Hope for the City

THER IS A BALM!

2012-02-18T15:45:00.000-08:00

(The follwing is an abridged verion of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 2/12/12,and at Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, DC on 2/17/12)

“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no healing there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?“ (Jeremiah 8:21-22)

The writer of the book of Jeremiah asks the community of the faith of his day these provocative questions amidst their exile in a strange city. Here the Israelites found themselves 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 a backdrop such as this that Jeremiah poses these questions.

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 unlike that of our days. In many ways hope today seems fleeting - with political unrest, economic uncertainty, social disarray, and family distress.

I would suggest that Jeremiah’s questions 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 workshop to a group of young, emerging preachers in Baltimore. There they shared their challenges, and dreams and hopes for the church of today and tomorrow. And despite the challenges that we all acknowledged, I left that night with a sense of hopefulness for the church, as I sense that these young, gifted preachers will continue to be instruments of hope – conduits of hope – for church today and into the future.

Jeremiah poses the questions:
“Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?”

The region of Gilead was known for producing a healing balm. This balm was known for its medicinal qualities. When people where hurting, they would seek out the balm from Gilead, for it was like no other in its ability to facilitate healing. The balm from Gilead was considered to be a miracle drug, and if it could not heal one’s wounds…there was perhaps nothing that could.

Is there no balm? For me this conjures images of visiting my Grandmother in Lynchburg, Virginia as a child. When we became ill and were hurting, my grandmother would often concoct a home remedy – what she called liniment – a balm – to soothe our hurts and pains. She would combine various ingredients as only she knew how to do, and she would rub the balm on the places we were hurting, and somehow the balm and my grandmother’s tender, loving care would make everything all-right.

In light of declines across much of the church over the past 40 years, one of the church’s primary theological tasks to be self-critical as it pertains to our role in addressing 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 Afghanistan, corporate greed, 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.

Furthermore, it is the churches’ – and indeed the theological schools’ - task to articulate a framework for thinking and speaking about God amidst the apparent hopelessness around us. 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? We are to be conduits – instruments of hope.

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."

"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. Hope, therefore, is "one of the basic structures of an adequate life."

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.”

In this month when we celebrate, honor and give thanks to God for those African Americans who were bruised over history by the atrocities of the Middle Passage slavery, and jim and jane crow, we are reminded that 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. And 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!

SOUL FOOD

2012-02-08T16:30:00.000-08:00

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preched at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 2/5/12)

Exodus 16:1-15

A careful analysis of the African-American community points to the fact that we are people of with soul. That is to say that I believe that we all can relate in some way to the matter of the importance of “soul” in the life of the Black community. “Soul” is defined as that which is found deep within each of us. In the early 1900’s Dr. W.E.B. DuBois – renowned African-American sociologist – sought to get at the essence of this matter in his seminal book entitled the “Souls of Black Folk.”

Whether it is in the soul music of Aretha Franklin (the Queen of Soul) or James Brown (the Godfather of Soul)... the soul theology of Henry Mitchell or James Cone or Jacquelyn Grant… the “Soul on Ice” of Eldridge Cleaver… or the “Soul Train” of (the late great) Don Cornelius, blacks in America have been and continue to be a people concerned with the matter of soul. Whether it is Al Green or President Barack Obama singing “Let’s Stay Together,” or Etta James or Beyonce Knowles singing “At Last,” we are reminded that we are a people of soul.

Some of us might remember the movie “Soul Food” from a number of years ago. The movie offered a vivid depiction of the life of an African-American family, and how life – with all of its ups and downs – with all of its trials and tribulations – with all of life’s drama – can certainly be trying at times. And yet, through it all, black families have somehow found a way to maintain some sense of unity, hope, and most importantly love.

The image of “Big Mama,” even as she was advancing in age and experiencing failing health, having the ability to bring her family together around the table is vivid. And with whatever Big Mama’s daughters and their families were going through, and whatever mess and discord they were experiencing among themselves - gathering at Big Mama’s table and sharing in some soul food always seemed to make things better.

For me, the movie brought back memories, and served as a reminder of the importance of family, and how important it is for loved ones to come together and stay together. “Soul Food,” the movie, was a reminder of the Scripture as it is written in Psalm 133, “Behold, how very good and pleasant it is for kindred (brothers and sisters) to dwell together in unity.”

“Soul Food” also brought back memories of my Grandmother’s home-baked rolls and chocolate cake. There were none like them. And my mother’s chicken and dumplings. There were none like them. And Lisa’s macaroni and cheese. There is none like it. It never ceases to amaze me how everything they cooked seemed to turn out just right.

In Exodus chapter 16, we find a story about soul food. Here we find the people of Israel in the desert with their leaders, Moses and Aaron. The Israelites had been traveling through the desert for a short time. In the dessert we know that food and water are typically in short supply, and so the people, even in this short time in the desert, started to run out of food.

There the people found themselves grumbling and complaining, fretting and murmuring to Moses and Aaron. There the Israelites were in the desert after having been set free from their Egyptian slave masters by God, and now all of a sudden wondering how they were going to eat.

The Israelites said to Moses and Aaron, “we were better off when we were in captivity (slavery) in Egypt.” “At least when we were in slavery, we had food to eat.” “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve to death.”

The people were hungry, and they were angry, and they were looking to Moses and Aaron to provide some food for them. And so Moses spoke to the Lord, and the Lord said to him, “I have heard the grumbling of my people.” Tell them, ‘At twilight they will eat meat, and in the morning they will be filled with bread. Then they will know that I am the LORD their God.’”

The word tells us, that evening huge flocks of quail came down and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost appeared on the desert ground - and they called this manna.

Moses said to them, “It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat.” God wanted to teach the Israelites that God would provide for all their needs. Wherever they found themselves, and whatever they needed, God would and could provide for their needs. The same God who had created them – the same God who had parted the Red sea and delivered them - the same God who had made ways before in their lives - would do it again.

We are like the Israelites. We all hunger for the Lord’s provision in our lives. We all stand in need of the Lord’s provision in our lives. And while God desires to meet our physical needs, God also wants us to know that we cannot live on physical food alone. God wants us to know that God will also provide for our spiritual needs. God will feed our souls.

Our soul food comes through worshipping God, through spending time in prayer and studying God’s word, through fellowshipping and encouraging one another, and through serving and reaching out to others. How have you sought to have your soul fed lately?

And so, whatever “Big Mama” was cooking – whether it was chitterlings or spare ribs, collard greens or green beans, apple pie or blackberry cobbler – it really didn’t matter. What really mattered was that family gathered, broke bread together, and that together their souls were fed.

And so it was with the Israelites. As they complained and doubted, as they fussed and fretted with Moses and Aaron, it’s good to know that God showed up in their lives, and God rained down manna from heaven for them to eat. This was a reminder to them (and to us today), evidence, that God is a provider and God does indeed show up, and meets us at the point of all our needs. “Lord, All I have needed, thy hand has provided – Great is your faithfulness.”

And as the Lord provided, they continued on their journey. Maybe they sang:
Walk together children… Don’t you get weary.
Walk together children… Don’t you get weary.
Walk together children…. There’s a great camp meeting in the promised land.

God will show up on time, and God not only shows up, but the Lord feeds us until we want no more.

This is what the song-writer meant when it was written:
Guide me o though great Jehovah
Pilgrims of this barren land
I am weak and thou art mighty
Guide me with thou powerful hand
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven
Feed me till I want no more…

Dare to Dream

2012-01-19T17:28:00.000-08:00

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 1/15/12)

In the reading from the book of the prophet Joel, it is written, “And it shall come to pass, afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; and your sons and daughters shall prophesy; your old men (and women) shall dream dreams, your young men (and women) shall see visions.” (Joel 2:28)

How fitting it is that we hear these words this weekend as we celebrate the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. If Dr. King was anything, he was a dreamer and a visionary, a man chosen by God to be a prophet in our midst.

We recall that in our nation’s capital almost 49 years ago, at the urging of the great gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson, Dr. King told the world of his dreams and what he envisioned for our world. He dreamt, we recall, of a world where the descendants of former slaves and former slave-owners would be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood… a world where little children would someday live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Dr. King envisioned a world where we would grow to see the face of Jesus in Blacks and Whites, Latinos and Native Americans, Asians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and all other racial, ethnic, social, cultural and religious groups. He dared to dream and envision:
• A world of peace and love among all women and men, girls and boys...
• A world where we would study war no more…
• A world where poverty, hunger, and homelessness would be eradicated…
• A world where violence and abuse would exist no longer.

Toward the conclusion of his life in 1968, Dr. King wondered out loud about the dream he had articulated for America and the world in 1963, and whether his dream had in turn become a “nightmare.”

It leads us to ask ourselves the questions today, “What has really happened to King’s dream, and our own ability to hope and love and envision and dream? Where are our dreams and visions today?

The word of hope is this. We can all be dreamers and visionaries. The prophet Joel offered words of encouragement to Judah amidst their despair and exile, “And it shall come to pass, afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; and your sons and daughters shall prophesy; your old men (and women) shall dream dreams, your young men (and women) shall see visions.” (Joel 2:28)

We can all dare to dream. Dr. King came not only to dream himself, but to prophetically challenge each of us to dare, in our heart of hearts, to dream and vision… knowing that through hope and faith, and steadfastness and courage, we could live a better tomorrow. He dared to dream, so that you and I could dream today.

We can dare to dream, and Dr. King’s dreams can come alive for us today:
• As we advocate and work to address poverty and oppression…
• As we continue to fight for healthcare for everybody…
• As we commit ourselves to peace and justice for all humanity.
• As we work for a nonviolent society…
• As we hold before ourselves the belief in the words etched in our Declaration of Independence, that “all people are created equal.”

Keep dreaming! Indeed, we are called today to dream dreams and see visions. Dare to dream of what our families (and our young people)… and our churches… and our communities… and our governments… and our world will be in the days to come.

In one of his poems, Langston Hughes encourages us to:

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

2012-01-10T15:50:00.000-08:00

IN TRIBUTE TO DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

A TEN POINT ACTION PLAN
(by Dr. C. Anthony Hunt)

During his life, Dr. Martin Luther King believed that everyone could be great because everyone could serve. Making a sincere commitment to the King holiday and all it represents, as well as taking some appropriate action to serve the causes of equality, justice, freedom and peace, are ways in which individuals, churches, groups, organizations, institutions and even governments can act to continue Dr. King’s unfinished work, and to perpetuate the pursuit of his vision of the Beloved Community.

Here are ten ways that we can act to honor the dream and legacy of Dr. King in his life and death:

1. Support and develop community-wide plans aimed at expanding economic opportunities for racial-ethnic persons and women specifically in the areas of housing, banking and employment practices.

2. Plan to actively participate in an event that reaches out to those in the most need – the hungry, the homeless and the unemployed.

3. Adopt an inner-city school. Offer your skills where appropriate. Do your part to assure that every inner city young person can look forward to an adequate education.

4. Encourage schools, colleges and universities in your community to include Dr. King’s teachings in their curricula and programs.

5. Take specific actions to deal with the problems of drugs, alcohol dependency, teenage pregnancy, and family violence.

6. Become an advocate - and encourage church, political and community leaders to advocate - for the removal of all weapons from our streets, homes and schools.

7. Support causes that promote freedom, justice and peace abroad. Help extend human rights, dignity, health and economic well-being to all persons.

8. Take a stand, and encourage persons in your church and community to actively oppose those groups that promote hatred and violence. Actively and vigilantly oppose racism, homophobia and other forms of xenophobia in our communities.

9. Sponsor and participate in programs that encourage interracial and intercultural goodwill and unity.

10. Read the Social Principles of The United Methodist Church, and strive to make them an integral part of the faith and life of yourself and your church.

Press On!

2012-01-06T16:14:00.000-08:00

(This is an abridged version of the New Year's Day sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 1/1/12)

Philippians 3:12-14

I think that all of us would agree that we want to grow in the various aspects of our lives – spiritually, emotionally, relationally and physically. If the truth is told, it is often not a matter of if we want to grow – but the issue for many of us is how we actually get from where we are to where we believe that God is leading us.

It is important for all of us to know that God has a divine plan for each of our lives. Yes, from the point of our conception, God has a blueprint – a road-map established for each of us. God has certain things that he intends for us to accomplish during our days here on earth. This is what the prophet Jeremiah meant when he said, “from the time that I was in my mother’s womb, God you knew me.”

God who knows all, and sees all, and is all, already knows what the plan is for each of us.

The problem then is not one of God not knowing, but of our not recognizing what God wants us to be and to do. The problem for many of us is a problem of conformity. We encounter stunted growth in our lives because of a lack of conformity to God’s will and way for our lives. Many people wonder “why am I at the same point today as I was last year? Why do I have the same hang-ups? Why do I have the same problems? Why do the same people and places and things seem to be holding me back?

And if you know like I know, churches ponder the very same questions that we do in our individual and family lives. Why can’t we grow? Why are we dealing with the same mess this year that we were dealing with last year? Why are we in this rut? Why are we mired in the blues and the blahs, with no apparent way out?

What we need to realize is that God has a plan for taking every church to another level.

God has a plan for us. God does not want us to be at the same place in our lives tomorrow as we are today. In fact, God is willing and able to move some things and some people out of our way, in order for us to grow if we would just let the Lord take over, and really become the Lord of our lives.

In our Scripture text, Paul – the preacher and pastor – here uses his own life as an example of how God wants to transform us and take us to another level. We remember Paul had been a sinner who was saved by grace. Paul had sought to persecute those who followed Jesus, and Jesus met Paul one day, knocked him down and then picked him back up and used him as a servant for the newly emerging church.

Paul here seeks to use his life and what God had done for him, and how God was taking him to another level as an example for those in the Philippian church who needed to be encouraged.

Hear Paul’s words: “It is not that I have already obtained this, or reached my goal, but I press to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press toward the mark (goal) for the heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

In other words, God had blessed Paul, but he knew that God was still taking him higher. And as God had blessed the church, God also desired to take the body of Christ to another level.

So how is it that we – you and I - might go to another level in our lives? How might our church go to another level? There are a few things that we will need to understand if we are to do to go to another level.

First in order to go to another level, we will need to realize that we have not yet reached our goal, we have not yet made it. Paul said it is not as though I have already obtained this, or have already reached my goal. Many people stop growing because they live under the false assumption that they already have it made (in the shade). They already have a good job, a few dollars in the bank, a house to live in, a spouse and a family. They are already an officer in the church. So they think they have it made.

Well, I have news for us, regardless of what our lot in life, whatever we may or may not have yet attained, God is not finished with any of us yet. We are all a work in progress. God wants to work on you and me, build us up, and make us new. God is not finished with is yet.

Second, we need to know that in order for God to take us to another level we are going to have to forget some things. Paul says, “Forgetting those things that are behind.” In other words, we are going to have to put some things, put some people, and put some situations behind us. We are going to have to forget some hurts, and forget some disappointments from our past.

How many of us still hold grudges and find it hard to let go of things that may have happened to us 5, 10, 20 years ago? Many folk are still mad, still upset, and still disgusted at people who we feel did us wrong a long time ago. Many times, these people don’t even remember what they did to hurt us.

We need to forget some things. It’s time for all of us to move on, from some things in life, and stop letting our old grudges and old hurts hold us back, and keep us from growing and fulfilling our potential in Christ. Church, it’s time to let some things go, give them to God, and let the Lord do the rest.

The third thing that we need to do is to press on. Once we forget some things and let go of some things, we need to start pressing, and moving to where God is leading us. One thing I’ve learned about getting to the places where God leads us, is that it takes a lot of persistence (importunity). But as tire as we might get, and discouraged as we might feel, we need to keep pressing, keep pushing (in the name of Jesus) to where God is leading us. Press on!.

Well, as we think on Paul and what he was saying to the Philippian church, we know that we must press on. Might we sing as the song-writer wrote: .

I’m pressing on
The upward way
New heights I’m gaining
Every day...

UNWRAP THE GIFT

2012-01-06T15:10:00.000-08:00

(This is an abriged version of the Christmas sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 12/25/11.)

Luke 2:1-7

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 rush to the Christmas tree, look under the tree, find those gifts that have been placed there for them, and begin to unwrap their gifts. Young faces will be filled with joy, as they unwrap their gifts and discover what has been given to them.

These acts of gift-giving, while offering joy to some, also should lead us to reflect upon the very commercialism that has come to so permeate our sense of reality, the materialism that has come to consume so much of our collective conscious. This is the type of affluenza – that which Marion Wright Edelman describes in terms of us having too much that is worth too little – that in some ways has become even more pronounced in the economic down-turn that affects us all today.

That Jesus was born poor and homeless, that his earthly father was a working class man and his mother was single offers us a cause for pause and reflection in the light of the relative elaborateness of the season of Christmas for many. That Jesus was born in a manger, and that we have been offered images of him being wrapped not in fine clothing but is swaddling clothing, gives us cause for pausing yet again to reflect upon who it is that we worship, who it is that we follow, and who it is we seek to imitate, who it is that we celebrate during this season.

The gift that is Christ is one that if are to really unwrap it, we would find 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 immigrant and exile 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 – leopers and those demon- possessed.

I am reminded of the story of a little boy who one year decided that what he wanted for Christmas was a wagon. In the days leading up to Christmas, the little boy would 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 down-stares and under the tree… he found the wagon that he had prayed to Jesus for.

And so the boy went outside with this wagon… As he was riding, a police officer stopped the boy and said, we have a report that a statue of Jesus is missing from the church down the street, and we notice that you have one in your wagon. The boy said to the police officer, I’m just keeping the promise I made to give Jesus a ride. Some of us owe Jesus a ride for the gifts not only that he has given to us, but for the gift that he is to us.

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 real joy amidst joy that often feels vapid and false. We find hope in the face of the apparent insurmountabilities of life.

And ultimately, the gift of Christ is our redemption. In these days of uncertainty and fear, Christ makes real claims upon the church and the world. These are days when most stores offer instant rebates for many of the things that we buy. In days past, I can remember my grandmother collecting S&H green stamps for the things she would buy… As she collected enough green stamps, she would go to the store to cash in the stamps 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, to buy us back, and claim us for God. This is the gift that we unwrap during this season, Christ, our redeemer, Christ, the redeemer of the world. Unwrap the Gift!

2012-01-02T18:14:00.000-08:00

"It may well be that the greatest tragedy of this period of social change is not the glaring noisiness of the so-called bad people, but the silence of the so-called good people." --Martin Luther King. Jr.

In 2012, God grant us the courage to speak up, stand up and act up.

2012-01-02T12:24:00.001-08:00

"The ultimate measure of a person is not where one stands in moments of comfort and covenience, but where one stands in moments of challenge and controversy." (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

The Politics of Jesus

2011-12-26T18:56:00.000-08:00

In the book, "The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus’ Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted," Dr. Obery Henricks writes, “To say that Jesus was a political revolutionary is to say that the message he proclaimed not only called for change in individual hearts but also demanded sweeping and comprehensive change in the political, social, and economic structures in his setting in life..."

