by the sign on several occasions and pondered the question, it was evident that race continues to matter in America, and that we are not yet color-blind.
I sense that the election of Barak Obama as president offers hope for a society that finds itself on the brink of nihilism – where a certain hopelessness has made our collective future a bit murky. But as much as Obama’s election offers hope, it remains the churches’ primary task to speak and live hope amidst the critical moral and social issues of the contemporary age. It is the churches’ theological task to articulate a framework for thinking and speaking about God amidst apparent hopelessness. A question that we must continue to ask is one posed by Howard Thurman in his seminal work, Jesus and the Disinherited, “What does the religion of Jesus have to say to people who have their back against the wall?” In other words, how does Christianity today offer hope to the disinherited among us – the poor, the violated, and the oppressed?
A part of the churches’ task is also to be self-critical as it pertains to issues such as the proliferation of the prosperity gospel, the lack of activism in many circles and the inability or unwillingness of the churches today to speak prophetically on matters of contemporary concern such as the war in Iraq, the widening gap between the rich and the poor in America and around the world, the ongoing proliferation of racial bigotry, and the marginalization of others in our society, along with the generally violent and misogynous nature of hip hop and other forms of popular culture.
Near the end of his life, Martin Luther King, Jr. published a book entitled, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? In it, Dr. King reiterated a point he had made on several other occasions. He pointed out that we are faced with a choice in our life together, and that we will either learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or we will die together as fools. The church of today looks quite different from the church of 40 years ago. Progress can be seen in many areas, and yet there is still much work that lies ahead of us- we are not yet color-blind.
Though segregation continues to abound in many churches (as it does in many other sectors of society), I believe that the election of Barak Obama offers a glimmer of hope that someday the church and society might be color blind. My hope is rooted in the possibilities that we will continue to discover ways to capitalize on those experiences and encounters that lead us to being intentional and inclusive community. This is the hope that must be realized if we are to be the church – the Beloved Community - that Christ calls us to become.
Recently, I was invited by a seminary in Baltimore to give a lecture dealing with the matter of the church and race relations over the past forty years, and whether it is possible - or even desirable - for us to strive to become color-blind. In my reflections, I recalled some of what was occurring in American in the late 1960’s. It was a time of great racial tension in America. In 1968, the Kerner Commission Report, which President Lyndon B. Johnson had requested in light of the riots that had broken out in several cities across the United States, summarized the state of race relations in America by noting that “America is a nation of two societies, one black and one white, separate and unequal.”
The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968 spawned a proliferation of violence in cities across the United States. In cities like Detroit, Washington, DC and Baltimore, in the aftermath of King’s death, we witnessed communities turn upon themselves in acts of violence and destruction. The images of large business corridors, residential communities and places of worship being looted and burned are still vivid in many of our memories.
A closer look at the state of race relations in the church - and society - today leads us to reflect on what might have been the hopes and dreams of those who engaged in earlier efforts toward racial reconciliation. Today, 40 years after the assassination of Dr. King, I suspect that many persons of all races would have hoped and expected that racism would no longer exist, and that perhaps the churches would be color-blind. We know that this is not the case.
In many ways, a pall remains over much – if not most - of today’s church with regard to how we have dealt with the race problem in America. In their 2001 book, Divided by Faith, Michael Emerson and Christian Smith developed a theory to explain why churches are racially exclusive enclaves despite Christian’s ideals about being inclusive: Americans choose where and with whom to worship; race is one of the most important grounds on which we choose; so the more choice we have, the more our religious institutions are likely to be segregated.
The authors point out that ninety-five percent of churches are effectively segregated, with 80 percent or more of their members being of the same race. The result is that about 5 percent of religious congregations in the U.S. can fairly be considered multicultural/multiracial, with the majority of Christians choosing to congregate with “birds of the same feather,” with their congregations reflecting ethnoracial particularism.
The recent presidential candidacy and election of Senator Barak Obama as the 44th president of the United States has served as a historical milestone for our nation. While Obama’s election as the first president of African descent has renewed the hope of many persons across the nation and the world, his candidacy offered a vivid snapshot of the state of race relations in the churches today. Much of the political discourse leading up to the election focused on Obama’s race and whether the nation was ready for a black president. These questions were raised almost 400 years after the first African slaves arrived on what would become America’s shores, and almost 150 years after the legal emancipation of slaves in America.
