Advent - Keep Hope Alive!

Keep hope alive! This statement has served - over time – as a mantra of possibility for many. In the context of the Advent season, the statement takes on bold meaning. It is in the message of Advent that we discover the promise that help is on the way, and find encouragement to keep hope alive!

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).

In many ways, our days seem to be filled with doom and gloom. Just open the newspaper - political unrest, social dysfunction, economic uncertainty, natural disasters, and community violence, not to mention spiritual demise, abounds. Just last week a young 21 year old man was shot and murdered while walking his dog in the Cherry Hill community of Baltimore.

In the midst of these realities, and uncertainty about the days ahead, the Advent season reminds us that we have to keep hope alive! We are beckoned to remain hopeful in these trying times. Hope is not something that is static, but alive. It may not even be material, but hope helps us to sense how God will be at work in our lives in the future.

Maybe that’s why persons of faith in ages past could sing even in the lowest of times –
My hope is built on nothing less

than Jesus’ blood and righteousness,

I dare not trust the sweetest frame,

but wholly lean on Jesus’ name…

On Christ the solid rock I stand.

All other ground is sinking sand…

We are encouraged today to Keep Hope Alive!

Indeed hope helps us to hold on in trying times.

The song-writer was right –
Time is filled with swift transition

Naught the earth unmoved can stand

Build your HOPE on things eternal.

Hold to God’s unchanging hand!

Invictus

by William Ernest Henley

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.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

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.


This is a poem by Brishish poet William Ernest Henley written in 1875. The title means “Unconquered” in Latin. "Invictus" is also the title of the soon to be released movie based on the life of Nelson Mandela, anti-Apartheid and civil rights leader, and former president of South Africa.

Signs of Hope - Dr. Freeman Hrabowski

Congratulations to Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who was recently named one of the nation’s “10 Best College Presidents” by Time magazine. Dr. Hrabowski and UMBC have become nationally recognized for steering African-American students toward science, math and engineering — fields in which they have been traditionally under-represented. UMBC is one of the nation's leading sources of African-American Ph.D.s in science and engineering, and almost half of its seniors go immediately to graduate school. He has authored numerous articles and co-authored two books, Beating the Odds and Overcoming the Odds (Oxford University Press), focusing on parenting and high-achieving African American males and females in science.

Nationial Day of Outrage

On Tuesday, 24 November 2009, concerned citizens in over 20 cities gathered to stand together against this nationwide epidemic of violence in urban communities. This effort was led by the reverend Al Sharpton and the National Action Network. To read more, please go to http://www.nationalactionnetwork.net/.

Signs of Hope - The Susanna Wesley House

Another important ministry related to the United Methodist Church in Baltimore is the Susanna Wesley House. Founded in 1919, the mission of Susanna Wesley House, Inc. is to assist women in need and their dependent children; to provide a safe, clean home, and to ensure a viable program for the residents to obtain independent living. To learn more, please go to www.susannawesley.org.

Giving Thanks - Another Leagacy of Lessons

Dr. James Cecil Logan, beloved teacher, preacher, and leader in The United Methodist Church, died on Saturday, October 17, 2009 in Winchester, VA. Dr. Logan was a mentor to many of us. In the time that I've had to reflect upon Dr. Logan's life and his impact on me, I've come to realize how important he was to my intellectual and spiritual development. Dr. Logan was my major professor while I studied at Wesley Theological Seminary (I took six courses with him), and I was priviledged to have served as one of his graduate assistants. Dr. Logan's is a legacy of what it means for the church to be missional and what it means for us to be wholly committed to Christ.

Give Thanks

“In everything give thanks for this is the will of God concerning you.” (1 Thess. 5:18)

In 1 Thessalonians, the apostle Paul was enroute to Rome with a layover in Corinth when he wrote his first letter to the young church at Thessalonica. As a part of his guidance to the Christian believers there, Paul shared with them instructions on giving thanks.

Paul says to the Thessalonian church, “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you.” 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.

There's the story of a businessman, who one Thanksgiving some years ago , while watching a football game, reflected on his life and thought of all the people who had been influential in helping him become who he was. He decided to write each person a thank-you card telling him or her of his gratitude for their influence on his life.

His fourth grade teacher quickly came to mind for insisting that he and his classmates strive for excellence in every endeavor. She pounded it into her students, be it regarding homework, tests or class projects. So he sent her a thank you note.