Hendricks is Professor of New Testament Intepretation at New York Theological Semianry and Scholar in Residence at Columbia University. He shares 7 Political Strategies of Jesus. The strategies are:

1. Treat people needs as holy.
2. Give a voice to the voiceless.
3. Expose the working of oppression.
4. Call the demon by name.
5. Save your anger for the mistreatment of others.
6. Take blows without returning them.
7. Don't just explain the alternative, show it.

GET READY - JESUS IS COMING!

2011-12-22T15:29:00.000-08:00

(This is an abridged version of the preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 12/11/11.

Mark 13:32-37

I don’t know about you, but as I look around, I believe that God has to be up to something. With every act of violence, it is evident that God has to be up to something. With every war, and every rumor of war - it is very apparent that God has to be up to something. I sense that God is looking down on the disarray of our world, and God sees that there is a need to work in our midst.

I know that this might seem like “pie in the sky” optimism - but for people of faith – for those of us who are looking at the condition of our world through eyes of faithfulness - we know that God never leaves us hopeless. Even amidst the blues and the blahs of this world – we know that God never leaves us hopeless. For we know that where there is faith, there is always the possibility of life.

As is the case today, at the impending birth of Jesus – the world was likewise in turmoil. Rome had occupied Jerusalem – and had assumed control of the life of the persons who lived there. Persons were not free to worship their God.

The condition of the world at the Lord’s birth should remind us that suffering and oppression - the trials and tribulations of this present day – are not unique to today’s world.

Certainly, AIDS afflicts millions of children and adults across the globe. Violence of many types continues to afflict our communities. Drugs and addiction remains rampant among us. Corruption and scandal seems to pervade the corporate world, to permeate our government, and has even infected many parts of the church.

Many people find themselves in emotional and relational distress – looking for love and happiness in all the wrong places.

And yet - God sent Jesus. God’s divine love for the world was evident in that God broke into the human condition, and came to dwell with us in the person of God’s only begotten Son. In the midst of a broken world – Jesus (God incarnate – God ‘in-flesh’) came with a purpose. Jesus came to offer peace to the world.

And Jesus came with a promise. He promised that he would never leave us or forsake us – that whatever might trouble us – if we believe in him – he would be with us. (God Immanuel – God with us)

In Mark’s gospel, Jesus said, “Be on guard! Be alert! For you do not know when that time will come… what I say to you, I say to everyone, Watch, (keep awake) for I am coming.”

Jesus beckons us today to “Get Ready” for he is coming to be present with us.”

The season of Advent serves to remind us of the imminent coming – the imminent appearing - of Jesus.

Why do we need to be reminded of this today? Amidst the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, it is easy for us to move – very quickly from Thanksgiving to Christmas – with no time of spiritual preparation in between. Indeed, it is distressing to witness how excessive commercialism and unhindered consumerism …. shopping malls and shopping frenzies …the media and the hype of the season have so many people hooked. Hooked to the point where too many persons have forgotten – if they ever really knew – the real meaning of Christmas – the true reason for the season.

Advent calls us to a time of anxious anticipation – a time of expectant waiting - for Jesus. During this Advent season, we should be expecting Jesus to enter into our lives in new and exciting ways.

Advent calls us to the discipline of waiting on God. If you know like I know, the discipline of waiting on the Lord is not easy. Waiting is always a test of our patience, and an act of ceding our need for control, to circumstances that are often out of our control.

If you’ve ever waited on a waitress… waited on a bus… waited on a plane, waited on a taxi-cab - you know of the difficulty of waiting and being patient. If you’ve ever waited for guests to arrive… waited for graduations to come… waited for diplomas to be earned…waited for a paycheck to show up…waited for a loved one to return – you know of the difficulty of waiting.

For those of us who have had to wait for a decision on a job application…or had to wait for a diagnosis in the midst of illness - we know that waiting is often filled with anxiety. Advent beckons us to the discipline of waiting on God.

And furthermore, Mark reminds us that as the Church – as persons of faith in Christ – as we wait on the Lord’s appearing, we are to prepare ourselves for his coming. We are reminded of our need to be spiritually prepared for Christmas.

Advent waiting is about doing those things necessary to prepare – to get ready – for the coming of the Lord Jesus into our lives.

As we prepare, spiritually, for Christ’s appearing:
• Let us commit ourselves during Advent to spending quality time with God – time in prayer, and study, and worship.
• Let us commit ourselves to spending quality time with family and friends.
• Let us commit ourselves to serving those less fortunate than us, and showing genuine concern for the least, and the lost, and the left out among us.

And as we prepare ourselves for the Lord’s appearing – as we ready ourselves for God’s advent in our lives - we can sing out loud with the confidence and assurance of the saints of God:

Come thou long-expectant Jesus,
Born to set the people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in thee…

WAIT ON THE LORD

2011-12-21T15:16:00.000-08:00

This is an abridged version preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 12/4/11.

(Matthew 2:1-12)

In a phenomenal little book entitled "Addicted to Hurry," Dr. Kirk Byron Jones addresses a matter that is endemic and epidemic in our contemporary culture. Jones reminds us of our conspicuous propensity toward rushing – we are addicted to hurry. Indeed hurry is on of the marks of our society.

It is very apparent that too many people, are in too much of a hurry, to accomplish too many things, and see too many people, and go to too many places. We are mired in a compulsive, obsession with speed.

Yes we are a world that is in a hurry. We’re in a hurry to get to work, a hurry to get to school, a hurry to get to church, a hurry to get to the store.

We’re in a hurry. We’re in a hurry to vacation, and a hurry to retire. We’re in a hurry to order our food, a hurry to eat our food, and a hurry to pay for our food. We’re in a hurry to matriculate, a hurry to graduate, a hurry to marry, and some are even in a hurry to get divorced.

We’re in a hurry for medical care, a hurry for lawyer’s advice, a hurry to lose weight, and a hurry to look good. We’re in a hurry to make money, a hurry to spend money, and some of us may even be in a hurry to save some money. We’re in a hurry to buy the car, a hurry to buy the house, a hurry to buy the wide screen television set (with remote control).

It seems that in recent years, we as a nation have even been in hurry to engage in war – a hurry to shed blood, and hurry to bomb the homes, and schools, and mosques of persons in far off lands.

So often it seems that in the midst of our rush to get things done, and to go from place to place, we fail to see what is really going on around us. And it is in these moments during the Advent season, as we prepare for Christmas that our hurriedness becomes more pronounced and exacerbated. People push to the front of the line, cars speed ahead, and we all are left to wonder as to the true meaning and relevance of the season.

It seems that in many ways, we have lost a sense of connectedness and patience – a sense of common interest and genuine concern among persons. It seems that we’ve lost much of our capacity to pause and wait - and savor and relish the meaning of life and our common plight as the people of God.

It seems that at the birth of Jesus, the world was similarly hurried. 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 King Herod was obviously disturbed – troubled - by these events. he was disturbed at the uproar surrounding the birth of a child to parents who were not of royal state – but who was receiving so much attention. King Herod was concerned and disturbed (troubled) at the excitement for one born in the politically insignificant village of Bethlehem. And so King Herod was in a hurry to find out where Jesus was, and to have the wise men return the baby to him.

If we would take a moment and look at our world – I believe we would clearly see that what Advent helps is to see is 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.

I believe that this demonstrates God’s love for all humanity, and thus we see God’s call that we engage in the same kind of radical love for each other.

Indeed, God saw fit to send Jesus, God’s only begotten son into the world to save us from sin and destruction, and worry and hurry. Jesus – God incarnate (in-flesh) was God’s way of getting the world’s attention some two thousand years ago. The world then was beckoned to stop, and look, and consider how God was working in the world.

And so it is that we might take a few moments during the hustle and bustle – amidst the hurriedness of the season reflect upon the meaning of Advent. 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 – who is the reason for the season? 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?

In the flight of time, in the hurriedness of our days, we are invited to note the actions of the Magi – the wise men – who would take time out of their busy-ness, their rush to get things done, to observe how God was acting in the world in the person of Jesus.

Indeed, what Advent is really about is waiting on the Lord. We are beckoned today to stop, and consider the ways in which we need God to work in our lives. What are we waiting for the Lord to do for us?

I don’t know about you - but I believe given the condition of our world, we need to learn how wait on the Lord.

I know that it might not always be easy to wait, but I’m glad to tell that some folk came along before us to teach us how to wait.
1. The children waited on the Lord for 40 years in the wilderness.
2. Job in his trouble said I’m going to wait on the Lord until my change comes.
3. David encouraged us to wait on the Lord, and be of good courage.
4. And Isaiah came along and gave us a song to remind us what would happen when we wait on the Lord. Isaiah told us:

They that wait on the Lord
Will renew their strength
They will mount up with wings as eagles
They will run and not be weary
They will walk and not faint!

KEEP HOPE ALIVE!

2011-12-21T15:01:00.000-08:00

(This is an adapted version of the sermon preahced at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 11/27/11)

"For unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given. (Isaiah 9:6)

Keep hope alive! This statement was once a popular mantra of hope and possibility for many. In the context of the Advent season, in the context of our Christ faith, the statement takes on bold new meaning. It is the message of Advent, the message of promise – the message that help is on the way.

In this season, we remember the hope of the prophet Isaiah who proclaimed:
“For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called wonderful, counselor,
the mighty God, the everlasting father,
the prince of peace (Isaiah 9:6).

Here, Isaiah begins to speak hope and possibility and promise into the apparently hopeless predicament of the people of Israel. Here they were mired in a condition of centuries of complacency before God, centuries of wandering and disobedience. Now lost, and wondering about their future. The Israelites had nowhere to turn, and nobody to depend upon – they were seemingly hopeless in their despair.

And in many ways, our days seem to be filled with similar doom and gloom. Just open the newspaper - political unrest, social dysfunction, economic uncertainty, natural disasters, and community violence, not to mention spiritual demise, abounds.

Philosopher Cornel West calls the conditions in which we live the “Nihilism” of our communities - where a certain nothingness, meaninglessness, lovelessness, and hopelessness seems to have pervaded and permeated our reality.

In the midst of these recent realities, disasters, unrest, and uncertainty about the days ahead, the Advent season reminds us that we have to KEEP HOPE ALIVE. Why? Because help is on the way.

Isaiah spoke possibility and promise into the community of faith by declaring to them that “unto us a child is born.”

Now notice here that it would take over 700 years for this prophetic promise to come to fruition (“for unto us a child IS born”), but still Isaiah spoke promise into their present reality. Note here that Isaiah did not say that a child would be born, but that “Unto is a child IS born.”

In other words, the Israelites needed to see the promise of the Messiah – the promise of salvation, the promise of wholeness, and the promise of healing as a part of their present reality.

“For unto us a child is born.” It’s interesting, as we look with hope and expectancy at the coming of the Lord, that at the birth of Jesus, God used everything that was wrong with this world to make us right. Jesus was born in a manger, not in a hospital – he was born to an unwed, teenaged mother – he was born without a biological father – he was raised by homeless parents – he was not of an elite class, but born into poverty and struggle. In Jesus, God used everything that is wrong with our world to make us right.

Keep hope alive! What are we really talking about when we talk about hope? Hope is not something that is static, and may not be even be material, but hope is living and helps us to see how God will be at work in our lives in the future.

• Hope helps us to experience disappointment, and see victory.
• Hope helps us to look at need, and see provision.
• Hope helps us to experience death, and know that life is still possible.
• Hope helps us to look at the darkness, and know that daybreak is on the horizon.

We are encouraged today to KEEP HOPE ALIVE! For help is not only on the way, but help has already come in the person of Jesus Christ.
Keep hope alive! For, indeed God is a God who has come to help us rise in this day, to help is to hold on, to help is stay strong and keep looking up.

Hope would lead Isaiah - amidst the dismal despair – the tumultuous turmoil of his day to later write another song:
Even youths faint and grow weary,
And young men stumble and fall
But they that wait on the Lord (those who hope in the
Lord)
Will renew their strength,
They will mount up with wings as eagles,
They will run and not get weary,
They will walk and not faint.

KEEP HOPE ALIVE !

Thank You!

2011-11-23T05:57:00.000-08:00

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 11/20/11)

"Praise the Lord! O give thanks to the Lord, for God is good, for God’s steadfast love endures forever. Who can utter the mighty doings of the Lord, or declare all God’s praise?" (Psalm 106:1-2)

It has been suggested that there is an infectious disease that is permeating our land. It is the disease of ingratitude. We live in an age where many people have forgotten how to say “thank you.” Ingratitude has overtaken us.

If you know like I know, there is a certain irony that can be found here, in that we are more blessed than we have ever been in the history of civilization. We are blessed with technological advances, and material things that our foreparents could have only dreamt about.

Many of us are blessed to have finer homes, and larger cars, and more expensive clothing than ever thought we should or could possess. Many of us are blessed to be more educated and to have better jobs, and some of us even have a few more dollars in the bank. We’re blessed.

But still many people today are infected with this disease of ingratitude. For some reason many people are ungrateful, and seem not to know how to say “thank you.”

I remember growing up, and being taught as one of the first lessons of life how to say “please” and “thank you.” It was engrained into our very being as young people that if you wanted somebody to do something for you… you’d first say “please.” And once somebody was kind enough to do something for you, however small or large it was, the appropriate response was to say “thank you.”

Now it seems that many people think that it is their right that somebody would do something for them. They have the audacity – the nerve – the unmitigated gall – to ask without saying “please,” and to receive without saying “thank you.” Ingratitude is in our midst.

In Psalm 106, we find the psalmist reminding those who would hear with these words, “O give thanks to the Lord for God is good; God’s steadfast love endures forever.

This is a word of reminder to the faithful. In order that their faith might be well-founded and properly grounded, in order that their hope and perspective might be sustained, the psalmist sent them a lesson in thanksgiving. In order to improve their aptitude for praise, and enhance their attitude of gratitude, the psalmist here offers words of instruction as to the conditions in which the believers of this day were to render their appreciation, and say “thank you” to the Lord.

In similar words of encouragement, the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica and said, “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you.” (1 Thess. 5:18)

What Paul was saying to the congregation is that the zenith of Christian conduct is to be able to say “thank you.” In everything give thanks, Paul says.

Here, in Thessalonians we find that the apostle Paul was en-route to Rome with a layover in Corinth when he wrote his first letter to the young church at Thessalonica. Paul was aware that the church there would have its ups and downs, its risings and fallings. It is apparent above all else, that the people in the midst of whatever they were going through, had forgotten how to say “Thank You” to the Lord.

And so Paul says that we are to give thanks in all things. Herein lays the real challenge of faith and life. If we are to follow Paul’s instruction, we will develop the capacity to give thanks for the good and the bad of life. We will be able to give thanks in ups as well as in downs, in the sunshine and the rain, in life and in death, in triumph and in trial.

The psalmist encourages us to give thanks - in other words, to say "Thank You!" If we affirm what the psalmist wrote, we can affirm that God is good. This speaks to the very nature of who God is. The Lord is good. This is the acknowledgement of the omni-benevolence of that Lord, that the Lord is God in all God’s ways.
• From the rising of the sun, to the going down of the same, God is good.
• In ups and downs, God is good.
• In joy and even in sadness, the Lord is good.
• In times of prosperity and even in times of need, the Lord is good.

O, give thanks to the Lord, for God is good. God’s steadfast love endures forever. Oh that people of faith will find a reason to be grateful in the days that are before us.

When I think of the goodness of Jesus
And all that he’s done for me
My soul cries out, Hallelujah,
I thank God for blessing me!

Teaching our Children

2011-11-18T12:52:00.001-08:00

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." (Frederick Douglass) Let us coninue to pray and advocate for the proper education of our children.

The Continuing Need for Societal Change

2011-11-14T15:27:00.000-08:00

"White America is seeking to keep the walls of segregation substantially intact while the evolution of society and the Negro's desperation is causing them to crumble. The white majority, unprepared and unwilling to accept radical structural change, is resisting and producing chaos while complaining that if there were no chaos orderly change would come."

(Dr. Martin Luuher King, Jr. in a September 1967 speech to the American Psychological Association, entitled "A Challenge to Social Scientists")

LESSONS IN A LAD'S LUNCH

2011-11-12T13:05:00.000-08:00

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 11/6/11)

John 6:1-13

Over the ages, a large part of the human predicament has seemed to relate to economy, and whether we as humans have all that we need to survive. The perennial concern here is really whether or not God will provide for our needs. Note here, that this matter of economy relates not simply to the things that we want, but the things that we need.

History shows that God is a God of provision. God is in the business of providing for our needs. Some have declared that God is an on-time God. Others have framed it with words of affirmation that God will make ways out of no way. Others have declared time and again that God is good all the time. And still others have spoken of the great faithfulness of the Lord – the song-writer declared, “All I have needed, thy hand has provided.” Indeed God specializes in providing for our needs.

The challenge comes in the fact that many people are apt to forget about all the ways that God provides. Many fail to acknowledge that God is actually in the business of providing for all our needs – whether spiritual, physical or social. This forgetfulness – this form of spiritual amnesia - is often couched in doubt about the presence and power of God, or in complaining about the things that we don’t have, the ways that have not yet been made for us, and the things that we have not yet achieved.

Instead of looking with eyes of faith, trust and appreciation at the many blessings that are already present in our lives, many are like the Israelites who despite how God blesses, will complain and fuss – even about the things that God has blessed us with.

And we should be concerned not only with our own provision, but with the needs of our sisters and brothers. In Africa today, famine and malnutrition threaten the lives of over 11 million people from Kenya to Somalia. Many people in cities like Baltimore and Washington, DC – mostly women and children – will go to bed tonight without adequate nutrition, housing and healthcare. In the “Occupy” movement that has spread from Wall Street to cities across our nation, our awareness has been raised to the fact that 1% of our nation’s population holds about 50% of the nation’s accumulated wealth. That leaves 99% of us to make due on the other 50% of our collective resources. Indeed, the rich seem to be getting richer among us.

And in the event that we need more evidence of how God blesses us, and what we can learn within the context of our blessing, we can turn again to Scripture. In the Gospel of John, we find lessons for how to recognize and appreciate our blessings. Here, we find Jesus trying to get some rest having been busy ministering to the masses. But everywhere Jesus went, large crowds of people followed him. And so, Jesus and his disciples decided to get in a boat to get away from the crowds, but when the boat docked, Jesus found that people had rushed to the other side of the river and were waiting there for him.

The Lord knew that the people who had followed him had needs and wanted to be blessed. He knew that they were in need of physical and spiritual healing, in need of being taught about the ways of God, and also in need of physical nourishment (they were hungry). And so Jesus decided not only to heal and teach the people, but he knew that needed to feed those who had come, as well.

In this story of the feeding of 5000, Jesus took the lunch of a boy in the crowd - 5 loaves and 2 fish - and lifted them up toward heaven and asked God to bless the lad’s lunch. The Lord then began breaking the fish and bread into pieces and the disciples passed it out to all the people who had gathered.