These questions were also raised against the backdrop of Obama’s former membership at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and his 20 year relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. On the surface, many of the concerns levied with regard to Obama’s relationship with Rev. Wright, centered on comments that Wright made in several sermons which offered pointed, and what many believe to have been derogatory, critiques of the Bush Administration in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks and in light of the current war in Iraq.
What seemed to be lost in the discourse – at least to some degree – was that Obama found spiritual resonance and a way of living out his Christian faith in a mainline congregation – Trinity UCC – which is deeply rooted in community activism and prophetic engagement. Also often lost in the discourse surrounding Obama’s candidacy is the fact that Senator Obama, as an African American, was a highly qualified presidential candidate who rose from an impoverished upbringing to become a person of exemplary achievement as a student at two Ivy League institutions, and as a community organizer and legislator.
One of the images that remains etched in my memory of the days leading up to the election are words that were displayed on a large marquee of a Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) in Bel Air, Md. The message on the marquee prominently announced the sermon for the two Sundays prior to the election, “Does God Love Obama?” As I drove by the sign on several occasions and pondered the question, it was evident that race continues to matter in America, and that we are not yet color-blind.
I sense that the election of Barak Obama as president offers hope for a society that finds itself on the brink of nihilism – where a certain hopelessness has made our collective future a bit murky. But as much as Obama’s election offers hope, it remains the churches’ primary task to speak and live hope amidst the critical moral and social issues of the contemporary age. It is the churches’ theological task to articulate a framework for thinking and speaking about God amidst apparent hopelessness. A question that we must continue to ask is one posed by Howard Thurman in his seminal work, Jesus and the Disinherited, “What does the religion of Jesus have to say to people who have their back against the wall?” In other words, how does Christianity today offer hope to the disinherited among us – the poor, the violated, and the oppressed?
A part of the churches’ task is also to be self-critical as it pertains to issues such as the proliferation of the prosperity gospel, the lack of activism in many circles and the inability or unwillingness of the churches today to speak prophetically on matters of contemporary concern such as the war in Iraq, the widening gap between the rich and the poor in America and around the world, the ongoing proliferation of racial bigotry, and the marginalization of others in our society, along with the generally violent and misogynous nature of hip hop and other forms of popular culture.
Near the end of his life, Martin Luther King, Jr. published a book entitled, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? In it, Dr. King reiterated a point he had made on several other occasions. He pointed out that we are faced with a choice in our life together, and that we will either learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or we will die together as fools. The church of today looks quite different from the church of 40 years ago. Progress can be seen in many areas, and yet there is still much work that lies ahead of us- we are not yet color-blind.
Though segregation continues to abound in many churches (as it does in many other sectors of society), I believe that the election of Barak Obama offers a glimmer of hope that someday the church and society might be color blind. My hope is rooted in the possibilities that we will continue to discover ways to capitalize on those experiences and encounters that lead us to being intentional and inclusive community. This is the hope that must be realized if we are to be the church – the Beloved Community - that Christ calls us to become.
A Prayer for the City of Baltimore
(I gave this prayer at the Baltimore City Council Meeting on June 14, 2004, and believe that it contimues to be appropriate today.)
Gracious, all-loving and all-wise God,
in the busyness of this day,
we pause to offer thanks to you.
We come from various directions and locations;
we come with divergent perspectives;
we come with a diversity of hopes and dreams and visions.
But we come acknowledging that we gather
in the commonality that all persons share in you,
the creator of the universe.
O God, we offer you thanks for the city of Baltimore.
We pray that in the days ahead,
you’d bless every home and every community of Baltimore.
Bless every school and every place
where your people gather for work or leisure.
Bless those persons who are older and those who are younger.
We pray for peace and safety
for all of us who live and move throughout this city,
and we pray likewise for communities like ours
across our nation and world.
We pray that you will bless each of us gathered here.
Most importantly, we ask your blessings
upon those who serve and lead the city of Baltimore
in elective or appointive office.
Bless them with a portion of wisdom, patience,
integrity, justice and compassion.
Bless each of those who serve and lead
that they will be forever mindful of a collective commitment
to act in ways that facilitate the betterment
of each person, each home, each school, each community,
and each place of business of Baltimore.
Be with each of us now and forever, we pray. Amen.
in the busyness of this day,
we pause to offer thanks to you.
We come from various directions and locations;
we come with divergent perspectives;
we come with a diversity of hopes and dreams and visions.