One day, just after the New Year, he received a return letter from his former teacher. She apologized for not replying sooner, but stated that his letter took some time getting to her, since she had moved in with her daughter after retiring from teaching grade school for sixty-six years. She told him how thankful she was to have received his card and how it cheered her to find out he had learned so well his lessons in excellence. She went on to say that in her sixty-six years of teaching, this was the first thank-you card she had ever received, and how grateful she was that he had taken the time to remember her.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. shared that the true measure of our character is not how we conduct ourselves in times of comfort and convenience, but how we deal with challenge and controversy.

In all things give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you. May each of us find reasons to be grateful in the days that are before us.

Affluence

Several years ago, I attended a college graduation ceremony where Marion Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund, shared her belief that too many in our society are afflicted with the dis-ease of what she referred to as "affluenza." Dr. Edelman intimated that "affluenza" is the state in which we possess too much that is worth too little. During this Thanksgiving season, let us reflect on areas of our lives affected by "affluenza," and commit ourselves to using our relative affluence in ways that are a blessing to God and one another.

Scarcity

Gustavo Gutierez, liberation theologian, shares the belief that poverty is caused not by a scarcity of resources, but by a scarcity of democracy. During this Thanksgiving season, may we continue to be prayerful for the poor among us, and seek ways to be in solidarity with those experiencing a scarcity of democracy.

Visionary Leadership

(The following Principles/Learnings on Visionary Leadership are excerpted from On Jordan’s Stormy Banks, by Rev. Dr. H. Beecher Hicks. Dr. Hicks is senior pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington, DC.)

1. Proper Planning is Essential for Effective Visioning and Vision Implementation.
It is critical that the watchperson-priest have help from persons who are able to give critical thought to the task at hand and to the outcomes that are expected.

2. Keep the People Informed.
It is of vital importance that the congregation be kept abreast of the elements of the vision, the progress that is being made, and the manner in which the life of the church, collectively and individually, is being changed.

3. The Pastor (Leader) Is Central to the Vision-Casting and Buy-In Process.
Every vision cast before the church must be couched in ministry terms, or it will suffer the criticism that the vision is self-serving.

4. The Congregation Sees the Person Before They See the Vision.
We would like to believe that the vision and the visionary are separate. In reality, however, they are often perceived as one in the same. When casting a vision, the visionary’s perceived level of integrity is a primary concern. In fact, the watchperson and the very integrity of God are both at stake.

5. Competing Voices within the Church Make It Difficult for the Congregation to Hear What Is Truly Being Said.
While the watchperson-priest may be the only visionary who is acknowledged within the congregation, he or she certainly is not the only voice that is heard.

6. No Matter How Precise Your Language, It Will be Difficult for the Congregation to Conceptualize the Vision.
For most persons, visions are difficult to define and therefore difficult to grasp.

7. The Casting of Vision Implies Customized Change.
No matter what we are told, the last thing churches want is change… (change) disrupts their lives and removes them from their comfort zones.

8. The Visionary Must Avoid Distractions.
The watchperson-priest must always avoid distraction. Distraction is Satan’s tool; he tries to get you to take your eyes off what God wants in order to satisfy what the people want.

9. Vision Casting Takes Time.
No matter how necessary, clear, and compelling your vision may be, a significant period of time must pass before understanding, acceptance, and buy-in occurs.

10. The Congregation Has a Responsibility.
The congregation must be ever encouraged to remain open to receive the vision God has given.

11. “Everybody Talkin’ ’bout Heaven Ain’t Goin’ There!”
As with any struggle for institutional change, there will always be tragic losses along the way.

12. The Struggle Will Continue.
As the church continues to change and grow, its transitional phases do not come to an end, but continue from one stage to the next.

Authenticity in Leadership

(This article appeared in Leading Ideas, published by the Lewis Leadership Center on June 24, 2009)

By Rudy Rasmus

When I walk into a church, I can tell almost immediately if the leader is authentic, transparent, and warm. If so, the entire congregation exudes these qualities. It is almost palpable. People greet me warmly, and there is a vibrant sense of life in the air. If, though, the leader values safety over spontaneity, I sense that people don’t really know what’s expected of them. They follow the prescribed rituals of church, but they seem empty, stiff, and lifeless.

Most pastors and other leaders who are stiff and distant are not that way because they are evil people. In the vast majority of cases, they are good-hearted people who really want to please God, but they are following the only ministry model they have ever seen: wearing masks and playing roles.