The word says that everyone had all they wanted to eat, and everybody was satisfied. When they had finished eating the disciples picked up the leftover food. They collected 12 baskets of leftovers.

There are several lessons that we can glean from this story.

First, we have evidence again that God will provide for all of our needs. Even when things look the most dire and desperate– even when it seems that we are in the most need, even when our money resources seem the scarcest - God is about the business of working on behalf of God’s people, and providing for our needs. The word says that all of the people were satisfied after having eaten the meal provided for them.

Second, we find that our blessings will often come to us in unexpected ways, through unexpected people. Of all the people in the crowd (5000 men, plus women and children), it was a lad who had the blessing in his hands. So often we look for our blessings in what seem to be the obvious places, among the people who we think are most able and likely to be a blessing to us. But God used a lad and his lunch to bless the people. Maybe God is trying to tell us to look around us and see God’s blessings in all the people around us.

Third, we learn that God will not only provide what we need, but God is in the business of providing more than enough. The word says that Jesus took the lad’s two fish and five loaves of bread and he fed all of the people there. But it’s good that the story doesn’t stop there. It says that there was more than enough - there were leftovers. God not only provides for our needs, but God offers us blessings in abundance.

The good news is that God provides for all of our needs, and God provides more than enough!

Great is thy faithfulness,
Lord God our father…
Great is thy faithfulness
Great is thy faithfulness,
Morning by morning
New mercies I see.
All I have needed
Thy hand has provided
Great I they faithfulness
Lord unto me.

The Faith Factor

2011-10-14T07:41:00.000-07:00

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 10/9/11)

"(Jesus) replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”" (Matthew 17:19-21)

It is clear that the primary purpose of the life and ministry of Jesus was to help people see and know the face of God, and to help people come to belief in God. The nature of faith is belief in God – belief that God is the creator of all that is – the belief that God is at work in Christ seeking to save humanity from sinfulness and brokenness, and the belief that the Holy Spirit continues to be at work bringing forth transformation through the work of the church today.

The matter of faith was centermost in the mind of Jesus here in Matthew 17. It’s clear that the problem for Jesus here was the “smallness” of the faith of the people of his day. Maybe the people of the Lord’s day were a lot like many people today - even many religious people – people in the church. It seems that one of the critical dilemmas facing us today is the paucity of faith among people, even among many people of faith.

Jesus begins by reminding those who had gathered they had “so little faith.” The context of the Lord’s comment here is questioning among the disciples as to why they were unable to perform miracles, as Jesus had done, and as Jesus said they would be able to do. And Jesus explicitly attributes the inability of his disciples to perform miracles to the “smallness” – the “littleness” – the “pettiness” - of their faith. And he points out that even a mustard seed's worth of faith would be sufficient to not only cast out demons, but to move mountains.

Jesus speaks of the mustard seed within the context of faith and moving mountains. His encouragement for those who would hear was to understand the power of faith in their lives. And what are we really talking about when we talk about faith?

Too many people in the Lord’s day, and today, seem to have put their faith in too many things that are not God, and too many which are not of God. We tend to put our faith in the stock market and stock portfolios, politicians, celebrities, athletes, and even our jobs.

In Baltimore over the past few years, there has been a preponderance of signs that simply say “Believe.” We see the word “Believe” across the city in virtually every neighborhood on school buildings, on billboards, on buses, and at bus stops. But the signs often beg the question for me, “Believe what”, and “Believe in what?”

As Christians, we are called not simply to believe, but we are called to believe in God. We are called to have faith that God in Christ can change our lives and make a difference in our life and in the world. And what Jesus was pointing those of his day is that with a mustard seed’s worth of faith, they could (we can) move mountains.

What mountains was the Lord talking about? Certainly, we will all encounter the proverbial mountains of life. Situations will confront all of us that will seem insurmountable. Circumstances will enter into our lives to challenge our faith. Mountains in life – sickness and death, disappointments and discouragement, trials and tribulations will show up in our lives. Mountains in life – trouble in our homes, trouble on our jobs, trouble in our communities, even trouble in the church from time-to-time. And the question is ultimately, how do we deal with the mountains that confront us?

The point that the Lord was trying to make was that it took just a modicum of faith for God to begin to move in their lives. It took just a little faith, a mustard seed’s worth of faith, for the Lord to begin to manifest himself in their lives and begin to work on their behalf. And not only that – with a modicum of faith – a mustard seed’s worth of faith – we can move mountains. This is the “faith factor.”

Jesus concludes his teaching on faith here with a declaration that nothing will be impossible for you. Nothing is impossible. This is the faith factor.

The Lord says," nothing is impossible." What a bold declaration, that if we have faith – even as small as a mustard seed - we can move the proverbial mountains in our lives. If we have faith the even as small as a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible for us.

The good news is that with faith in God, nothing is really impossible for us. The faith factor in our lives means that through our belief in God, through our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the mountains can (and will) be removed from our lives, and nothing is impossible for us.

We’ve come this far by faith
Leaning on the Lord
Trusting in his holy word
He’s never failed me yet.
Oh, Oh, Oh, can’t turn around
We’ve come this far by faith.

Fred Shuttlesworth

2011-10-14T07:06:00.000-07:00

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) issued the following statement on the death of civil rights leader Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth who passed on October 6, 2011.

“America lost one of its most courageous and tenacious civil rights leaders in the passing of the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. As a pastor, civil rights organizer and one of the four founding ministers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Rev. Shuttlesworth was a unifying force who brought together his own congregation and others from across the South to stand against segregation and Jim Crow laws that oppressed an entire people.

“In spite of countless arrests, beatings and threats to his life, the Rev. Shuttlesworth never abandoned his fight for civil rights and social justice. Nothing intimidated him. On Christmas night 1956, six sticks of dynamite exploded outside his bedroom as he slept and he did not give in to fear. Instead, he moved forward with determination to put an end to what was then the status quo of separate but inherently unequal. When a court injunction shut down the Alabama chapter of the NAACP, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth led the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights to carry on the work of the shuttered chapter.

“He worked closely with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to win passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. These hallmark civil rights laws are Rev. Shuttlesworth’s legacy to a nation forever indebted to him. The United States still has a long way to go in realizing its goals of equal rights for all, but I am pleased that Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth was able to live to see so many positive changes, especially the election of President Barack Obama.”

Commissioned to Go!

2011-10-04T10:12:00.000-07:00

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Blatimore on 10/2/11 on the occasion of World Communion Sunday, and our "Change the World Mission Commissioning Day)

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations (teaching all nations), baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

I believe that most – if not all of us – can affirm that Christian ministry is not easy in this contemporary age. Churches face many challenges to minister prophetically and holistically to a world that - in many ways - seems to be at odds with what the church is all about. Still it is our collective task – our shared commitment and calling - to faithfully offer Christ to the world.

Ours often seems to be a mission impossible – and yet we are called to faithfully persevere and share the love of Christ with those among us who are in need of hope and healing in their lives… hope and healing that only the church can offer.. the least, the lost and the left out among us.

When thinking on the task of the church and its leaders, I’m reminded of the 1960’s and 70’s television show – Mission Impossible. Some of us might be old enough to remember the show where – at the beginning of every episode - a secret agent was given a mission that seemed to be impossible and insurmountable. So difficult and complex (and often dangerous) was the mission that the secret agent was given – that he was offered the choice of whether or not to accept the mission.

If he chose to accept the mission, he would somehow find a way to overcome great odds and obstacles, and find a way to accomplish what seemed to be the impossible task he had been given.

Well, the mission that Christ has given us seems to be impossible at times. It often seems that God has given the church and its people more than we can bear. Too often now it seems that we face the task of making ways out of no way. In these fast-changing, often apathetic times, it seems that ours is often a mission impossible.

I believe Christ had a sense of the difficulty of the mission that was before the church when he offered his disciples what has come to be known as the Great Commission. He said:

“Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations (teaching all nations), baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

This indeed seems to be a tremendous, humongous, huge, impossible, audacious, incredible, insurmountable task that we have been given. The Lord says that we are to go and make disciples of all nations, and baptize everybody, and teach everybody to obey the commandments of the Lord.

But it’s good to know that the Lord did not stop there. For he says, “Remember, I am with you always, even until the end of the age.” It’s good to know that ours is not simply a mission to go, but we have received a commission to go. In other word, we don’t go alone. The Lord said, “I am with you always.” We are commissioned to go.

And as we go, we take our faith in God and the fortification of the Lord with us. We need to know that our faith in God makes us a holy people. Our faith makes us God’s people, called by God to serve God’s people. For Methodists – our faith – our holiness is expressed in both personal holiness and social holiness. John Wesley said that we are to be about the purpose of “reforming the nation and spreading scriptural holiness.”

And furthermore, we know that as we are commissioned to go, we are made strong – fortified in the in the Lord. In the Book of Acts, Jesus expressed the Great Commission another way when he said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) We go to serve the present age with and in the power of God.

Thanks be to God that we are commissioned to go… to help somebody… to love somebody… to serve the world age. And as we are called to go, God goes with us.

Living Lives Seasoned with Salt

2011-10-04T09:59:00.000-07:00

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 9/18/11)

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” (Matthew 5:13)

In what has come to be known as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offers his followers a series of lessons for how they are to live their lives. It is very apparent that those who gathered to hear the Lord were searching for meaning in their lives, and seeking alternatives to the status quo that had become the way of life for their day. These followers of the Lord were hungering and thirsting for something more, yearning for something different in their lives.

Perhaps many of these followers of Christ had been regular attendees in the synagogue, religious people in some way, but now realized that they were in need of a real relationship with God. Maybe, some of them were leaders in their communities, having attained some level of success and notoriety, but now they needed a word that would add new perspective for the living of their day.

Whatever the reasons, the crowd flocked to Jesus. And so, over the course of three chapters, from Matthew chapters 5-7, Jesus gathers the people on the Mount of Olives and he offers them lessons for the living of their lives. Interestingly, throughout the sermon, Jesus uses several everyday, common examples to get his point across as to how the people are to live. Here, he says that you are the salt of the earth, and later he declares that "you are the light of the world."

Even in the Lord’s day, as it is today, salt was an element of the earth that was commonly known to the people. So Jesus uses as his talking point here, salt – something that all the people who had gathered could relate to. He says, “You are the salt of the earth.” What was the Lord really trying to convey?

If we were to evaporate a ton of water from the Pacific Ocean, we would get approximately seventy-nine pounds of salt. A ton of Atlantic Ocean water would yield eighty-one pounds of salt. And from the Dead Sea we would get almost five hundred pounds.

As the statistics demonstrate, the earth’s bodies of water vary greatly in their degree of saltiness. And so do we as Christians have varying degrees of saltiness. Jesus reminded us that we are “the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). But we all have different levels of “salt content.”

In light of this, each of us in beckoned from time-to-time to check our salt content. What is your salt content? How salty are you? Are you the kind of person who adds flavor to the lives of those around you? Is your conversation pure? Do you keep promises? Is your life characterized by goodness?

Having described earlier in the Sermon on the Mount the appropriate lifestyle of disciples, Jesus now explains that true disciples are those who live salty lives. And the Lord warns us against being saltless and tasteless in our walk. Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

We are reminded that – similar to the Lord’s day - an unbelieving and needy world is watching and listening to us as Christians, and even though they might not know it, others are depending on you and me to make a difference in their lives. There are even those who come to church who might be depending you and me to add some flavor – to enhance their lives. We who are Christians are to be the salt of the earth. It is written in Colossians 4:6 that we are to live “lives seasoned with salt.”

One of the saltiest people I’ve encountered in my reading and study is Mohandas k. Gandhi. Gandhi by birth was an East Indian and Hindu. But he sought throughout his life to live out – and help others live out - the principles and teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Gandhi led the nonviolent struggle of the people of India for freedom against British imperialism and oppression. Dr. Martin Luther King wrote that although Gandhi wasn’t a Christian, Gandhi was perhaps the most Christ-like person he had ever read about. Mohandas Gandhi lived a "salty life."

And Gandhi encouraged those of his day, and inspires us today, to be the change that you want to see in the world. Gandhi was encouraging folks to live salty lives.

Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth." May God grant each of us the faith, strength and wisdom to live "salty lives" (lives seasoned salt) in this present age.

Make a Comeback!

2011-09-17T18:45:00.000-07:00

(This is an abridged version of the Homecoming sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 9/11/11)

Luke 15:11-24

In Luke 15, we find the story of a family – a household - that found itself in distress and dysfunction. These two sons and their father found themselves mired in conflict and contempt – unable to resolve their controversy, unable to cope with one another in light of their different visions and hopes for life. One son, older, loyal in his own estimation, and content to stay home and care for family affairs. His younger brother, seemingly less loyal, more impulsive, and selfish. Wanting something different for his life – wanting to step out from behind his brother’s and father’s shadow, and explore the world for himself.

And a father – who had labored and toiled for all that he had. A father who had sweated, scrimped, scraped, sacrificed, saved, and pinched - and now had a modicum of wealth that he could call his own. A father who had hope for the future, plans for his sons, glad that he had put enough money in the bank that one day, his sons would inherit his wealth, and be set for life.

But here comes the youngest son, wanting his piece of his father’s inheritance, and wanting it now. Wanting to strike out on his own. Wanting to see and to know the world. And so this young man takes what his father gives him, and goes to another land.

And here this young man finds himself new to this unknown world. Money in his pocket, and all the temptations of the world in his midst. People and situations more savvy than him, lurking to take what is his, and leave him with nothing.

That’s the way of the world, isn’t it? There is always enough temptation to consume us if we move too far away from home – too far away from our roots too – and far away from God.

And so this young man finds himself at the point of utter despair, desolation, despondency. He finds himself disappointed, discouraged and depressed. He discovers that he is down to his last penny, broke – no hope and no joy.

And then, this young man – comes to his senses - and decides that it’s time to make a comeback and go back home.

The reality is that families today face severe difficulties. It would not be an overstatement to declare that we are living in very trying times. Times when there are wars and rumors of wars. Times when there are plagues and threats of plagues. Times when there is criminal activity the likes of which we have never experienced. Times when there is violence against babies too young to have done any harm. Times when those who have been elected, selected, and appointed to protect us from evil doers have been found doing evil themselves.

These are times when budgets are sufficient to support killing, but somehow insufficient to support literacy, health care, and drug rehabilitation. Times when there is talk of slot machines that will too often take the money of those with the least means - the desperate, the downtrodden and the disinherited. Times when our pulpits are too populated by prosperity preaching.

These are times when many of our children are afraid to go to school. Times when people are living in terror, never knowing when one or more of our growing number of enemies will launch another surprise attack. Times when we are afraid to travel, and afraid to stay home. Yes, we live in times of political unrest, economic instability, and spiritual bankruptcy. It would indeed not be an overstatement to declare that we are living in trying times.

And it is at some point that we are like the prodigal son. At some point, we must come to our senses, and realize that it is time to make a comeback and go back home. It’s time to reconsider our priorities as families, as churches and communities. It’s time to count the costs of living for the world and not for God. It’s time to thank and praise God for the little things of life – the things that we might have take for granted in our strivings for the joys and ways of the world.

This young man made up his mind and said “I’m going to make a comeback and go back home.”

When we think on this parable in Luke, we discover that the story is really not only about a son who squandered all that he once possessed. Nor is this parable only about a father who welcomed his wayward son back home. It’s not really only about loyalty or disloyalty. It’s not even only about sibling rivalry; nor is this story really only about wealth or poverty.

On careful analysis, we discover that what Jesus was really trying to let people know in his day, and let us know today is something about the grace of God. The Grace of God helps us to see that God will supply all of our needs according to his riches in glory. The grace of God helps us to realize that God’s love and mercy is sufficient to cover all of our faults and failures. The Grace of God lets us know that God will look beyond our faults and see our needs.

Just as this young man was welcome home by his father, God will welcome us back. Thank God for grace that is available to each of us who seeks to return to God.

Thank God for Storms!

2011-09-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

(The following is an excerpt of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel UMC on 9/4/11.)

Mark 4:35-41

This past week Maryland experienced storms in the form of an earthquake and a hurricane that passed through our state. Storms have a way of wreaking havoc and causing devastation in the areas where they happen to land. Whatever the type and severity of the storm - whether it is a hurricane, or a tornado, or a tropical storm, or an earthquake - storms by their very nature have a way of disrupting lives, and uprooting communities.

Indeed, storms can be destructive and dangerous. That is why, when a meteorological storm is on the horizon, there will often be a news-flash that scrolls across the television set warning us that a storm is on the way.

For those of us who have the occasion to fly on airplanes, we know that when the plane is going through a storm, it’s very apparent. The pilot will usually come on the loud-speaker and let the passengers know that we are in the midst of a storm, and everyone needs to get back to your seats, and put on your seat-belts. But if the truth is told, the pilot really doesn’t have to say anything. You know when you are in a storm, because the turbulence will make the airplane begin to sway from side-to-side, and the ride will become rocky.

The storms of life - the trials and tribulations that we go through - are much like meteorological storms. Storms have a way of entering into our lives, and disrupting our sense of calm and tranquility. Yes, the storms of life have a way of disturbing our lives and wreaking havoc.

Why do we need to talk about the storms of life today? We need to talk about storms because somebody is going through a storm right now. And if you’re not going through a storm, you may have just come out of one…or you may be getting ready to go through.

We need to talk about storms today, because we realize that the storms of life are real - and they are inevitable. It is not a matter of if we will experience the trials and tribulations of life - it’s just a matter of when. And so we need to be ready to deal with the storms that will come into our lives.

Indeed, somebody may be going through a storm in a relationship - whether it’s a storm with a spouse, or a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Somebody may be experiencing a storm with a sibling…and somebody else may be going through something with a parent, or a child.

We need to talk about the storms of life today because somebody may be in the midst of a personal storm - you may be dealing with personal failure or disappointment in your life. As hard as you’ve tried, and as much time and effort as you‘ve invested, you may not be as successful as you think you ought to be in a particular area of your life. We’ve got to talk about storms today because somebody might be dealing with a difficult situation at work - with a co-worker or a boss.

Somebody might be in the midst of a financial storm. You looked at your checkbook, and you realize that you have more month than money. And somebody might be facing a medical storm. You went to the doctor, and the diagnosis and prognosis the doctor has given you does not look good.

I’m glad that Jesus helps us to deal with the storms that will come our way. In scripture we find that the disciples found themselves in a storm one day. They were just out in a boat on the sea, trying to get from one place to another, and all of a sudden, the winds began to blow and a storm came into their lives.

Now one of the interesting things about the storm that the disciples encountered is that there were several experienced fishermen on the boat, and they were obviously familiar with being around water. But they were all still afraid of the storm that came into their midst on that day.

Something that we need to know about storms is that there will be some storms that we can’t handle by ourselves. No matter how much experience we have, or how many times we’ve been through a situation, there will be some storms that we can’t handle on our own.