But we come acknowledging that we gather
in the commonality that all persons share in you,
the creator of the universe.
O God, we offer you thanks for the city of Baltimore.
We pray that in the days ahead,
you’d bless every home and every community of Baltimore.
Bless every school and every place
where your people gather for work or leisure.
Bless those persons who are older and those who are younger.
We pray for peace and safety
for all of us who live and move throughout this city,
and we pray likewise for communities like ours
across our nation and world.
We pray that you will bless each of us gathered here.
Most importantly, we ask your blessings
upon those who serve and lead the city of Baltimore
in elective or appointive office.
Bless them with a portion of wisdom, patience,
integrity, justice and compassion.
Bless each of those who serve and lead
that they will be forever mindful of a collective commitment
to act in ways that facilitate the betterment
of each person, each home, each school, each community,
and each place of business of Baltimore.
Be with each of us now and forever, we pray. Amen.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
A Prayer for the City of Baltimore (and other Communities)
On December 7, 2007, the Baltimore-Washington Conference held a press conference and paryer service in Baltimore to address the ongoing issues of murder and violence in the city, and to pray for the people, communities and institutions of Baltimore. On yesterday, as a part of a day of service for pastors in the Baltimore region, a number of pastors joined to participate in a prayer walk through communities in Edgewater Village in Edgewood, MD, outside of Baltimore. Edgewater Village experiences urban blight and decline - poverty, homelssness, addiction and gang violence - similar to that in to many communites in Baltimore. During our walk, we came across a makeshift memorial sight for two young men who had been murdered - one in 2007 and one in 2008 - on one corner in Edgewater Village. The young men's names were Trig and Shadow. As we prayed at this memorial, it was evident that the concerns, prayers and hopes that we share for the city must cross geographic bounds. What also came to mind is that the prayers of the church must not cease, and that one of the prayers that we shared at last year's prayer service in Baltimore is appropriate one year later.
A Prayer for the City of Baltimore (12/7/07)
Lord God,
Our hearts are heavy this day,
laden with grief and anger and disbelief.
We feel wounded and disquieted
and yet O God, we know that our hope is in you.
Our faith keeps us coming to you in prayer,
coming to you for answers,
coming to you for peace and a release from anger.
Give us the nourishment of your living water
through Jesus Christ that our thirst may be quenched.
Quiet our souls and yet let us be free
to mourn with those who mourn.
In a week when our city struggles
with the death of children to street violence,
we pray for your wisdom.
Be with those parents and communities
who mourn this day.
God, help us to figure out
what is wrong with our society
that the violence and destruction to families and to life
itself might cease.
Lord, help us as we discern
the issues in our community
which give rise to such violence.
We pray for those who feel so hopeless and helpless
that they must resort to murder.
Motivate us to reach out in your name
to those who suffer,
heighten our awareness and move us to act.
In our own lives
bring your realm more fully upon us.
Weed out the sins
that keep us from following you and helping others.
Move us by your Spirit
to love you more deeply,
worship you more wholeheartedly,
and serve you in all ways. Amen.
Lord God,
Our hearts are heavy this day,
laden with grief and anger and disbelief.
We feel wounded and disquieted
and yet O God, we know that our hope is in you.
Our faith keeps us coming to you in prayer,
coming to you for answers,
coming to you for peace and a release from anger.
Give us the nourishment of your living water
through Jesus Christ that our thirst may be quenched.
Quiet our souls and yet let us be free
to mourn with those who mourn.
In a week when our city struggles
with the death of children to street violence,
we pray for your wisdom.
Be with those parents and communities
who mourn this day.
God, help us to figure out
what is wrong with our society
that the violence and destruction to families and to life
itself might cease.
Lord, help us as we discern
the issues in our community
which give rise to such violence.
We pray for those who feel so hopeless and helpless
that they must resort to murder.
Motivate us to reach out in your name
to those who suffer,
heighten our awareness and move us to act.
In our own lives
bring your realm more fully upon us.
Weed out the sins
that keep us from following you and helping others.
Move us by your Spirit
to love you more deeply,
worship you more wholeheartedly,
and serve you in all ways. Amen.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Signs of Hope - A Year After
It was a year ago this week that the Baltimore-Washington Conference held a press conference and prayer service at John Wesley United Methodist Church in Baltimore to address the rising number of murders and violent crimes in the city. Last year, as of the first week of December, there had been 268 murders in the city. On that Friday in December, several hundred persons gathered at the church, and several family members shared stories of the lasting impact of the death of their loved ones on them and their remaining family.