But the mask of the completely competent, always in control, never-bothered leader hides the real, flesh-and-blood person who, no matter how spiritually mature he or she may be, struggles with the pain, complexity, and fears of being human. The mask tells people, "I’m okay. Don’t mess with me. You may need me, but I don’t need you." The mask has the look of authority and power—and distance.

A person who has the courage to take off the mask becomes a real person taking real risks in relationships. Trust is more important than control; warmth is a higher priority than excellence. This leader still wants to do things well, but competence is a means to the end of pleasing God and touching hearts, not a way to prove one’s worth. The authentic leader is willing to share some struggles and hurts, and people feel connected to that leader.

David was the king of Israel, and he could have easily hidden his hopes, hurt, and fears. But he did not. His poems depict clearly and permanently his highest hopes and deepest depressions, his intense fears and his greatest praise for God. David hung it all out for us to see! And Paul, the first and foremost missionary of our faith, admitted, "For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do." (Rom 7:15 NKJV)

These leaders—two of the strongest, most effective leaders the world has ever known—were honest about their struggles. If you are a pastor, I sincerely believe that God is calling you to take off any mask you might be wearing to protect yourself, and be an authentic leader. God is asking you to do what I do quite often: go to God with an honest heart and pray, "Lord Jesus, show me if I’m wearing a mask, and help me be more authentic, transparent, and warm."

Rudy Rasmus is co-pastor with Juanita Rasmus of St. John’s Downtown United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas. This congregation has grown to thousands of worshippers in recent years. Often a third or more of the worshippers are homeless or formerly homeless. The two articles in this issue are adapted from his book, Touch: Pressing Against the Wounds of a Broken World, (Thomas Nelson, 2007) and used with the author’s permission. Touch: Pressing Against the Wounds of a Broken World can be purchased at Amazon or Cokesbury.

A New Urban Ministry Launched in Washington, DC

On October 27, 2009, a new urban minsitry was launched in downtown Washington, DC at Mt. Vernon Square. The ministry is a partnership between Wesley Theological Seminary, Mt. Vernon Place United Methodist Church and Asbury United Methodist Church. To read about this ministry, please click on http://bwcumc.org/files/umc_pdf_files/20091111.pdf and
http://www.wesleyseminary.edu/mvs/.

A Year After - Obama and Holding onto Hope

(This article will also appear on the site for the General Commission on Religion and Race of the United Methodist Church at www.gcorr.org.)

by C. Anthony Hunt, Ph.D.

A year after the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, these continue to be days of tremendous change and challenge in our society, amid the predictable and the consistent. From the collapse of the economy that has 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 urban communities - to the healthcare crisis that results in over 40 million Americans living without healthcare today, these are days of unprecedented change and challenge that have kept the issues of race and racism nationally and globally, at the top of the nation’s agenda.

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.

Many seemed to sense (and hope) that the election of Obama would 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.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 or “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 were 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 Americans today. In light of this, it is both achievable and necessary for all Americans to unite and battle racial prejudices. In order to 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 the joint session of the U.S. Congress; and the ongoing debates surrounding the president’s efforts toward reforming our nation's healthcare system. 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.

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 that time, race matters in America.

In his most recent book Hope on a Tightrope (2008,) 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 naive 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.

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 is 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.

A PRAYER FOR CHILDREN

This past August, I was priviledged to go on another pilgimage to Alabama to study and retrace some of the steps of the Civil Rights movement. There were 20 of us who were a part of the pilgimage, and we visited various places in the cities of Montgomery, Birmingham and Selma. I am finally at a point where I can reflect on the impact of this last pilgimage.

Something that struck me differently this time is the profound level of violence perpetrated against children duringt the movement. The cases of Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi on August 28, 1955, and the four girls murdered during the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on September 15, 1963 are well documented. While walking through Kelly Ingram Park, I was struck by the violence and brutality perpetrated by Eugene "Bull" Connor and police officials in Birmingham against thethe children of the city.

Today, we pray for the safety of all children, and we pray especially for those families whose children have been victimized by violence.

Strengthen Us to Answer with Brave Hearts

by Ted Loder (in My Heart in My Mouth: Prayers for our Lives)

God of grace,

as you did with Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.,

Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Desm0nd Tutu,

strengthen us to answer with brave hearts

your call to help shape a world

not of death and oppression

but of life and hope.

BETTER TOGETHER

(The following is an excerpt from a sermon I preached at St. John UMC in Pumphrey, MD on Sunday, October 25, 2009 on the occasion of the church's annual Unity Sunday.)