But the important thing about this episode of the disciples and the storm that they were experiencing is that as they stayed in the boat, and tried to figure out what they were going to do, Jesus came into their situation, and the Lord spoke peace into their turbulent circumstance. Jesus said “Peace be still.”

It’s good to know that if we stay in the boat…if we hang in there with the Lord, Jesus will give step into any of our storms. Whatever we may go through, regardless of how tumultuous and turbulent the situation, Jesus will step in.

Indeed, if we have faith, God is already working in the midst of our storms. While we are often like the disciples - trying to figure things out, the Lord has already worked things out for us.

I’m glad that whatever your storm (and whatever my storm), the Lord will step in. Jesus spoke to this particular storm… and said “peace be still.” And when Jesus spoke, the word declares, that the “winds and the seas obeyed him.”

And so we can even thank God for storms of life. For we know in the midst of our storms, as God brings us out – God won’t bring us to anything that God won’t bring us through. Even in our storms, we come to realize that whatever our test, God is present with us.

Indeed, we can thank God (even) for storms.

One day, a Methodist preacher was going through a storm. We don’t know exactly what his storm was - he didn’t name his storm - but we do know that he was going through… because he wrote a song and talked about his storm. The preacher’s name was Charles Albert Tinley. And in the midst of his storm, Rev. Charles Tinley wrote these words:
When the storms of life are raging, stand by me
When the storms of life are raging, stand by me
When the world is tossing me
Like a ship upon the sea
Thou (you) who rulest wind and water
Stand by me…

Changing futures, saving lives

2011-08-26T06:40:00.000-07:00

(This article appeared in The Aegis newspaper today and was written by my daughter, Kristen Hunt. As a product of the Lamond-Riggs Boys Club in Washington, DC, I am very thankful and proud of Kristen's advocacy of Boys & Girls Clubs)

Editor:
Seat belts. Safety vests. The Clubs. What do these things all have in common? They are proven to save lives. While the third life-saving measure may seem like an unlikely counterpart, Boys & Girls Clubs of Harford County continue to prove that an investment in a child’s future can be life changing, and in certain instances, even life saving.

It is a pivotal time for American children. With high school graduation rates plummeting, drug use on the rise, and teen pregnancy skyrocketing, teaching our youth strong life skills from the beginning is crucial to their success. The support and encouragement we provide to our kids is a direct investment in our nation’s future.

Every year, Boys & Girls Clubs keep hundreds of Harford County youth on the right track. Having a safe place to develop academically, artistically and socially has given countless children a chance to beat the odds. By pairing innovative programming with compassionate staff, Clubs have been able to instill strong values in each of its members.

While households all over the county prepare their children for the return to school, Boys & Girls Clubs have programs designed to help youth achieve academic success. After-school tutoring, designated homework time and career counseling are only a few of the activities that the organization employs to advance its mission of helping youth reach their full potential.

You can make a difference in the life of a Harford County child. Our Clubs prosper thanks to partnerships with neighboring organizations and local companies, as well as donations from dedicated community members. For more information on becoming involved with Boys & Girls Clubs of Harford County, please visit www.bgcharfordco.org.

Kristen Hunt
Intern, Harford County Boys & Girls Clubs
(Submitted for Ms. Hunt by Tim Wills, associate executive director, Boys and Girls Clubs of Harford County.)

This article also can be found at wwww.baltimoresun.com/explore/harford/opinion-talk.

ROAD RULES - LESSONS FROM THE JERICHO ROAD

2011-08-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on Sunday, 8/21/11.)

"But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29)

We note (in Luke 10:25-37) that Jesus is being asked to address the matter of neighborliness against the backdrop of his teaching persons to love God and to love each other. Neighborliness is to be understood within the context of love – ultimately the love that God has for each of us.

Jesus uses the story of what has come to be known as the Good Samaritan to teach those of his day and those who would hear this story even today, some “road rules.” The Jericho road was known to be a dangerous road – a winding and dark road - where it was not unusual for people to experience the type of violence that Jesus points to in the story of the Good Samaritan. Thus, we need to be reminded of road rules.

It seems that the times of Jesus were not much unlike ours. We are reminded of the arduous nature of the proverbial “roads of life” today.

It seems that we live in a time when “road etiquette” among us continues to deteriorate. Let’s take a look at the highways around us. For those of us who have the occasion to travel the roads of today, we know that roads can be dangerous and mean places. People seem to drive with a sense of heightened rage and angst, where it’s not unusual today, to turn on the news, and hear of another case of “road rage,” and violence on our highways.

Perhaps this type of rage is emblematic of our society in general, where a certain sense of meanness, and anger, and angst seems to have permeated much of our life together. I read in the newspaper not long ago, where violent crime in America is increasing for the second consecutive year. I also read where new prisons are being built in this region, and the prisons are at capacity even before construction on them is completed.

In the city of Baltimore, several communities have come to be known as “Blue Light” neighborhoods. These are some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city, and at night one can see the constant blinking of blue lights overhead. These lights are a reminder of the crime and violence that has affected and often afflicted many of these communities, and the people who live in them and travel through them. These blue light neighborhoods are not unlike the Jericho road that Jesus was speaking about in scripture.

In talking about road rules, and what it means to be neighborly, Jesus offers the example of this certain unnamed man who was beaten, stripped and robbed, and left on the road to die. We are told that a priest and a Levite chose to pass this beaten man by on the road. We don’t know for sure, but perhaps they were late for important religious gatherings, and knew that to stop and care for this man would have made them late for their church gatherings.

And lest you and I hold these religious leaders of the Lord’s day in too much disdain, let us remind ourselves of the way people in need today are passed by in our churches and society. Racism and classism (and other “isms”) continue to afflict the church and society. AIDS and Malaria are killing many in the two thirds world. Crime and violence continues to permeate our streets. Poverty, hunger and the lack of adequate health-care continue to afflict many among us (despite "healthcare reform," over 40 million persons remain uninsured in America). If the truth is told, people are too often passed by on the roadsides of life today.

And so what are the road rules that we need to attend to today?

Martin Luther King helped us in a sermon preached at Riverside Church in New York in April 1967 (40 years ago):

"On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s road side; but that is only the initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

Philosopher Michael Eric Dyson points out that King believed that charity was a poor substitute for justice. Charity is a hit-or- miss proposition; people who tire of giving stop doing so when they think they’ve done enough. Justice seeks to take the distracting and fleeting emotions out of giving. Justice does not depend on felling to do the right thing. It depends on right action and sound thinking about the most helpful route to the best and most virtuous outcome. King understood, and embodied, this noble distinction. People who give money to the poor deserve praise; people who give their lives to the poor deserve honor.

For Christians, our road rules must be rooted in true compassion. True compassion is always coupled with justice, and challenges each of us in the church and society towards what Martin Luther King called forms of “creative altruism.” This is altruism that makes concern for others the first law of life.

King indicated that Jesus revealed the meaning of this altruism in his parable here about the Good Samaritan who was moved by compassion to care for “a certain man” who had been robbed and beaten on the Jericho road.

King asserted that the altruism of the Samaritan was universal, dangerous and excessive. His altruism was universal since he did not seek to inquire into the nationality of the wounded man to determine whether he was a Samaritan or a Jew. He saw that he was “a certain man” in need, and that was sufficient for him to intervene.

The Samaritan was a good neighbor who demonstrated dangerous and excessive altruism because, unlike the priest and the Levite who passed by the wounded man, the Samaritan was willing to help any person in distress under any conditions, and he was able to look beyond external accidents to regard the stranger in need as his brother.

When we have true compassion we not only offer a handout, but we ask why people need a handout in the first place. True compassion not only offers help to the beggar, to the stripped and robbed among us, but questions the conditions that lead to poverty and violence on our streets.

Jesus here gave the command to love one’s neighbor, and through this parable Jesus disclosed his definition of neighbor. A neighbor is neither Jew nor Gentile; he is neither Russian nor American; he is neither black nor white nor Hispanic nor Asian. He or she is “a certain man or woman” – any needy person – on any of the numerous Jericho roads of life.

Perhaps, we can learn something from the Good Samaritan. Perhaps as he lent a helping hand, he sang as Mahalia Jackson once sang:

If I can help somebody as a travel along
If I can cheer somebody with a word or a song.
If I can help somebody as they’re living wrong
Then my living will not be in vain…

MLK Memorial

2011-08-15T12:38:00.000-07:00

August, 28, 2011 marks the 48th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and will also mark the unveiling of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The tribute to Dr. King will be the first African-American monument on the mall, and perhaps it is fitting that the unveiling will occur during the administration of the first African-American president of the country. This is also an opportunity for us to reflect on Dr. King’s life as an advocate for nonviolence, anti-racism, economic justice and global peace, especially at a time when our county is currently involved in several wars and is in significant debate as to the course that the economy should take. Indeed, this is time of great pride for those of us who advocate peace with justice. Hopefully, the King Memorial will serve as a perpetual reminder of Dr. King’s dream for our nation and world, and as a reminder of our call to recommit ourselves to living the dream for which he died. For more information on the unveiling, go to www.MLKmemorial.org.

Do Something for Others

2011-08-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

"I choose to identify with the underptivileged. I choose to identify with the poor. I choose to give my life for the hungry. I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity... This is the way I'm going. If it means suffering a little bit, I'm going that way. If it means sacrificing, I'm going that way. If it means dying for them, I'm going that way, because I heard a voice saying, "Do something for others."" (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Obey Your Thirst!

2011-08-07T13:43:00.000-07:00

(This is an abridged version of my sermon preached on Sunday, 8/7/11 at Epworth Chapel in Baltimore)

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? (Psalm 42:2)

In the Scripture text, we find that the writer in the Psalm is one who is obviously yearning for a closer relationship with God. He is seeking and searching for something more, something deeper in his spiritual walk. And so he begins abruptly with the metaphor of a thirsty, panting deer. The deer is frantically searching the desert for a stream of water.

With the same intensity as the deer seeks water, the psalmist seeks after God. He is speaking to a need that is common among all of us. An integral part of the human plight is a need to know God and to experience God. This is what St. Augustine spoke of in his prayer, “Lord you have created us for yourself, and our souls are restless until they find their rest in thee.” All of us in some way have souls that are restless.

Here, the psalmist offers the image of a deer that is thirsty. Though the psalmist points to the deer’s longing in the midst of physical thirst and danger, this metaphor offers a profound spiritual image- our relationship with God is as essential to our spiritual well-being as water is to our physical well-being.

I would venture to suggest that all of us have found ourselves at the point of being thirsty. Being thirsty places us at the point of needing to address one of the basic needs of life. The fact is that we can’t survive without water. Without water we would die. To be thirsty is to experience the most basic and profound of human needs. It has been suggested that thirst is such a powerful longing that it displaces all other human desires.

This image of being thirsty may be lost on some of us in a day when there is so much that substitutes for the basic elements of life. Even knowing what we thirst for – what we need most essentially in our lives - is often lost amidst the things that grasp our attention.

Growing up, my paternal grandparents lived across the road from a well. I can remember playing outside in the hot summer sun, and there would come a point when we knew that it was time to stop playing, for we were thirsty.

We knew that it was time to go to the well, and pump it until water came out. We’d pump and pump, and there was nothing like the sight of seeing water begin to flow out of the well, and knowing that our thirst would then be quenched.

We reflect upon this matter of being thirsty today because in this day and age, we thirst for many things. Some of us have schedules that are so full that it leaves us thirsty for time with God. Some of us have religion in our lives, and yet our relationship with the Lord yearns for intimacy.

Some of us thirst for recognition from others as a way of masking our deeper need for self-esteem. Some of us thirst for relationships – only to find ourselves being exploited and abused and unable to deal with our profound loneliness. We thirst for material things and find ourselves mired in a form of “affluenza” which Marion Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund defines as our possessing too much that is worth too little. We thirst.

What are you thirsty for? What are the things that you most desire in life? What are your heart’s desires? What are the things that you seek after?

Over the course of history, there have been persons who have thirsted after the things that would make our world better, the things of God:
• Martin Luther King, Jr. thirsted for racial equality.
• Mohandas Gandhi thirsted for peace and justice.
• Mother Theresa thirsted for truth and fairness.
• Dietrich Bonheoffer thirsted for true discipleship.
• Rosa Parks thirsted for her dignity.

Christ beckons each of us to obey our thirst. This should be good news for us today. In the midst of failing economies, political disappointment, violence and wars, broken homes, lost jobs, and diminished stock portfolios – Jesus is the living water. In the midst of fears, doubts, despair, dread, disillusionment, disappointment – Jesus is the living water.

What are you thirsty for? Are you thirsting after God? Our response to the presence and power of God should be to obey our thirst, and seek God where he can be found.

Break the Mold!

2011-08-01T07:17:00.000-07:00

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preeched at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 7/31/11.)

"In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River." (Matthew 3:1-6)

In the Gospel of Matthew, we are introduced to the life of John the Baptist. Some of us might remember John the Baptist. He was born into a world of religious and social conformity. He was born to Jewish parents – Elizabeth and Zechariah who were devout in their faith. In fact, John’s father – Zechariah was not only religious - but he was a priest. So by all rights, John the Baptist had it made.

All John had to do is behave himself, not rock the boat, stay out of trouble, watch his mouth, fit in, and he would not have a care in the world.

It was supposed to be John’s lot in life to fit the mold, to dress right, and act right (he was a preachers kid), and all he had to do was fit into the mold. All he had to do was behave himself, conform to his orderly, elite religious roots, and he would be a priest in the line of his father. This was his birthright.

And yet, John the Baptist just couldn’t act like he was supposed to act. Here, we find John the Baptist, not in the synagogue, but in the wilderness. He’s not dressed in the fine garbs of the priesthood, but in camel’s hair. He’s not trying to maintain religious order but preaching a radical, prophetic word - a word of preparation for the coming of the Lord - a word that God was ready to shake things up, and make straight the crooked places and things in our midst.

As we look around, we can clearly see that conformity is the order of our day. People like to appear as though they fit in. It seems that we have this inherent need to conform. If the truth is told, none of us wants to be too far outside of the mainstream, too far outside what is considered to be normal. We want to fit in.

Conformity insinuates that we find ourselves in alignment with the status quo. To conform means that we are fitting in with what already exists, and that we are in accord with that which has already been formed. Thus, to conform is to find ourselves in the same shape as that which has already been shaped.

I’m always amazed at how much we seem to be in conformity, and often don’t seem to realize it. People seem to be attracted to those things and places which are most like how we perceive ourselves. We seek to live in the places, purchase the things, and even wear the clothes of those who we perceive as being the most successful and beautiful.

A few years ago, it seemed that every young boy sought to imitate Michael Jordan. Every young boy wanted to “be like Mike.” Well, the Nike Corporation capitalized on this yearning to conform, and created the Air Jordan Shoe. It appears that there was this notion among many young people that if they were just able to buy a pair of Air Jordans they would somehow find themselves being able to fly through the air and dunk a basketball like Mike. (If the truth is told, even some of us who are older thought that we could “be like Mike.”)

And so why is it that we seek to conform? Perhaps our propensity towards conformity is rooted in our fear of what would happen to us if we chose to stand alone. Maybe we tend to conform because of jealousy and covetousness. We want too much of what others have. We want to keep up with the “Jones.” Maybe we conform because our imagination - or lack thereof – does not allow us to see beyond what presently is in our lives – to what God wants us to become.

I believe that this matter of conformity has serious implications and applications for the church today. It was the Apostle Paul who warned us in Scripture against this proclivity. Paul cautioned the Roman Church and cautions us to “Be not conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” (Romans 12:2)

Still many Christians and many churches find themselves moving towards the tendency to conform. Many churches find themselves mired and trapped in the rut of "same-old-ness." We find ourselves doing the same-old-thing…the same-old-way... and getting the same old results. We’re too often mired in “same-old-ness.”

We sing the same-old-song. We pray the same-old-prayer. We preach the same-old-sermon. And we get the same-old results. We’re stuck in a rut…stuck in a mold.

I believe that John the Baptist, in mant ways, serves as the anti-type for today’s Christian, and can teach us a few things about what it means for us to be holy and bold for Jesus. John broke the mold.

And it is incumbent on the church today to break the mold - to move out of our comfort zones - to move our message outside the walls of the church – into the (proverbial) wilderness (out into the streets). If we’re like John the Baptist, we might have to change our appearance and methods to reach some folk who may be very unfamiliar with the songs we sing and the sermons we preach. We need to break the mold.

This week, it was reported that 11 religious leaders were arrested in Washington, DC for refusing to move while praying on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. The group included at least two United Methodists – Jim Winkler and Bob Edgar – and was praying that the U.S. congress would act morally and justly in light of decisions around the current budget crisis and economic upheaval – especially in light of the millions of poor and moderate income people that will be affected by these decisions.

In John the Baptist, we find one who in his day broke the mold. John broke from religious and societal conformity. He dared to be different. He chose to move outside his comfort zone – outside the comfortable confines of religious establishment. John the Baptist was filled with faith in God which allowed him to prophetically and boldly proclaim the coming of the Lord and call people to repentance.

It’s time for us to break the mold! In what places in your life is God calling you to break the mold? How is God calling us as a church to break out of the molds that we may find ourselves in? The good news is that if we allow God in Christ to lead us, God will guide us every step of the way. “I want Jesus to walk with me…”

Faith and America's Budget Crisis

2011-07-29T05:15:00.000-07:00

Dr. Michael Chistensen, National Director of Communities of Shalom at Drew University, reports on his blog that representatives of 11 religious groups and denominations have held daily vigils at the United Methodist Building near the Capitol for three weeks, praying for a moral resolution to the debt ceiling crisis. Finally, yesterday, they felt lead to take more drastic action—praying at the U.S. CapitOl and got arrested for not dispersing when warned to stop what they were doing.

According to a news release from the Nathional Council of Churches: “The religious leaders sang "Spirit of the Living God" and "We shall overcome" as they knelt and prayed in the Capitol rotunda. Capitol Hill police asked them to clear the rotunda but the religious leaders continued praying.

Recent events have catalyzed an eighteen-month public policy campaign led by faith leaders representing the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths to promote a message of the common good in the current economic debate. Members of the campaign are calling for Congress and the Administration to exempt programs from budget cuts that assist the most at-risk families and children in the U.S. and abroad.

One of those arrested was Jim Winkler, the General Secretary of Church and Society—a peace with justice agency of the United Methodist Church. Jim has been a prophetic leader on social issues for a number of years.

Another faith leader arrested yesterday is Bob Edgar, President of Common Cause--an organization that advocates for the poor and holds power accountable. Common Cause was one of the prime organizers of yesterday's prayerful protest.

Dr. Christensen shares that inspired by a prophetic vision of the beloved community of peace and justice for all, motivated by a common spiritual conviction that God has called on all citizens to protect the vulnerable and promote human dignity, many of us believe that the budget crisis should be resolved morally and prayerfully, and not just pragmatically and politically.

I urge all persons to pray for our nation and our elected leaders in this critical time in history.