Bishop John R. Schol shared the church’s vision and commitment to offering hope and shalom in communities across the city. Specifically, Bishop Schol shared that in 2008, as a part of Hope for the City, the church’s strategic plan for ministry in Baltimore, the Baltimore-Washington Conference was committed to a five point action plan to addressing the murders in the city where we would:
1. Start at least seven Communities of Shalom
2. Provide a free camping experience at one of the United Methodist camp sites for any youth affected by the murder of a family member
3. Provide grief counseling for persons affected by murder
4. Work with police and community leaders to institute a gun turn-in program
5. Pray for persons, institutions and churches in each of the communities of the city.
This year, as of December 1st there have been 216 murders in Baltimore. While the decline may be a sign of hope, it does point to the significant challenge that continues to confront the city. In April, one of these 216 murders occurred in West Baltimore down the street from Unity UMC while a funeral was being conducted in the church. That murder was apparently in retaliation for the murder that had occurred just a few days earlier, of the person being memorialized at the church.
Each of the 216 persons counted on the rolls of the dead in the city so far this year represent the sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts of many persons. Each of these murders, like those of the three persons at whose murder sites we prayed last year, represent lost hopes and dreams, lost potential, promise and possibility.
In 2008, we in the Baltimore-Washington Conference have sought to follow through on the commitments we made last December. This year seven new Communities of Shalom involving 9 congregations have been commissioned and have begun to implement their action plans for ministry, several persons continue to receive grief counseling through Hope Counseling Services, and 46 children and youth affected by death and violence against a family member attended camp this past summer.
One compelling story is that of three of the persons who attended West River Camp who were connected to Unity UMC. This grandmother, and her two grandchildren had recently lost their son and father to murder, and shared of experiencing a bit of healing and hope in the few days afforded them to be away from the violent reminders incumbent in their West Baltimore community.
In 2009, we are committed to strengthening each of these ministries with specific plans to start at least three new Communities of Shalom and to offer camping opportunities for at least 100 city youth next summer. Signs of hope can be found in the ministry that each of us can offer to those who are hurting among us.
Bishop John R. Schol shared the church’s vision and commitment to offering hope and shalom in communities across the city. Specifically, Bishop Schol shared that in 2008, as a part of Hope for the City, the church’s strategic plan for ministry in Baltimore, the Baltimore-Washington Conference was committed to a five point action plan to addressing the murders in the city where we would:
1. Start at least seven Communities of Shalom
2. Provide a free camping experience at one of the United Methodist camp sites for any youth affected by the murder of a family member
3. Provide grief counseling for persons affected by murder
4. Work with police and community leaders to institute a gun turn-in program
5. Pray for persons, institutions and churches in each of the communities of the city.
This year, as of December 1st there have been 216 murders in Baltimore. While the decline may be a sign of hope, it does point to the significant challenge that continues to confront the city. In April, one of these 216 murders occurred in West Baltimore down the street from Unity UMC while a funeral was being conducted in the church. That murder was apparently in retaliation for the murder that had occurred just a few days earlier, of the person being memorialized at the church.
Each of the 216 persons counted on the rolls of the dead in the city so far this year represent the sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts of many persons. Each of these murders, like those of the three persons at whose murder sites we prayed last year, represent lost hopes and dreams, lost potential, promise and possibility.
In 2008, we in the Baltimore-Washington Conference have sought to follow through on the commitments we made last December. This year seven new Communities of Shalom involving 9 congregations have been commissioned and have begun to implement their action plans for ministry, several persons continue to receive grief counseling through Hope Counseling Services, and 46 children and youth affected by death and violence against a family member attended camp this past summer.
One compelling story is that of three of the persons who attended West River Camp who were connected to Unity UMC. This grandmother, and her two grandchildren had recently lost their son and father to murder, and shared of experiencing a bit of healing and hope in the few days afforded them to be away from the violent reminders incumbent in their West Baltimore community.
In 2009, we are committed to strengthening each of these ministries with specific plans to start at least three new Communities of Shalom and to offer camping opportunities for at least 100 city youth next summer. Signs of hope can be found in the ministry that each of us can offer to those who are hurting among us.
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