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

A careful reading of Scripture points with clarity to God’s divine design for all of humanity. The assertion that God has created all of humanity in God’s image was first recorded in the Book of Genesis and reminds us that God’s purpose for humanity is rooted in our God-likeness (imago dei). And it is in our God-likeness that we find our commonality in Christ.

Because of our God-likeness, the fact of the matter is we are more alike than we are different. In-fact, scientific researchers have discovered that the DNA make-up of humans makes us more than 95-99% similar to all other human beings. There is very little that is really different about us. We are far more similar than we are different.

The challenge for us in the present age is that we tend to focus more on the things that are different among us, than on our similarities. This challenge is exacerbated by that fact that the focus and fixation on our differences tends to lead to divisions within the human family.

As we look around, it is easy to see that we are separated in many ways. Segregation, discrimination and disintegration continue to be pervasive among us.
Indeed our churches and our society in general continue to deal with the problems of racism, sexism, and elitism. We see separation in the forms of denominationalism in the church. We see it in ongoing political division and social alienation.

It is my belief that such separation leads to a form human isolation that places too many of us outside the divine order and intent of God. Such separation forces us in one of two directions.

Either we find ourselves wanting to go it alone, and living life outside of community altogether. This is what might be called the “me-my-and- I” syndrome, where we turn inward and focus mainly, if not exclusively, on ourselves and how we will succeed. Here we privatize our lives in ways that stunt our growth as social beings and turn more and more inward for meaning in life, and seek less and less to share life with our sisters and brothers as a way of growing our lives and those of others.

Or we go down the road of simply seeking to share in community only with persons who are like us. This is the “birds of a feather” syndrome, where we find ourselves flocking together with persons who look like us, talk like us, think like us, believe like us, sing like us, pray like us, go to the places that we go, and do the same things that we do.

In either case, we are like caterpillars that never leave the cocoon - stuck inside our own self – trapped within our own possibilities, lost in the midst of life itself, never able to fully realize what and who we are to become.

How might we overcome these tendencies toward segregation and isolation? It is the psalmist in Psalm 133 who gives hope and encouragement as to how we might better live our lives. The psalmist declares, “How good and how pleasant it is for sisters and brothers to dwell together in unity.”

The main theme of the psalm is the reunification of the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel. Here, family imagery is used to evoke the joy of living together in unity. It speaks to the church and the whole family of God and reminds us of God’s ideal that we break down barriers and join with those who have been estranged from fellowship with God and God’s church.

The psalmist here points to unity as a goal that we must achieve if we are to be whole. It is a vision that we must live. My grandmother used to make vegetable soup the way I think the Holy Spirit brings about unity among us. She would imagine the ingredients that needed to go into the pot to make the soup taste just right. She would add the right vegetables in the right order at just the right time, so that when it was done, the soup was mixed to near perfection.

In a similar way, God takes who we are – as different as we all are from each other – and enables us not to just live together but to blend together in a way that makes our witness nourishment for the world. God’s power in the world rests in large part in our unity. We’re better together.

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

“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 stick and gave the bundle to his eldest son and told him to break the bundle. The eldest son could not do it. Then the second son was commanded to try. He could not, nor could any of the rest.

“So is it to be of you,” said the father. Alone you are weak, together you are strong.” We’re better together.

One popular song today shares words that remind us of the very things that our lives depend on today:

I need you, you need me.
We’re all a part of God’s body.
I won’t harm you with words from my mouth,
we’re all a part of God’s body.
You pray for me, I’ll pray for you.
We’re all a part of God’s body. (Hezekiah Walker)

The Resegregation of American Schools

The following is an excerpt from "Can You Hear Me Now? The Inspiration, Wisdom, and Insight of Michael Eric Dyson", by Micheal Eric Dyson, 2009.

There has been a profound resegregation of American schools. More than seventy percent of black students in the nation attend schools that are composed largely of minority students. The segregation of black students is more than twenty-five points below 1969 levels, but there are still plenty of financially strapped schools that make a mockery of the judicial mandate for integrated education. White students typically attend schools where less than twenty percent of the student body comes from races other than their own. By comparison, black and brown students go to schools composed of fifty-three to fifty-five percent of their own race. In some cases, the numbers are substantially higher; more than a third of black and Latino students attend schools with a ninety-to one hundred-percent minority population. In tandem with residential segregation, school resegregation amounts to little more than educational apartheid.

National Shalom Summit-Live Video Stream

News Release:

Communities of Shalom National Summit this week will be video streamed live and free of charge from Columbia, South Carolina, beginning Thursday morning, October 29, at 9:30 am EST.