Food for Thought

2011-07-29T04:46:00.000-07:00

“Congress is paralyzed by toxic partisan politics while people suffer. Our elected officials are protecting corporations and wealthy individuals while shredding the safety net for millions of the most vulnerable people in our nation and abroad. Our faith won't allow us to passively watch this travesty unfold.” --Rev. Michael Livingston, past president of the National Council of the Churches of Christ (USA), arrested yesterday praying and protesting at the US Capital.

An Extreme Makeover

2011-07-25T08:12:00.000-07:00

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preached on 7/24/11 at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore)

"If any person is in Christ Jesus, he/she is a new creation…" (2 Cor. 5:17)

This is the age of the extreme makeover. The images are clear – we’ve all seen them - where those who may be deemed to be physically unattractive, by society’s standards of beauty, are taken away, only to re-emerge a few short weeks later looking as though they are not the same person.

Yes, this is the age of Botox, lypo-suction, tummy tucks, tanning salons and face lifts. And we now see that the extreme makeover has been expanded to include the makeover of homes that may have at a time seemed to be virtually uninhabitable, and cars that may have appeared to be on their way to the junk heap. And thus we witness the burgeoning popularity of television networks like Home and Garden Television (HGTV) and television shows like “America’s Extreme Home Makeover” and “The Biggest Loser.”

This indeed is the age of the extreme makeover. Perhaps this fascination with makeovers speaks to our need to experience that which appears to move us toward the illusion of perfection. Perhaps it speaks to the vast materiality and exteriority of our culture, where the focus has been placed more upon style than substance – more upon outer appearance than inner depth. Whatever it is, the makeover has overtaken us.

And what we discover is that these makeovers that seem to be so extreme are not actually extreme at all. Regardless of how gifted the makeup artist, or how expensive the makeup, or how radical the diet plan, the makeovers that the world offers will eventually wear away. They will not last. Indeed, over time the makeover will disappear, and the old appearances will return.

Throughout the course of human history, it has been the case that we have needed to be made over by God. The nature of human sinfulness and brokenness in our world helps us to see our need to be made over. If sin is the condition of our separation from God, then there is a need for us to be renewed – made over - in the Lord.

• We recall that this was the case with David, who in his fallenness, prayed to God to “create (him) a clean heart, and renew in (him) a right spirit.” David was praying for a makeover.

• We remember St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, who prayed to God regarding our state of separation from the Lord, “Lord you have created us for yourself, and our souls are restless until they find their rest in you.” Augustine was praying about our need for a makeover.

• And the song-writer offered an affirmation of faith and praise to God when he declared: “Lord I know I’ve been changed, the angels in heaven done signed my name.” He was declaring that a makeover had occurred in his life.

And here in our text in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian Church, we are reminded of the new life - the makeover - that becomes a reality when we are in Christ. Paul says that “if any person is in Christ Jesus, she or he is a new creation…old things have passed away, and behold all things have become new.”

It appears that Christians in Corinth were dealing with a need to be made over. They had come to know about Christ, but it seems that many of them may not have known Christ.

You see there is a difference in knowing about someone, and knowing someone. I can know about you without really knowing you. It takes a personal encounter for me to really know you, and for you to really know me. Many Corinthians knew about Jesus, but they didn’t know Jesus.

How do we know? We know because their lives had not really changed. Although many in Corinth were now in the church, the church was not in all of them. Many of their behaviors and their attitudes, and the way many of them treated one another had not really changed. Although they knew about Christ, they really didn’t know Christ.

And so, Paul wanted to remind the Christians at Corinth that just knowing Christ was not enough. Paul wanted to encourage them, and let them know that they needed to be in Christ. They needed not only to know about Christ, but they also needed to be in Christ. They needed not only to be a Christian, but they needed to be in Christ. They needed not only to sing in the choir, serve as an usher, be on the board, but they needed to be in Christ.

They needed an extreme makeover. It’s good to know that God, in Christ, offers us a makeover that is really extreme. The makeover that the Lord offers us will last a lifetime. The very purpose of God sending Christ into the world was for the redemption, transformation, renewal and regeneration of humanity.

Indeed, God sent his son into the world to redeem us. In the gospel of John, we find words that speak to this redemption, “For God so loved the world, God sent his only son so that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) We recall that it was Paul in the Book of Romans who said, “We’ve been bought with a price.”

In other words, through his suffering and death on the cross – Christ has bought our freedom from sin and spiritual death. He’s paid the price for us.

Paul said, “If any person is in Christ Jesus, she/he is a new creation…”
Paul was talking about an extreme makeover, but unlike the makeovers we see on television this makeover is one will last for an eternity!

A Praise Break

2011-07-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 7/17/11).

“And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed." (Acts 16:25-26)

All of us will face the midnight hours of life. The existential “Midnight” is what the poet, John of the Cross referred to as the “Dark Night of the Soul.” The midnight hour is the time and place when trouble comes into our lives, the time and place of darkness, the time and place of confusion, the time and place of wondering and questioning, as to “why” things are the way they are in our lives.

All of us will face the midnight hours of life. In the midnight, we learn of the inevitability of adversity and pain. Indeed trouble will come into our lives, sometimes like mighty winds – spiritual tsunamis, tornados and hurricanes - blowing to knock us down, and to destroy us. And it is our attitude in the midst of troubles and trials that will make the difference between victory and defeat. How we look at troubles and trials, how we respond to storms, how we face the midnight hours, and deal with them, makes the difference in how we come out.

• We remember David, who experienced a midnight hour, and declared, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

• We remember Job in the midst of his midnight hour who declared, “Though he slay me, yet will I praise (the Lord).”

• We recall that Jeremiah, declared in the midst of his despair, “God’s mercies are new every morning… great is the Lord’s faithfulness.”

In Acts chapter 16 we find that Paul and Silas were facing a similar midnight hour. They had been placed in maximum-security prison. They had been put in a Philippian jail for trying to lift up Jesus. There were several other prisoners with Paul and Silas. We can imagine that many of them had also been beaten, and were in great pain. For some reason all of the prisoners were awake, and it was midnight.

As they lay awake, Paul and Silas began to do something unusual. They began to pray and sing praises to God. You see, Paul and Silas were able to put the suffering they endured into perspective, because they realized that their suffering was for a purpose. These two apostles realized that they had been placed in this Philippian prison for a reason.

• We remember that it was Paul who had written while in prison that, “if any person suffers as a Christian, let that person not be ashamed.”
• It was Paul who would remind the Roman Church that “the suffering of this present time is not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us.”
• And later Paul would write in the same 8th chapter of Romans, “For we know that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord, and are called according to God’s purpose."

No, Paul and Silas were not ashamed or afraid to lift up the Lord even in prison. They had made up their minds to praise the Lord even in the midst of their adversity.

In reflecting on the predicament of Paul and Silas, we recall Dr. Martin Luther King and others who were put in jail in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. They were imprisoned for their struggle for voting rights and civil rights. It was in the Birmingham Jail that Dr. King wrote one of his most eloquent letters – the Letter from Birmingham Jail- encouraging persons - particularly Christians - to stand up for righteousness and justice.

It was Dr. King who would write that “the true measure of a person is not how one acts in times of comfort and convenience, but how one acts in times of challenge and controversy.”

Paul and Silas found themselves locked in a Philippian jail for the sake of their faith. But they decided not to sit there complaining and crying. They decided not to wallow in sorrow and lament as to why God would allow them to be placed in this terrible situation. The Bible says that in the midst of their midnight hour, Paul and Silas began to pray and sing praises to God.

And it’s good to know that as they praised the Lord, God responded to their praise. The Bible says,
“and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison shook. And immediately all the doors to the prison were opened, and every prisoner’s bonds and shackles were loosed.”

Paul and Silas took a Praise Break! In their story, we find help and encouragement for our journey of faith. We find strength for our times of testing. We find hope for our times of pain. We find promise for the times when the storms of life threaten to consume us and sweep us away.

Indeed, the various dungeons and imprisoned places of life have a way of weighing us down and keeping us from praising God. The dungeons of war and violence, capital punishment, widespread malnutrition caused by poverty, and high unemployment rates can weigh us down. The dungeons of educational achievement gaps and high drop-out rates among many of our young can weigh us down. But we must never let our circumstances keep us from praying and singing praises to God.

In the midst of struggles, it’s good to take a praise break!

As Paul and Silas sat in prison, waiting on their breakthrough maybe they sang something like we are apt to sing from time-to-time:

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,
O what a foretaste of glory divine.
Heir of salvation,
Purchased of God…
This is our story, this is our song
Praising our savior, all the day long!

When the Church Prays

2011-07-13T06:12:00.000-07:00

(This is an abridged version of the sermon I preached at Epworth Chapel UMC, Baltimore on 7/10/11)

"While Peter was kept in prison, the church prayed fervently to God for him." (Acts 12:5)

The most powerful weapon of the church is prayer. Prayer has the capacity to change things, and to change people. Prayer can break down barriers and heal relationships. Prayer can heal bodies and open the doors where God can make ways out of no way.

God desires that the church be about the business of prayer.
• That’s why the Lord said, “If my people who are called by my name would humble themselves and pray, I will hear from them, and heal the land.”
• That’s why Paul encouraged people of faith to, “Pray without ceasing.”
• That’s why Jesus reminded us that “the fervent prayers of the righteous (the church) availed much.”

We are called to be about the business of prayer - praying for ourselves, for our families, for our children, for our communities, for our church, for the person sitting next to us on Sunday, for our nation.

Indeed, God is calling the church to prayer today - for our sisters and brothers around the world, for the church universal, for the disinherited and dispossessed, for the abused and alienated, and for those who may not yet know God.

The truth is that prayer is the most powerful weapon that we have at our disposal to make a difference the world. That’s why we are reminded that there is no weapon that is formed against us that will prosper. The weapon of prayer – the tool of prayer - is more powerful than the weapons of hatred, and destruction, and negativity that are so incumbent in our world – and even in many of our churches today.

The scripture reminds us of what happens when the church prays. In the book of Acts, we find that Peter was in jail. King Harod, also known as Agrippa II, had Peter locked up because Peter had been going about doing the work of the Lord. People’s lives were being changed by the power of God as Peter went about preaching the word of God, and healing people in the name of Jesus.

King Harod had Peter locked up, and Harod wanted to be certain that Peter wouldn’t escape, so Harod had four soldiers guarding Peter at all times. The guards put chains on Peter’s wrists, and each of the chains was locked to a guard. Outside the jail cell stood two more guards.

The church, God’s people knew that Peter was locked in jail. And so while Peter was imprisoned, the people of God gathered at a house and they started to pray. That night, while Peter was sleeping, and the people were praying, an angel showed up and stood next to him. The angel tapped Peter, woke him up and said, “Get up quickly!” And suddenly, the chains fell off of Peter’s hands, and he was set free!

In 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from a prison in South Africa after having been incarcerated for over 26 years. While in prison, Mandela and others were subjected to humiliation and brutality at the hands of their white, pro-Apartheid captors. But something within Mandela allowed him not to strike back with the same violence of those who imprisoned him.

What was it that helped Mandela hold his peace amidst the adversity that he faced in jail? Maybe it was that Mandela knew that people on the outside were praying for him. Maybe Mandela knew that pastors and people of faith like Bishop Desmond Tutu were praying for him. Maybe he knew that there were people in churches even across the world – even here in America - who were praying that Apartheid, with all of its atrocities and oppressive features would be stamped out.

Maybe Mandela knew that truth stamped to the ground and crushed will always rise again. Maybe he knew that through the power of prayer, God would intervene on his behalf, and one day set him free. Maybe Mandela knew that God answers prayer, and that the Lord might not always come when we want him, but he’s always on time.

And so the power that was extant and alive in Mandela and others, was portrayed in a popular movie from a few years ago that took its title from short Victorian a poem entitled “Invictus” where English poet William Ernest Henley wrote:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul...
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Invictus is the Latin word of unconquerable, and William Henley here is speaking to the unconquerable nature of the soul. We know that we are only unconquerable in and through the power of God.

And so, what happens when the church prays? First, when the church prays, we realize that we must focus not on our own power, but on the power of God – who is omnipotent. The earliest followers of Christ of Peter’s day knew that they couldn’t overcome King Harod and his army by themselves, but they knew that with God all things are possible.

Second, when the church prays, we become more united. Prayer unites the church. Prayer helps us to see God at work through the body of Christ. Prayer helps us to unite even in the midst of our differences. In the case of the Acts church, they were praying together and were on the same accord, and that’s when the Lord showed up and set Peter free.

Third, when we pray we realize that God will change the things that need to be changed in our lives and the lives of others. And we know that through prayer that God is changing us so that we can deal with all of the things of this world with the power of God working within us.

The good news is that God answers the prayers of God’s people.

We pray because we know that God is a prayer answering God, and that the Lord is with us in every situation. We're not alone!

The song-writer put it best:

"I’ve seen the lightning flashing, and heard the thunder rolling.
I’ve felt sins breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul.
I heard the voice of my savior, he bidst me still to fight on.
He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.
Never alone, no never alone,
He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone."

We Can!

2011-07-12T20:46:00.000-07:00

(This is an abridged version of a sermon preached at Epworth Chapel UMC, Baltimore, MD on July 3, 2011)

"I can do all things through him who strengthens me…" (Philippians 4:13)

A reflection on the work of God throughout history indicates that God has remained active and evident in creating all that is the world today. God is a God not only of being, but of doing. In the beginning of time God was busy doing - creating the heavens and the earth, creating the moon and the stars, creating the sea and all living things. It is clear that God has been busy over the course of history doing that which is necessary to get us to this place in time.

This should give all of us hope and promise for the living of these days and for the future. For if God has been so active and busy in creation in the past, it begs us to believe that the same God will work on our behalf in the days that are ahead of us in order that we might accomplish the things that God has set before us.

The fact of the matter is that when God created us, God created us fearfully and wonderfully with the expectation that each of us could and would accomplish extraordinary things in this life. Each of us is more brilliant and beautiful than we tend to think. We are more creative and caring than we know. We are far more gifted and gracious that we realize.

We are more powerful and prophetic, more insightful and intuitive, more capable and courageous, more helpful and hopeful that we realize.

This is the essence of what Paul was affirming here in writing to the church at Philippi. Paul said, “I can do all things through him - Christ - who strengthens me.”

Paul here makes this bold declaration within the context of his own background and experience. Paul was Jewish – and a part of the sect of the Pharisees. He was also a Roman citizen. And he was one who had become a follower of Christ as the Lord had touched him and turned his life around. Now as Paul writes, he finds himself locked in a Philippian jail – imprisoned for his efforts in bringing persons to belief in Christ.

Through all that Paul had gone through, he knew that he had not arrived at the place where he was in life alone. He declares that I’ve had much and I’ve had little – I’ve had good days and bad days, but through it all – Paul knew that there were those in the community of faith who were praying for him and working on his behalf. Paul says, “I can do all things through him – Christ – who strengthens me.”

What Paul really knew is that his affirmation of faith here was really not just about what he could do alone in Christ, but what he could do within the context of the community of faith. What Paul was really saying is that I can, because we can!

We should be encouraged today, to know that we can. We can reach out to the impoverished, both locally and around the world. We can feed the hungry, house the homeless, comfort victims of disaster, soothe the sick, walk along-side the lonely and the sorrowful, visit those in prison, and minister to even more children. We can!

And so how can we? First, the fact of the matter is that we can because we are stronger together than we are as individuals. That’s the nature of the church - the body of Christ. It is like the difference between a single chord rope and a triple chord rope. The single chord can be very easily broken with a relatively light amount of force. While the triple chord is woven – knit together and designed in a way that in order to break the triple chord rope you need more than three times the force that it would take to break the ropes if we sought to break them individually.

African theologian, John Mbiti, put the communal nature and power of our faith and life into perspective when he said, “I am because we are, and because we are, therefore I am.”

An African proverb says that “a finger can’t pick up a grain – it takes all the fingers of the hand.”

We can, because we are better, stronger, and more powerful together than we are as individuals.

And ultimately, we can, because God can!
• We can because God walks with us and talks with us.
• We can, because greater is he that is in us, than he that is in the world.
• We can, because with God all things are possible.
• We can because God can do anything but fail!

We can because we are in this together, and because God is in it with us!

My Hope is Built

2011-06-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

My sixth book, "My Hope is Built: Essays, Sermons and Prayers on Religion and Race" (vol. 2) was released yesterday. It is available in hardcopy and e-book format at www.wydhamhallpress.com and www.amazon.com.

Mountains of Despair - Stones of Hope

2011-05-02T14:14:00.000-07:00

One day youngsters will learn words they do not understand. Children from India will ask, "What is hunger?" Children from Alabama will ask, "What is racial segregation? Children from Hiroshima will ask, "What is the atomic bomb?" Children at school will ask, "What is war?" You will answer them, "Those words are not used anymore - like stage coaches, galleys or slavery. Those words are no longer meaningful. That is why they have been removed from dictionaries."
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Obey Your Thirst!

2011-04-03T07:37:00.000-07:00

(This is an excerpt of a sermon preached on Sunday, March 27, 2011 at New Covenant Worship Center in Baltimore, MD)

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? (Psalm 42:2)

In the Scripture text, we find that the writer in the Psalm is one who is obviously yearning for a closer relationship with God. He is seeking and searching for something more, something deeper in his spiritual walk. And so he begins abruptly with the metaphor of a thirsty, panting deer. The deer is frantically searching the desert for a stream of water.

With the same intensity as the deer seeks water, the psalmist seeks after God. He is speaking to a need that is common among all of us. An integral part of the human plight is a need to know God and to experience God. This is what St. Augustine spoke of in his prayer, “Lord you have created us for yourself, and our souls are restless until they find their rest in thee.” All of us in some way have souls that are restless.

Here, the psalmist offers the image of a deer that is thirsty. Though the psalmist points to the deer’s longing in the midst of physical thirst and danger, this metaphor offers a profound spiritual image- our relationship with God is as essential to our spiritual well-being as water is to our physical well-being.

I would venture to suggest that all of us have found ourselves at the point of being thirsty. Being thirsty places us at the point of needing to address one of the basic needs of life. The fact is that we can’t survive without water. Without water we would die. To be thirsty is to experience the most basic and profound of human needs. It has been suggested that thirst is such a powerful longing that it displaces all other human desires.

This image of being thirsty may be lost on some of us in a day when there is so much that substitutes for the basic elements of life. Even knowing what we thirst for – what we need most essentially in our lives - is often lost amidst the things that grasp our attention.

Growing up, my paternal grandparents lived across the road from a well. I can remember playing outside in the hot summer sun, and there would come a point when we knew that it was time to stop playing, for we were thirsty.

We knew that it was time to go to the well, and pump it until water came out. We’d pump and pump, and there was nothing like the sight of seeing water begin to flow out of the well, and knowing that our thirst would then be quenched.

We reflect upon this matter of being thirsty today because in this day and age, we thirst for many things. Some of us have schedules that are so full that it leaves us thirsty for time with God. Some of us have religion in our lives, and yet our relationship with the Lord yearns for intimacy.

Some of us thirst for recognition from others as a way of masking our deeper need for self-esteem. Some of us thirst for relationships – only to find ourselves being exploited and abused and unable to deal with our profound loneliness. We thirst for material things and find ourselves mired in a form of “affluenza” which Marion Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund defines as our possessing too much that is worth too little. We thirst.

What are you thirsty for? What are the things that you most desire in life? What are your heart’s desires? What are the things that you seek after?

Over the course of history, there have been persons who have thirsted after the things that would make our world better, the things of God:
• Martin Luther King, Jr. thirsted for racial equality.
• Mohandas Gandhi thirsted for peace and justice.
• Mother Theresa thirsted for truth and fairness.
• Dietrich Bonheoffer thirsted for true discipleship.
• Rosa Parks thirsted for her dignity.

Christ beckons each of us to obey our thirst. This should be good news for us today. In the midst of failing economies, political disappointment, violence and wars, broken homes, lost jobs, and diminished stock portfolios – Jesus is the living water. In the midst of fears, doubts, despair, dread, disillusionment, disappointment – Jesus is the living water.

What are you thirsty for? Are you thirsting after God? Our response to the presence and power of God should be to obey our thirst, and seek God where he can be found.

Waiting

2011-04-03T06:36:00.000-07:00

The length of this year’s Epiphany season has afforded an opportunity for many to enter into a time of deeper reflection and preparation for Lent and the resurrection promise of Easter. Through all that occurs in our lives – earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, violence, economic volatility, and even lives transformed by the power of God – we are enlightened and emboldened in our sensed need for the powerful presence of God in our lives. The resurrection promise of Easter is one of hope and joy amidst any and all of life’s circumstances. This hope and joy is what the church is called to embody and proclaim as we participate in the transformation of the world in Christ’s name. In The Sabbatical Journey, Henri Nouwen shared that “Life is a short moment of waiting. But life is not empty waiting. It is to wait full of expectation. This knowledge that God will indeed fulfill the promise to renew everything, and will offer us a “new heaven and new earth,” makes the waiting exciting…” May God, who is making all things new, make our waiting exciting in the days that are before us.

The State of Black America 2011

2011-04-01T15:57:00.000-07:00

Check out the Executive Summary of the National Urban League's 2011 edition of the "State of Black America" at http://nul.org/content/state-black-america-executive-summary.

Thoughts on the City

2011-04-01T15:40:00.001-07:00

"Our cities are crime-haunted dying grounds. Huge sectors of our youth...face permanent unemployment... Neither the courts nor the prisons contribute anything resembling justice or reformation. The schools are unable-or unwilling-to educate our children for the real world of our struggles."

- From the Preamble, National Black Political Agenda, Gary, Indiana, 1972

Food for Thought

2011-04-01T15:36:00.001-07:00

"The whole history of the progress of human history shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of struggle. ... If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. ..."

-Frederick Douglass 1857

State of Shalom

2011-02-16T12:42:00.000-08:00

Check out Dr. Michael Christensen's report on the State of Shalom at http://michael-christensen.blogspot.com/2011/02/state-of-shalom-2010.html.

Holding onto Hope

2011-01-27T19:21:00.000-08:00

(Exerpts from addresses given at First Baptist Church, Chillicothe, OH and Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Baltimore, MD, January 2011)

On the occasion of the 82nd anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the time of year when we celebrate the history of people of the African Diaspora in America, and two years after the historic inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, we continue to experience unprecedented change and challenge across virtually every sector of our society. From the collapse of the economy that has in some way affected all of us – to the wars that are now being fought in at least two places in the Middle East – to the proliferation of violence that affects many of our communities - to the healthcare crisis that continues to result in over 40 million Americans living without adequate healthcare today, these are days of unprecedented change and challenge.

In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois declared in The Souls of Black Folk that the problem of the 20th century was the problem of the color-line. Today, several recent events serve to remind us that one of the critical problems of the 21st century in America remains the problem of the color-line. Among these are the 2009 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Justice Sonia Sotomayor; the arrest of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates at his home in Cambridge, MA; the emergence of the Tea Party and others across America who seem intent on “taking back the country”; ongoing discourse on issues related to immigration reform; and the ongoing debates surrounding President Obama’s efforts toward reforming our nation’s health care system.

For many people across the nation and world, Obama’s historic election as the first president of African descent renewed (or birthed) a sense of hope. His election seemed to point - for many - to glimmers of hope that our society had somehow arrived at our ideals of “E Pluribus Unum” (out of many one), and the creed shared in our nation’s Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all (persons) are created equal.”

Many also seemed to sense (and hope) that the election of Obama had ushered in an age of post-racialism and post-racism in America – and perhaps across the world. Two years later, we discover that we as a nation are continuing to come to grips with the racial and racist realities that continue to afflict us. During a recent visit to the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL, I and others who were a part of the visit were informed that there were over 800 hate related groups identified in 2008, and that this number is on the rise since Obama’s election as president.

It is clear today that race continues to matter in America, and that we are not yet at the place of being post-racial or post-racist. This is the matter that Michael Eric Dyson addresses in his book, "Can You Hear Me Now?" Dyson insists that the critical question that is before society today is not if we are yet a post-racial society and the question is not even if we should strive to become post-racial, but the question is how might we move closer to becoming a post-racist society?

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, he 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.

A part of the moral prerogative of churches, civil rights organizations and all other institutions and persons concerned about the well-being of our world today remains that of speaking to the critical moral and social issues of the contemporary age. It is our task to help articulate a framework for engaging in critical and constructive advocacy for the disinherited among us – the poor, the violated, and the oppressed.

In light of this, where might hope reside among us as we look to the future? King framed his vision of hope within the context of Beloved Community. In one of his later sermons, "The Meaning of Hope," he defined hope as that quality which is "necessary for life."

King asserted that hope was to be viewed as "animated and undergirded by faith and love." In his mind, if you had hope, you had faith in something. For King, hope was the refusal to give up "despite overwhelming odds." In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on August 28, 1963, King shared that a part of his dream was that we would be able “to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”

In Jeremiah 29:11, the prophet offers a vision of hope for 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. It is against this backdrop of nihilism that Jeremiah shares 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.”

Those were also the same times and conditions 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?” (Jer. 8:22)

In reflecting on the text from Jeremiah, Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out that the evidence of faith and hope is found in the fact that persons were able to convert the question mark of the prophet Jeremiah’s lament, into an exclamation point as they affirmed their faith and hope in the living and life-giving God in a song:
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!

Hope beckons us to love everybody – both our enemies and allies. Hope helps us to see that we can resist giving up on one another because our lives together are animated by the belief that God is present in each and every one of us.

Hope can be found in the possibilities that we will continue to discover ways to capitalize on those experiences and encounters that will lead to us being intentional and inclusive community. This is the hope that must be realized if we are to be the – the Beloved Community that Martin Luther King, Jr. imagined, and that God wills.

In the days ahead, may we continue to conjure the audacity to dream dreams and see visions, and may we have the temerity to hope against all that seems to rise against hope, and may we have the courage to hold onto hope.

Be a Mentor

2011-01-27T19:04:00.000-08:00

Here's the link to the Baltimore City Mentoring Initiative: http://www.bmentors.org/

Dare to Dream

2011-01-17T09:13:00.000-08:00

(An excerpt from a sermon preached on 1/16/11)

In the reading from the book of the prophet Joel, it is written, “And it shall come to pass, afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; and your sons and daughters shall prophesy; your old men (and women) shall dream dreams, your young men (and women) shall see visions.” (Joel 28)

How fitting it is that we hear these words this weekend as we celebrate the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. If Dr. King was anything, he was a dreamer and a visionary, a man chosen by God to be a prophet in our midst.

We recall that in our nation’s capital almost 48 years ago, Dr. King shared his dreams and what he envisioned for our world. He dreamt, we recall, of a world where the descendants of former slaves and former slave-owners would be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood… a world where little children would someday live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Dr. King envisioned a world where we would grow to see the face of Jesus in Blacks and Whites, Native Americans, Asians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and all other racial, ethnic, social, cultural or religious groups. He dared to dream and envision:
• A world of peace and love among all women and men, girls and boys...
• A world where we would study war no more…
• A world where poverty, hunger, and homelessness would be eradicated…
• A world where violence and abuse would exist no longer.

Toward the conclusion of his life in 1968, Dr. King wondered out loud about the dream he had articulated for America and the world in 1963, and whether his dream had become a “nightmare.”

It leads us to ask ourselves the questions, “What has really happened to King’s dream, and our own ability to hope and love and envision and dream? Where are our dreams and visions today?

The word of hope is this. We can all be dreamers and visionaries. Dr. King came not only to dream himself, but to prophetically challenge each of us to dare, in our heart of hearts, to dream and vision… knowing that through hope and faith, and steadfastness and courage, we could live a better tomorrow. He dared to dream.

In one of his poems, Langston Hughes encourages us to:

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

We can dare to dream, and Dr. King’s dreams can come alive for us today:
• As we advocate and work to address poverty and oppression…
• As we continue to fight for healthcare for everybody…
• As we commit ourselves to peace and justice for all humanity.
• As we work for a nonviolent society…
• As we hold before ourselves the belief in the words etched in our Declaration of Independence, that “all people are created equal.”

Indeed, we are called today to dream dreams and see visions. Dare to dream of what our families (and our young people)… and our churches… and our communities… and our governments… and our world will be in the days to come.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2011-01-17T08:54:00.000-08:00

"We must work unceasingly to uplift
this nation that we love to a higher destiny,
to a higher plateau of compassion,
to a more noble expression of humanness."
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Abound in Hope

2010-12-07T11:33:00.000-08:00

Today marks the third anniversary of the launching of the Baltimore-Washington Conference's Initiative to Address Violence in Baltimore and of Hope for the City, the Conference's strategic plan for ministry in Baltimore. In 2007, over 300 United Methodists and others from across the Baltimore region gathered to pray for the city and for those who had been victimized by violence during that year. In that year, there were 278 people murdered in Baltimore. This year, the number of people murdered in Baltimore has again exceeded 200, with 10 of those persons being children. Let us recommit ourselves to doing all that we can to being the change that we want for the city. In the book of Romans (15:13), the apostle Paul offers a prayer of encouragement for those in that city who were facing the adversity of their day: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." In the days ahead, let us abound in the hope that God will continue to work through the church to bring forth healing and transformation.

Haiti Mission Team

2010-12-07T05:24:00.000-08:00

Please be in prayer for the Baltimore United methodist Regional team going to Haiti, Dec. 9-17, 2010. This team of 6, led by Rev. Gayle Annis-Forder, pastor of Loch Raven UMC, reports that they feel blessed to have this opportunity to serve during Advent, to embody incarnation by serving in the name of Jesus. Knowing of the harsh conditions endured by Haitians, beginning with extreme poverty, followed by an earthquake, a hurricane, cholera and unrest following recent elections, the team seeks your prayers for them and the people they will be privileged to serve.

The Church Lights the Way

2010-11-14T05:34:00.000-08:00

"The Church Lights the Way" HIV/AIDS Conference was held yesterday, Saturday, November 13th at Grace UMC in Baltimore. Sponsored by the Baltimore Hope for the City Initiative and the AIDS Task Force of Grace United Methodist Church, the purpose of the conference was to afford an opportunity for people in local faith communities to learn, network and share resources pertaining to HIV/AIDS as it continues to impact our churches and communities. It was a excellent time of learning and sharing, with HIV/AIDS testing also made available for conference attendees and others wishing to be tested. In her closing address, Ms. Linda Bales Todd from the United Methodist Church's General Board of Church and Society, encouraged each of us to be like pesky mosquitos and to commit to doing something to help address the HIV/AIDS pandemic that affects us all. A reminder for all of us is that World AIDS Day is December 1st. Prayerfully, each of us will find a way to do something to help raise consciousness and move toward eradicating AIDS in our midst.

Suggestions on Becoming a Positive Deviant

2010-10-24T19:15:00.000-07:00

In the final section of his book, "Better", Dr. Atul Gawande offers five suggestions for how we might make a worthy difference, or in other words how we might become "positive deviant." These are:
(1) Ask an unscripted question. Seek to learn something about others by asking questions.
(2) Don't complain. We all have plenty to carp about, but resist the temptation to complain.
(3) Count something. One should be a scientist in one's world. Whatever that world is, one should count something.
(4) Write something. It makes no diffrence whether you write five paragraphs for a blog, a paper for a professional journal, or a poem for a reading group. Just write.
(5) Change. Make yourself an early adopter. Look for the opportunity to change.

The Difference between Good and Great

2010-10-24T16:05:00.000-07:00

One of the books that I had the chance to read during my Sabbath Leave this past summer was a book entitled "Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance" by Dr. Atul Gawande. One of the things that Gawande shares in the book is that the difference between being good and great is that great is being consistently good.

Record Improvements in Baltimore Graduation and Dropout Rates Reported

2010-10-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

The record, three-year gains Baltimore City Public Schools reported in its dropout and graduation rates earlier this month were largely driven by the academic progress of its African American male students, new data show. City Schools’ overall dropout rate is down 56 percent and its graduation rate is up 10 percent in the last three years. According to district analysis, the gains for African American male students during this time outpaced the district rates: Their dropout rate is down 59 percent, and their graduation rate is up 12.4 percent. Local leaders and national education experts are hailing the Baltimore findings as an important exception to what have been troubling national trends for this group of students.

The number of African American male dropouts in City Schools decreased from 1,439 in 2006-07 to 593 in 2009-10. At the same time, the number of African American male graduates increased from 1,537 in 2006-07 to 1,724 in 2009-10. The bottom line: In 2006-07, City Schools had nearly equal numbers of African American male dropouts and graduates; by 2009-10 the district had nearly three times as many graduates as dropouts among African American males.

(Excerpt from Press Release issued by Baltimore City Public Schools (10/20/10))

Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Church

2010-10-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Tea Party Report

2010-10-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

Recently, the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR) released a report which documents specific examples of Tea Party leaders and Tea Party-associated organizations providing platforms for racists, and religious and other bigots.

The report serves as a reminder of the very real and active presence of racism and other forms of discrimination in America's public sphere, and that there are significant threats to moving forward and effecting real change in American life.

Please take a moment to read more from the report:

http://action.naacp.org/TeaPartyReport

Battered by the Storm

2010-09-29T15:59:00.001-07:00

Check out the recent study by the Institute for Policy Studies on the the effects of the current economic crisis, "Battered by the Storm: How the Safety Net Is Failing Americans and How to Fix It" at http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/battered-by-the-storm.

A Bold Plan to Combat Poverty

2010-09-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

U.S. Census data released today shows the burden of the Great Recession has fallen mostly on those at the bottom. The data reveals that the U.S. in 2009 had the largest number of Americans living in poverty in the 51 years that poverty has been measured, 43.6 million people, and the highest poverty rate, 14.3% since 1998.

Institue for Policy Studies Fellow Karen Dolan, urges policymakers and those concerned about growing poverty to read the recommendations in IPS's report "Battered by the Storm," which warned about these massive increases in poverty and put forth common-sense solutions to alleviate it.

Dolan says, "This new data reveals our nation's inability to respond to the profound needs of a growing number of Americans falling precipitously through a badly tattered safety net. We must act quickly to stop the devastation that will affect generations to come."

To read more, go to the website for the Institue for Policy Studies at http://www.ips-dc.org/

Hope for the City - Pathways to Restoration

2010-09-19T17:28:00.001-07:00

This weekend, over 100 church and community leaders and seminarians gathered at the Maritime Institute of Technology in Linthicum, MD for the Baltimore Region's second annual Hope for the City Urban Ministry Convocation. Our focus was on exploring ways to expand capcity in collaboration and partnership in urban ministry, as we seek to restore the proverbial village that is the city. Dr. Robert Franklin, in his latest book "Crisis in the Village", offers that several strategic steps must be employed in order for the village to be renewed and restored. These steps are:
(1) Focused Conversation
(2) Collaborative Leadership
(3) Vision and Planning
(4) Accountability and Action
(5) Sustaining and Fundraising
(6) Documenting and Celebrating Progress.

The Power of Partnership

2010-09-05T13:10:00.000-07:00

“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1)

Some of the most significant aspects and opportunities that we share in ministry are found in the ways that we engage in partnership, collaboration, and teamwork.

In ancient Greek literature there is a story that shows the power of working together.

“An aged, dying father called his seven sons around him. He gave each one a stick and told them to break it. Each son easily broke his separate stick. The old father then bound seven sticks together, and gave the bundle to his eldest son and told him to break the bundle. The eldest son could not break it. Then the second son was commanded to try. He could not break it. Nor could any of the rest. “So is it to be of you,” said the father. “Alone you are weak, but together you are strong.”

This is the nature of synergism. It is derived from the Greek word “synergos” meaning “working together.” Synergism means that by joining with others, common objectives can be more easily and effectively accomplished. There is strength in numbers when we multiply our efforts through working with others.

Hurricane Katrina and Urban Poverty

2010-08-29T08:40:00.001-07:00

Today marks the 5th anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast region and left over 1,800 persons dead in several states. Over 1,400 of those who died were from New Orelans with the majority being from the Lower 9th Ward. Among other things, Hurricane Katrina shed light on the dimensions of urban poverty. One of the poorest areas of New Orleans, persons in the lower 9th Ward were disproporionately affected by the Hurricane. Today, many remain dispplaced or continue to live in temporary trailors.

The Meaning of King's Dream

2010-08-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, August 28, 2010, marked the 47th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's the now-famous "I Have a Dream" speech rendered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. On yesterday, two rallies were held in Washington, led by persons with very obvious competing interests and interpretations of King's message in 1963 and throughout his life. One of the rallies was organized and led by Glen Beck (conservative talk-show host) and Sarah Palin (former candidate for vice president and a leader of the "tea party" movement) - with the theme "Restoring Honor." The other, with theme, "Reclaiming the Dream", was organized and led by progressive activist, Rev. Al Sharpton. This beckons us to reflect upon the meaning of King's Dream for us today. One of the speakers at Sharpton's rally was Christian social ethicist, Dr. Robert Franklin, now the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA where Dr. King completed his undergraduate studies. Dr. Franklin shared in his remarks that all of those who are interested in King's dream (including Mr. Beck, Ms. Palin and members of the "tea party") might do well to visit Morehouse College where many of the spiritual and intellectual foundations of King's dream were shaped and molded. At its very foundation, King's dream (and his life's work) was rooted in justice - which is both social and political. He stated on more than one occasion that the "arc of the universe is wide - and it always bends toward justice." For King, justice pertains to the moral order of the universe, and is God's divine intent for all humanity. Justice is intended to be pervasive, and involves economic justice (which addresses poverty, inequality and exploitation), racial justice, gender justice, justice for children, justice for those without health care, and just peacemaking (as an alternative to war). Forty-seven years after King heeded the encouragement of Ms. Mahalia Jackson and told us his dream, perhaps yesterday's gatherings should give each of us the impetus to pause and reflect upon the real meaning of King's dream for us - and how after reading his dream and studying his life, each of us might seek to live out justice in our midst.

Hate Crime in the City

2010-08-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

Recently, there has been a rise in the incidence of violent crimes directed toward Hispanic men in Baltimore - including the murder of two men in East Baltimore. Police offcials have determined that one of the murders appears to have been a hate crime. We are reminded again that hatred and violence anywhere is a threat to love and peace everywhere.

Hate Crime in the City

2010-08-20T06:08:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, numnerous swastikas were found painted on six vans in the Park Heights community of Baltimore. We are reminded that hatred anywhere is a threat to love everywhere. Let us remain prayerful that acts of hatred such as this will be eradicated in our midst.

Black Youth Violence

2010-08-15T05:12:00.000-07:00

Homicide is the leading cause of death for African-Americans ages 10-24. In a 2007 nationwide survey, 36 percent of high school students reported being in a physical fight during the past 12 months, and 6 percent reported taking a gun, knife or club to school in the past 30 days. (Ebony Magazine, September 2010)

High School Dropout

2010-08-15T05:07:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama called the high school dropout rate a "crisis" that the nation cannot accept or ignore. Nationwide, three out of 10 students never graduate. In some inner-city schools, only three out of 10 do. What's disturbing about these numbers is that 12 percent of the schools produce 50 percent of America's dropout rates. (Ebony Magazine, September 2010)

Gangs

2010-08-06T06:44:00.000-07:00

A recent report indicates that today there are over 28,000 identifiable gangs in America with over 770,000 gang members. These gangs operate in urban, suburban and rural communities across the country, and represent various ethnic groups - whites (and white supremicists), blacks, Hispanics and Asians.

The Church's Challenge

2010-08-03T07:15:00.000-07:00

It is in order now at last to raise the question: Is the witness of the church in our society the unfolding of such an idea as we see manifested in the religious experience and the life of Jesus? Whatever may be the deliminitng character of the historical development of the church, the simple fact remains that at the present moment in our society, as an institution, the church is divisive and discriminating, even within its fellowship. It is divided into dozens of splinters. This would indicate that it is essentially sectarian in character. As an institution there is no such thing as the church. There has to be some kind of church...

Howard Thurman - "The Creative Encounter", 1954

Confronting Crime in Baltimore

2010-08-03T07:05:00.000-07:00

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has posted infomation regarding city efforts to confront crime under the Rawlings-Blake Rewiew #26-Confronting Crime. For more infomation go to http://www.baltimorecity.gov/.

Broken Windows

2010-08-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

I teach an Urban Ministry course in Baltimore, where one of the exercises that students are asked to complete is to walk the neighborhood around the their church and count the number of broken windows and boarded up buildings. It's always interesting to here of the students' findings as it pertains to the correlation between broken windows/boarded buildings and the quality of life in their communities. This brings to mind Wilson and Kelling's piece on the Broken Window's theory. To read more go to: (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/4465/).

When Violence Abounds

2010-07-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

The murder of Stephen Pitcairn, age 23, on Sunday, July 25, 2010 in the Charles Village section of Baltimore points to the pervasive nature of the violence afflicting the city. Pitcarin was a promising researcher at Johns Hopkins University, and an aspiring physician. We are reminded again of the culture of violence that seems to know no socio-economic bounds, and reminded also that violence anywhere is a threat to safety everywhere. May we be renewed in our resolve to create a culture of peace in the city.

Haiti: Navigating a Landscape of Hope

2010-07-19T05:26:00.000-07:00

In the link below is a letter from the Rev. Cynthia Harvey on the work of Unied Methodist Commitee on Relief (UMCOR)in Haiti. Rev. Harvey, director of the relief agency, takes a comprehensive look at accomplishments, challenges, and possibilities in Haiti in the wake of the January earthquake.

The document is at:

http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/newsroom/releases/archives2010/landscapeofhope

Baltimore Poised for Change

2010-07-17T14:53:00.000-07:00

It's a rare opportunity for a denomination to be able to transform its presence in a city as large as Baltimore, but a variety of circumstances have come together to make such a transformation both possible and necessary for the United Methodist congregations in the city. In May, members from many of the United Methodist churches in Baltimore gathered for a Summit on the City, the first step in designing a road map that will provide a path forward. To view the full article and details, visit www.bwcumc.org/baltimorechange.

Urban Youth the New Social Justice

2010-07-07T05:52:00.000-07:00

"I wonder if addressing concerns of urban youth is not the new social justice frontier in urban ministry. Churches are organizing around issues of education and health care for children. Intervention programs for so-called “at risk” youth, such as “Uth Turn” in New York City are manifestations of a deeper realization that caring for the well-being of youth is a justice issue, to say nothing of taking care that the church will survive for another generation."

Dale T. Irvin, Ph.D.
Pesident, New York Theological Seminary

Prayer for our Cities

2010-07-06T05:57:00.000-07:00

An article in the USA Today last week highlighted the rising levels of violent crime in many of our cities during the summer months. Cities across the nation continue to confront this troubling reality. In Batlimore, over the Memorial Day weekend, there were ten shootings in the city. This past weekend, John Crowder, a very promising young high school basketball player was murdered in East Baltimore. Let us all see this violence as our shared concern, and remain in prayer for our cities, the people and each of our leaders.

Prayer for the Nation

2010-07-06T05:47:00.000-07:00

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom." Martin Luther King, Jr.

As we have celebrated our nation's independence this past weekend, let us continue to be in prayer for the nation and our leaders.

A CALL TO ACTION

2010-06-11T06:19:00.000-07:00

"God gives ear to the despairing words of our nation's 13.3 million poor children. God heeds the sighs of our nation's more than 200,000 children who are homeless each night. God hears the cries of our nation's nearly 9 million children without heath insurance who may not ne able to see a doctor or dentist when they need to. Isn't it time for us, God's people, to do the same? Dr. David Davis pastor of Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey, preached about the ritual of baptism, "We should never be able to dip our hands in the water without hearing the cries...not the cry of the baby being baptized... but of the forgotten ones.""

- Dr. Marian Wright Edelman

A CALL TO ACTION

2010-06-10T04:47:00.000-07:00

"SILENCE IN THE FACE OF EVIL IS ITSELF EVIL; GOD WILL NOT HOLD US GUILTLESS. NOT TO SPEAK IS TO SPEAK. NOT TO ACT IS TO ACT."
- DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Baltimore Interfaith Coalition - Declaration Against Violence

2010-05-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, May 27 about 50 religious and community leaders representing the Baltimore Interfaith Coalition gathered at the New Huntington Baptist Church to unveil the group’s Declaration Against Violence and launched a “Fifth Sunday: Violence to Virtue” program.

The declaration was another bold step by the coalition, which was formed in 2009, and seeks to address the "culture of violence" in Baltimore. The declaration looks to shake up the status quo in Baltimore, which the coalition said has “become ensnared in a covenant with death.”

“The evil inflicted upon our community can be overcome by the faith, morality and spiritual vision that are our heritage to be reclaimed,” the declaration said. “The time has come for a renewed effort to recognize the truth of our situation, to be brutally honest in studying its causes, and to forge a new community-wide commitment to a more creative and effective response.”

For more information on the Baltimore Interfaith Coalition, visit the website at www.baltimoreinterfaithcoalition.com/.

The goal of the “Fifth Sunday” program is to partner faith communities with the state’s attorney’s office to stress the importance of values in teaching children how to build community.

Churches, synagogues and mosques across the city are asked to collect funds at each fifth Sunday service of a month, which occurs four times this year. The money will support youth-oriented activities in partneship with the state’s attorney’s Office of Juvenile Justice forums.

For more information on the Baltimore Interfaith Coalition, visit the website at www.baltimoreinterfaithcoalition.com/.

Baltimore Summit on the City

2010-05-29T05:48:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at Grace United Methodist Church in Baltimore, more than 70 clergy and laity from churches in the city gathered for the first Baltimore Summit on the City. We gathered to worship and to share information on the state of the 46 United Methodist Churches in Baltimore, and look at where we are going over the next few years. These are exciting times as we continue to explore ways to transform churches and communities across the city.

Toward these ends, at the Summit we shared that since 2008 through Hope for the City, the strategic initiative for ministry in Baltimore, some of what has been accomplished is the establishment 9 new Communities of Shalom in the city, the initiation of Camp Life to offer support to youth affected by violence in the city, and launching of It Takes A Village, designed to help persons in churches more effectively partner with the schools in their communities.

Indeed these are hopeful times, and we look forward to what God will continue to do in our midst.

Arizona and Immigration - A Personal Account

2010-05-29T05:21:00.000-07:00

I beleive that I'm not alone in that myy first reading of the recent signing of legislation by the Governor of Arizona which targets and profiles immigrants in that state, and seems to threaten the freedom of many law abiding persons. I received word a few days ago that one of my nieces – a U.S. citizen, born, raised and educated as a part of a a multicultural American family, and traveling “legally” to and from Guatemala for her job, upon returning was retained for a very long period of time in an airport Arizona – apparently because she looked like an “immigrant.”

The fact of the matter is that we should all be reminded that that there are very few of us in America - other than our Native American sisters adn brothers - who don't have family root's planted in another land. We are all - in some way - sojourners.

I pray that as we think and talk about persons who are so-called "illegal" or "undocumented", we realize that we are all affected by the strictures that we as a society place on one another.

Common Ground - Tackling Homelessness

2010-05-21T20:20:00.000-07:00

This week, I had the opportunity to travel with a group of colleagues to New York City to visit two sites that the orgainzation Common Ground is using to provide transitional and peramnent housing for homeless persons in that city. We learned that more than 120,000 persons continue to be homeless across the nation. It's interesting to note that although many of these persons are in cities, many are also in what would be considered suburban areas. Common Ground's apporach to addrssing the problem of homelessness is unique in that the focus is not on providng temporary shelter, but on moving the most cronically homeless toward more permament dwelling and self-sufficiency. I, and many of my colleagues, left New York excited about this appooach and hopeful that it might be replcated in Baltmore. For more information on Common Ground, go to www.commonground.org.

Theology on the Ground

2010-04-16T15:14:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was privileged to travel to Union Theological Seminairy in Richmond, VA to partiipate in the "Theology on the Ground" Urban Ministry Forum. I, along with Dr. Roger Gench, Pastor of New York Avenue Presbterian Church in Washington, DC and Rev. Ben Campbell, the Director of Richmond Hill, in Richmond, shared some of our experiences in seeking to engage in ministries that build community, empower the marginalized, and help people at their points of need. Dr. Gench shared what it’s like to be an urban parish minister and how collective action and relatonships among churches can accomplish change. Richmond Hill’s Campbell described how spirituality and prayer create ecumenical bonds which then forms concrete social action to help transform lives. And I discussed how the creaton of communities of shalom in Baltimore are transforming churches and communities. Union Seminary is to be commended for offering this important opportunity for persons in the seminary community and from across the city to gather to better understand that effective ministry means opening one’s doors, offering radical hospitality, and creating relationships to develop the ‘beloved community.’

Overcoming Hatred - Building Community

2010-03-31T13:23:00.000-07:00

In the context of the current public debates on health care reform, immigration reform, economic recovery, war and terror (among others), it seems that one of the risks that we face is that of objectifying these debates to the point where they become impersonal and dehumanizing. In fact, these are issues that affect the lives of real people. Among the potential by-products of such impersonalization and de-humanization is a breeding of hatred among us that will serve to hinder real compassion, shared concern and true community.

Howard Thurman, in his 1953 book "Jesus and the Disinherited," wrote of the need to overcome hatred as a prerequisite for building community. His construct for understanding hatred begins in a situation where there is contact without fellowship. This is contact that is devoid of any of the primary overtures of warmth and fellow-feelings and genuineness. Secondly, Thurman points out that contacts without fellowship tend to express themselves in the kind of understanding that is strikingly unsympathetic. There is understanding of a kind, but it is without healing and reinforcement of personality. Thirdly, Thurman points out that unsympathetic understanding tends to express itself in the active functioning of ill-will.

To make this point, Thurman shared the story of once traveling from Chicago to Memphis, Tennessee. He found his seat on the train across from an elderly lady, who took immediate cognizance of his presence. When the conductor came along for the tickets, she said to him, pointing in Thurman’s direction, “What is that doing in this car?”

The conductor answered, with a touch of creative humor, “That has a ticket.”

For the next fifty miles, this lady talked for five or ten minutes to all who were seated in that coach, setting forth her philosophy of human relationships and the basis of her objection to Thurman’s presence in the car. Thurman said that he was able to see the atmosphere of the entire car shift from common indifference to active recognition of and, to some extent positive resentment of his presence in the car. He said, “An ill will spreading is like a contagious virus.”

Fourth, Thurman suggests that active ill-will, when dramatized in a human being, becomes hatred walking on earth.

Palm Sunday - March Madness

2010-03-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

(I preached this sermon today during the Palm Sunday worship celebration at Old Otterein UMC in Baltimore, MD)

Luke 19:28-40

I am an unapologetic sports fan. Football, track and field and basketball are my favorites, although just about any sport will satisfy my appetite. I love the excitement of competition and the cheering of crowds. This is one of my favorite times of year because of what has come to be known as “March Madness” – the annual spring college basketball tournament where there seems to be a never-ending string of games leading to the championship in just a few days.

One of the key characteristics of “March Madness” is that it seems that the excitement builds as the number of teams that remain in the tournament dwindles – from 64 teams at the beginning, down to 32, to the sweet sixteen, to the elite eight, down to the final four, and finally the two that will play to be champions – the excitement builds.

My favorite team – Maryland – and my second favorite – Georgetown – have been eliminated from the tournament this year, but I still love March Madness.

Although there has been debate by scholars as to the exact time of the year that Jesus and the disciples went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival that we know to be the Lord’s last Passover festival – surely the atmosphere was one that was filled with excitement and anticipation as was always the case. It was customary for large numbers of believers to converge on the holy city – and a certain madness filled the air.

Jesus and his disciples were pressing their way to the holy festival, and at the same time pressing toward the Lord’s inevitable time of reckoning which would ultimately lead to his agonizing torture, crucifixion and death. Madness was in the air as Jesus rode on a donkey into Jerusalem and the people in the crowd cut “branches from the trees and spread them in his path,” (Matthew 21:8) and laid down their cloaks (Luke 19:35), and the crowds cheered on the Lord’s arrival – praising God joyfully with shouts of “Hosanna – blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”

The madness of what we know as Palm Sunday in some respects can be found in paradox of those who would cheer the Lord on this day – and then jeer and cry crucify him in just a few days. Madness is seen in how so many could not understand the work of God in Christ who came not condemn the world – but that through him the world would be saved. Madness is evident in those who were considered his friends – his disciples – who would deny that they had any association with Christ.

These are days when we witness similar madness – and not just in the context of college basketball. We witness the madness of division around health care reform, and immigration reform – the madness of continued racism, classism and other “isms” that divide us – the madness of economic crisis and recession - the madness of abject poverty and too many murders in our city and others (there were 238 murders in Baltimore last year)- the madness of the wars in which our nation continues to engage.

If anything, Palm Sunday affords each of us an opportunity to reflect upon our own discipleship – the ways that we as Christians choose to follow Christ. How is our faith in Christ shaping the way we deal with the madness around us?

Amidst the madness of Palm Sunday, Jesus prepared in just a few days to share one last meal with his disciples – those he had spent many intimate and often dangerous moments with him over the past several years. As they would break bread and share wine together, they would be invited to remember their time together, and God’s mighty acts in Jesus.

What Christ beckons us to is a consistent acknowledgement of the power of his presence in our lives – not just for a season, not merely for the spring-time, but for a lifetime. Indeed it is easy for us to become consumed by the hoopla of the season, and even to be swept up by the madness around us – but what God reminds us of in Christ is that God’s grace abounds through all of life. Through passion, Passover, Palms – God’s grace abounds. With cheers and jeers – indeed God’s grace abounds. With betrayal, disappointment and denial – God’s grace abounds. Even in death on a cross – God’s grace abounds.

Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,
Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!
Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured,
There where the blood of the lamb was spilt.

Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin.

A Day of Triumph and a Time of Tragedy

2010-03-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

Sunday, March 21, 2010 will go down in American history as a day of triumph, and the days that have followed as a time of tragedy. It was a triumphant day as the House of Representatives passed a comprehensive health care bill that will afford access to health care to millions of Americans who have heretofore lacked access. This will have a profound impact on the poor in our cities and rural communities across the nation – the young and the old, children, women and men, black, brown, and white. It was an act of tremendous courage for those congresspersons who voted for the legislation in the face of the venomous, vicious verbal attacks and threats directed toward many. On Saturday, at the dawning of the historic vote, I was in Washington, DC and as I walked the city's streets near the Capitol, I witnessed those carrying signs espousing their support of the Tea Party and labeling President Barack Obama a “communist, socialist, Marxist, or all the above.” Again, in the tragic aftermath of the vote, in the face of the racial slurs reportedly directed toward members of congress, and of Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver, a fellow United Methodist clergyman, being spat upon, it leads us to wonder when the day will come when we are truly the “United” States of America, one nation under God. For as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us, the day must come when we will either live together as sisters and brothers, or die together as fools.

Doing Justice

2010-03-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

This week, as a member of the Board of Directors of the General Commission on Religion and Race, I had a chance to attend the joint spring meeting of GCORR and the General Board of Church and Society in Crystal City, Virginia. These two agencies continue to be a prophetic voice for the United Methodist Church in helping us as people of faith engage in acts of racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice, among others. I am encouraged that each of us can be prophetic voices for the people in our churches and communities. I invite you and those of your congregation to visit the web sites of GCORR at www.gcorr.org, and GBSC at www.umc-gbcs.org, as together we heed the words of the prophet Micah and seek to “do justice, and love kindness and walk humbly with God.”

Live Simply

2010-03-12T18:04:00.000-08:00

"Let us live simply so that others may simply live." (Mohandas K. Gandhi)

What we do to the "Least of These"

2010-03-07T07:46:00.000-08:00

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." (the late Dom Hélder Câmara)

Gandhi's Seven Deadly Social Sins

2010-03-03T18:40:00.000-08:00

1. Politics without principle
2. Wealth without work
3. Commerce without morality
4. Pleasure without conscience
5. Education without character
6. Science without humanity
7. Worship without sacrifice

Compton Cookout

2010-03-02T16:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, while listening to NPR, I heard of the troubling events surrounding the so-called “Compton Cookout” at the University of California, San Diego this past February. The invitation, posted on Facebook, notes that February, typically observed as Black History Month, is very important. Members of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity who hosted the event invited guests to celebrate Black History Month by wearing their favorite urban clothing (such as white T’s, FUBU, Ecko, Rockawear and “stunner shades”), to speak loudly and to eat foods such as watermelon and chicken and drink Malt Liquor. The invitation goes on to describe “ghetto chicks” as those who “usually have gold teeth, start fights and drama and wear cheap clothes...” as well as people with very limited vocabulary. There is evidence that this event at UC San Diego is not an isolated incident as UC San Diego and other college campuses have recently experienced other incidents of racial intolerance and bigotry. Such bigoted, hate-filled and divisive rhetoric and behavior point to our common need to continue to teach and practice tolerance and deeper understanding across cultures. Perhaps all of our nation’s colleges and universities should find the opportunity to use the tragedy of the “Compton Cookout” as a way of teaching such tolerance and understanding among our young.

A Year After - Barack Obama and Holding onto Hope

2010-02-27T13:57:00.000-08:00

Ohio University, Chillicothe, OH
February 26, 2010

C. Anthony Hunt, D.Min., Ph.D.

A little more than a year after the election and inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, these continue to be days of tremendous change and challenge in our society. From the collapse of the economy that has affected all of us – to the wars that continue to be fought in at least two places in the Middle East – to the proliferation of violence that affects many of our urban communities - to the health care crisis that results in over 40 million Americans living without healthcare today, these are days of unprecedented change and challenge.

For many, Obama’s historic election as the first president of African descent renewed (or birthed) a sense of hope across the nation and the world. The election of Obama seemed to point - for many - to glimmers of hope that our society had somehow arrived at our ideals of “E Pluribus Unum” (out of many one), and the creed shared in our nation’s Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all (persons) are created equal.” Throughout his presidential campaign, Obama offered a framework for what he termed an audacity of hope amidst the challenges we face.

On November 1, 2008, three days prior to the election, I was invited by St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore to give a lecture dealing with the matter of the church, society and race relations over the past forty years, and I was invited to address the question of whether it is possible - or even desirable - for us to strive to become color-blind. In my reflections, I was drawn back to the recalling some of what was occurring in America in the late 1960’s. We recalled that it was a time of great racial tension in America. 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.

In 1968, the Kerner Commission Report, which President Lyndon B. Johnson had requested in light of 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 Kerner Commission report is to be viewed against the backdrop of the history of racism in America. In 1903, African-American sociologist W. E. B. DuBois pronounced that the problem of the 20th century would be the problem of the color-line (The Souls of Black Folk). In 1944, Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal discussed the plight of African Americans within the context of what he referred to as an "American dilemma." (An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy).

Barack Obama’s historic election and his first year in office is also to be viewed against the backdrop of the history of racism in America. As for Barack Obama’s election, many seemed to sense (and hope) that it usher in an age of post-racism and post-racialism in America – and perhaps across the world. A year later, we discover that we as a nation are continuing to come to grips with the racial and racist realities that continue to afflict us.

In his book, The Audacity of Hope (2006), Obama in-fact, offered words of caution to America in thinking that we may have arrived at becoming “post racial” or that we already live in a color-blind society, and that we may be beyond the need for discourse and critical engagement as it regards racism and related forms of oppression and injustice. He wrote:

"To say that we are one people is not to suggest that race no longer matters – that the fight for equality has been won, or that the problems that minorities face in this country today are largely self-inflicted. We know the statistics: On almost every single socioeconomic indicator, from infant mortality to life expectancy to employment to home ownership, black and Latino Americans in particular lag far behind their white counterparts.[i]

We also recall, that Obama, in a major address entitled “A More Perfect Union” that he delivered during his presidential campaign, offered an analysis of the prevalence of racial tensions which continue to define the relationship between the black and white communities. Obama argued that to simply shelve anger 0r “wish it away” (the race problem in America) could prove to be completely detrimental. Unambiguously, Obama pointed to a belief that race factors into the opportunities provided to each American citizen.

To support his belief, he noted that the inferior school systems today are often the ones that we segregated fifty years ago. Obama shared that the history of racism in America is undeniably at the root of the lack of opportunities for African American today. In light of this, it is both achievable and necessary for all Americans to unite and battle racial prejudices. In order move to a more perfect union, people of all races must recognize the historically oppressive and tyrannical nature of racism and its impact on the black experience in America.

A year after President Obama’s historic election, several recent events have served to heighten awareness as to the ongoing problems of race and racism in America. Among these are the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Justice Sonia Sotomayor; the arrest of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates at his home in Cambridge, MA; debate surrounding the president’s September speech to students returning to schools across the nation; the heckling by U.S. Congressman Joe Wilson (South Carolina) during a speech by President Obama to a joint session of the U.S. Congress; the ongoing debates surrounding the president’s efforts toward reforming our nation’s healthcare system; and the emergence of the Tea Party and other reactionary expressions toward so-called progressivism in the nation. During a visit – last summer - to the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery AL - I and others who were a part of the visit were informed that there were over 800 hate related groups identified in 2008, and that this number is on the rise since Obama’s election as president.

In 1992 philosopher Cornel West published an important book entitled Race Matters. The book was written against the backdrop of the Los Angeles riots of April 1992, which followed the acquittal of the police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King, and the ensuing racial tensions in that city. In the book, West pointed to what he referred to as the “nihilism of Black America” – where a certain nothingness, meaninglessness, lovelessness, and hopelessness seems to have pervaded and permeated much of our society – particularly in the urban context. According to West at the time, race matters in America.

In one of his later sermons, "The Meaning of Hope," Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. defined hope as that quality which is "necessary for life."[ii]

King asserted that hope was to be viewed as "animated and under girded by faith and love." In his mind, if you had hope, you had faith in something. Thus, hope shares the belief that "all reality hinges on moral foundations.”[iii]

For King, hope was the refusal to give up "despite overwhelming odds." This hope would beckon us to love everybody – both our enemies and allies. This hope would help us to see that we can resist giving up on one another because our lives together are animated by the belief that God is present in each and every one of us.

In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered in our Nation’s Capital in the summer of 1963, King shared that a part of his dream was that we would be able “to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”

In his most recent book, Hope on a Tightrope (2008), Cornel West cautions against a false sense of security in hope, yet unborn. He points out that real hope is grounded in a particularly messy struggle and it can be betrayed by naïve projections of a better future that ignore the necessity of doing real work. For West, real hope is closely connected to attributes like courage, faith, freedom and wisdom. It comes out of a history of struggle, and points to a future filled with the possibilities of promise and progress.[iv]

A year after the historic election of President Barack Obama, it is evident that there remain significant challenges to the actualization of real hope in America. Further, it evident that race still matters in America, and that while we may be moving toward such real hope, it is a hope yet unborn in its fullness.

[i] Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006), 232.

[ii] King, sermon delivered on December 10, 1967, see Garth Baker-Fletcher, Somebodyness: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Theory of Dignity, (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 132.
[iii] Baker-Fletcher, 132.

[iv] Cornel West, Hope on a Tight Rope (New York: Smile Books, 2008), 6.

The Road Not Taken

2010-02-22T21:02:00.000-08:00

Robert Frost, Mountain Interval, 1920

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down on as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

Ans both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(This poem by Robert Frost has served to encourage and challenge me at some of the more important junctures of my life.)

Christians

2010-02-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

By Maya Angelou

When I say… “I’m a Christian”
I’m not shouting “I’m clean livin’.”
I’m whispering ‘I was lost.
Now I’m found and forgiven.”

When I say… “I’m a Christian”
I don’t speak of this with pride.
I’m confessing that I stumble
And need Christ to be my guide.

When I say… “I’m a Christian”
I’m not trying to be strong.
I’m professing that I’m weak
And need His Strength to carry on.

When I say… “I’m a Christian”
I’m not bragging of success.
I’m admitting I have failed
And need God to clean my mess.

When I say… “I’m a Christian”
I’m not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
But, God believes I am worth it.

When I say… “I’m a Christian”
I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.

When I say… “I’m a Christian”
I’m not holier than thou,
I’m just a simple sinner
Who received God’s good grace, somehow!

Beyond Afghanistan

2010-02-10T16:37:00.000-08:00

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Reflections on the War and Peace

C. Anthony Hunt, Ph.D.

In this, the year of the 81st anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., we pause to reflect on state of our nation and world, and the prospects of peace among us. On December 1, 2009 President Barack Obama shared with the nation his decision to increase American troop levels in Afghanistan by 30,000 over the next six months, with plans for the withdrawal of American troops by the end of 2011. President Obama, whose presidential ambitions were launched by his opposition to the war in Iraq, indicated that the rationale for the escalation of the war in Afghanistan was based on an increased sense of urgency to conclude the war begun in the immediate aftermath of terrorist attacks on America on September 11, 2001.

What would Martin Luther King have to say about the current war in Afghanistan – and President Obama’s decision? Perhaps the best indicator can be found in King’s comments on the War in Vietnam. On April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City – in a sermon entitled, “Beyond Vietnam” – King expressed in very vehement terms his opposition to the war in Vietnam. He stated, "The bombs in Vietnam explode at home, they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America… The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing 'clergy and laymen concerned' for the next generation... Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read "Vietnam."

In “Beyond Vietnam,” King intimated that there are real spiritual, moral and social costs that are born as a result of war. He said, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood."

In April 2003 I published an essay entitled, “Counting the Costs: Reflections on the Church and Just War,” on the brink of the decision of the Bush administration to engage in war with Iraq. I wrote that it seems appropriate for the church to continue to consider (and reconsider) the matter of the justice of war from both philosophical and Christian perspectives. In terms of the morality of war, those who have thought, written, and acted on such matters, have historically raised particular questions as to the determinants of when war might be justified. In the fifth century, St. Augustine, the Christian philosopher, was instrumental in the development of seven criteria for determining whether or not a war is “just.” First, there must exist a just cause. The war must confront an unquestioned danger. Second, competent authority must exist. The leader committing a nation to war must be acting on behalf of his/her people. Third, there should be right intention. The reasons set forth should be the actual objectives, and retaliation must not be the aim. Fourth, war should be the last resort. All peaceful alternatives must have been exhausted. Fifth, there needs to be the probability of success. Sixth, discrimination requires the immunity of noncombatants from direct attack. And seventh, the good that will be achieved by war cannot be outweighed by the harm that is done.

In light of the general philosophical criteria outlined here, particular concerns exist as to how these can be applied to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Specifically, have the alleged atrocities of Saddam Hussein (in Iraq) and the Taliban (in Afghanistan) warranted – over the past 8 years - the killing and maiming of countless innocent women, men and children? This is not to speak of the annihilation of an untold number of Iraqi and Afghani buildings, homes, shopping malls, factories, schools, and places of worship.

I wrote in 2003 that for those of us who are Christians, it seems that ours are not only philosophical concerns about whether or not a particular war is just, but our concerns center on what it means to live as disciples of Jesus Christ. And the matter of our attitudes and actions in Christ do not stop with asking the popular question, “What would Jesus do?” For it seems to be clear that Jesus did not - and would not - engage in such atrocities as the war in Iraq (or Afghanistan). The critical question for the church is also “What is Jesus doing in the lives of Christians today, and how does this lead us to respond?”

In the midst of the war in Vietnam, King stated in 1967 that, "The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, rather it is the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority."

And so in these times where war persists in our midst, it is my sense that King would call the church yet again to reclaim its prophetic voice, and remind us that “true peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice.”

Crisis and Opportunity

2010-02-10T14:50:00.000-08:00

The Chinese symbol of crisis is also the symbol for opportunity. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. intimated that the true measure of a person is not how one acts in times of comfort and convenience, but how one acts in times of challenge and controversy. What are the opportunities and possibilities that you find in the crises and challlenges that you confront?

What Are You Afraid Of?

2010-02-10T10:12:00.000-08:00

From Marianne Williamson in A Return to Love

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves,” Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? “ Actually, who are we not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Blog Alert on Community of Shalom in Haiti

2010-02-07T11:39:00.000-08:00

Over 3 million people have been affected by the devastaing earthquake in Haiti. Communities of Shalom seeks to help with emergency needs while focusing on longer term rebuilding and community development in Mizak, Haiti. Once logistical challenges are met, we hope to see food security, temporary shelter and humanitarian aid flow and restore some community stability...so that the Shalom Zone Training for the long run can take place this summer. For more information, go to http://michael-christensen.blogspot.com/search/label/shalom%20zone.

What Martin Luther King Would Say About Haiti on His Birthday

2010-02-06T16:25:00.000-08:00

Casey Gane-McCalla is a writer, editor, rapper, producer and actor. He is a Columbia University Graduate and previously worked in the non-profit sector.

January 15, 2010

Today is Martin Luther King's birthday. Today a horrific tragedy is going on in Haiti. While some men of the cloth are using the incident to spread their twisted world views, Martin surely would've used the occasion to spread wisdom and good will and encourage his fellow man to help out our Haitian brothers and sisters in need. But still what happened in Haiti is deeper than that.
For King, giving money to Haiti would not be enough. In order to be good citizens of the world, it is not good enough to just to give money, we must make sure to end the economic and social climate that led to the disaster. Here's an excerpt from his speech "Beyond Vietnam.

"A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. "

King goes on, addressing America's foreign policy and how it is destructive to the Third World.

"With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just."

King also condemns countries that spend more money on wars than social program. The USA has pledged $100 million in aid to Haiti, while pledging upwards of $30 billion to add 30,000 troops in Afghanistan.

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood."

So on Martin Luther King's birthday, let us reflect on our fellow human beings in Haiti. Let us help them out with our donations, but also let's fight so third world people do not have to suffer through the poverty that has inflamed this natural disaster. Let us be reminded of how what goes on in our own country affects the rest of the world.

[reprinted with out permission. If anyone has the author's contact information please pass it on to http://www.newurbanministry.blogspot.com/.]

Huge Interfaith Crowd Gathers for Baltimore Vigil against Violence

2010-02-05T13:45:00.000-08:00

A crowd of over a thousand at Cathederal of Mary Our Queen. Photo by Elizabeth Suman

By FERN SHEN and ELIZABETH SUMAN, in Baltimore Brew

January 25, 2010

What can religion do to fight violence in Baltimore?

An interfaith group of well over a thousand people came together last night to answer that question — an array of religious leaders and citizens of all ages and races, wearing saris and sweatshirts, blowing the shofar and chanting Vedic calls, reading from the Bible and from the Koran.

The size and diversity of the crowd assembled in the cavernous Cathedral of Mary Our Queen for the Baltimore Interfaith Coalition’s “Vigil Against Violence” — among them mayor-to-be- Stephanie Rawlings-Blake — made the moment feel as historic as speakers said it was.

“We have not seen the likes of this size of interfaith gathering since the civil rights movement,” said Eugene Taylor Sutton, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.

Crowd gathered at the interfaith "Vigil Against Violence" (Photo by Elizabeth Suman.)
The event was organized by the Baltimore Interfaith Coalition, a group of religious and civic leaders who joined forces in 2009, the program said, “to bring hope to a hurting city.” The latest homicide statistics bear witness to that pain.

Baltimore City reported 238 murders in 2009, upping the number of homicides by four since 2008. These numbers are below those reached regularly in the 1980s, when the death toll topped 300. Still, Baltimore’s current murder rate is the second-highest in the United States in a city with a population over 500,000, second only to Detroit.

Several of last night’s speakers said combatting violence must start with a change in attitudes. Rabbi Stephen Fink chastised Baltimoreans who live close to each other but don’t interact or feel a connection to each other. “Residents of crime-ridden neighborhoods are looked upon as statistics,” said Fink, Rabbi of Temple Oheb Shalom.

Sutton said complacency or resignation about Baltimore’s street violence has to end: “This is the year where Baltimore says ‘enough.’” “Anyone who has been killed is my brother,” Sutton said.
Other speakers stressed that people need to take action to stop violence, not just talk about it. As Heber M. Brown III, pastor of Pleasant Hope Baptist Church, put it: “Be a thermostat not a thermometer.”

We’re at a crossroads, we have two choices, Brown said, “you can pat yourself on the back for a nice quaint prayer vigil . . . or we can be headlights. . . and choose a better way.” Brown urged his audience to adopt a school or mentor a young person.

The call-to-action comes at a potent political juncture for Baltimore, as the new administration of City Council President Rawlings-Blake takes charge of the violence-plagued city. Rawlings-Blake, standing with police department brass, bowed her head as the crowd prayed for her and other civic leaders.

Among the civic and religious groups represented in the Coalition are: Johns Hopkins University, the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the Baltimore Board of Rabbis, the Muslim Community Cultural Center of Baltimore and the Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence.
Everyone left on a rousing note, with the whole crowd holding hands and singing “We Shall Overcome.”

Meanwhile, outside, all their obstacles remained, including deep skepticism and cynicism from a crime-weary city.

EXTRAVAGANT GENEROSITY

2010-02-02T19:41:00.000-08:00

The weekend of ROCK is one many of us look toward each year. For our youth and those of us who are older, this is always a wonderful time of celebration, connecting and sharing in the joy of Christ. With ROCK, it is easy to sense the hope that is the church, and the possibilities that we share.

As we gather each year in Ocean City at the end of January - among the many highlights of the weekend – the proclamation of the word, joyful praise, young people rushing to the front of the Convention Center, persons committing (and recommitting) their lives to Christ, sharing in communion – one that is always special is the offering that is taken at the final worship celebration. This year’s offering had particular significance as it is to go toward support the relief efforts of the United Methodist Committee on Relief in Haiti.

Over the past three weeks, people of faith have joined in prayer and support for the people of Haiti as they have dealt with the catastrophic earthquake that struck the country on January 12th. In this, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, the loss, grief and distress caused by this disaster adds to the tremendous forces of poverty with which the people already struggle.

This year, the offering received at ROCK totaled over $28,000, a sign of extravagant generosity. Acts of extravagant generosity continue as many of our churches continue to make contributions to UMCOR and other relief organizations, and prepare health kits to aid our sisters and brothers in need in Haiti. In these days of tremendous need for many among us, we continue to see signs of extravagant generosity in our midst.

The apostle Paul wrote to encourage the church at Corinth, “You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity.” (2 Cor. 9:11) Bishop Robert Schnase, his the book The Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, shares that “extravagant generosity describes practices of sharing and giving that exceed all expectations and extend to unexpected measures. It describes lavish sharing, sacrifice, and giving in service to God and neighbor. “

Thanks be to God for our shared ministry, and the ways that we continue to engage in extravagant generosity both locally and globally

May the Lord, in whom we live and move and have our being, bless you in the days ahead, and may heaven’s face continue to shine upon us.

A Prayer for Haiti

2010-01-22T16:34:00.000-08:00

by Taylor Burton-Edwards

The seas roar, the earth shakes,

buildings crumble, roofs toppleand walls turn to dust.

Have mercy on the people of Haiti, O God.
Nations watch, alarms sound,traffic halts,

utilities stop,and news is hard to verify.

Give us compassion to weep with those who weep, O God.
People die, families mourn,mountains split,

infrastructure and superstructure alike are gone.

Make us swift to help and persistent to rebuild,

not just things and structures, but lives, O God:
Through Christ, the solid Rock. Amen.