If the purpose of a National Summit is to bring together representatives from a national network for a time of personal sharing, inspiration, team building and training, then this year’s National Shalom Summit will fulfill this purpose and more through video streaming sessions to those who are unable to attend in person.

According to Dr. Michael Christensen, National Director of Communities of Shalom, over 300 are expected at the 3-day Summit at the Radisson Hotel in Columbia, SC; and hundreds more in the USA and Africa may view the Summit online and participate via social networking sites.

“When the General Board of Global Ministries offered to netcast the Summit, I was delighted,” said Dr. Christensen who arrived in Columbia on Monday with his staff for final preparations. “I knew that this was a virtual sign and tangible indication that there was sufficient momentum in the Shalom movement to ‘step up’ to a new level of web technology for this once small grass-roots initiative called ‘shalom zones.’"

All four General Training Sessions plus the two worship services and the Shalom Banquet will be video streamed through the online facilities of the General Board of Global Ministries, the mission agency of The United Methodist Church--a partner of Communities of Shalom at Drew University and co-sponsor of the National Summit.

These sessions focus on how to ‘step up’ from social services to asset-based community development, and from ministries of mercy to seeking peace with justice. Specific sessions on prophetic leadership and ‘shaloming across borders’, as well as a glimpse of new Shalom Zone training units and the use of web technology to develop Shalom's presence in the world, will be webcast on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Oct. 29-31.

Here's the direct link to the video stream of the Summit: http://gbgm-umc.org/shalom.

It Takes a Village - The Board of Child Care

One of the important United Methodist-related ministries in the Baltimore region is the Board of Child Care of The United Methodist Church. Founded in 1874, the Board of Child Care has provided and cared for vulnerable children and their families for 135 years. Since those early years, the agency has added many programs and sites, and remains steadfast to its mission and vision, and to the guiding words of the founder of Methodism, John Wesley:

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.”

Please visit the Board of Child Care's web-site at http://www.boardofchildcare.org/index.html.


Today, we pray for children and youth across the Baltimore-Washington region.

HOPE

"Hope" is the thing with feathers--
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops-at all--

--- by Emily Dickenson

This poem has sustained and strengthened me in weak and tired moments. When I feel discouraged and am apt to become pessimistic, I fall back on hope. I lean on the hope that things will change where needed, and that life will be better for those in despair.

Be Converted

In all of our lives there are mini-conversions and mini-resurrections, in which God works through our lives to bring about transforming change in us and the world. Jonah was a reluctant prophet who learned about conversion.

Below is reflections on the experience of Jonah by Melissa Lauber, Communications staff with the Baltimore-Washington Conference, UMC

Then God assigned a huge fish to swallow Jonah. Jonah was in the fish's belly three days and nights. Then Jonah prayed to his God from the belly of the fish. He prayed:

In trouble, deep trouble, I prayed to God. He answered me.From the belly of the grave I cried, 'Help!' You heard my cry.You threw me into ocean's depths, into a watery grave,With ocean waves, ocean breakers crashing over me.I said, 'I've been thrown away, thrown out, out of your sight.I'll never again lay eyes on your Holy Temple.'Ocean gripped me by the throat. …
When my life was slipping away, I remembered God, and my prayer got through to you, made it all the way to your Holy Temple.Those who worship hollow gods, god-frauds, walk away from their only true love.But I'm worshiping you, God, calling out in thanksgiving!And I'll do what I promised I'd do! Salvation belongs to God!"

Then God spoke to the fish, and it vomited up Jonah on the seashore.
Next, God spoke to Jonah a second time:

"Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They're in a bad way and I can't ignore it any longer."

This time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying God's orders to the letter.

Consider:
In what ways are the people you are in ministry with like Jonah?
How might you be reluctant about embracing your call from God? What would it take to shake you out of that reluctance?

Today we pray for the churches and people of the Baltimore region.

Good Fruit

The following is excerpted from a sermon preached this past Sunday, October 11, 2009 at Union Memorial United Methodist Church in Baltimore, MD.


One of most important set of memories I have of my youth was the way my sister, brother and I spent our summers. We were raised mostly in the city – in Washington, DC - but each summer – until I was about thirteen years old, we traveled to Madison Heights, Virginia (just outside of Lynchburg, Virginia) to spend the summers with my grandparents.

There are many things that I remember about Madison Heights and those summers. I remember our large extended family (all of our uncles, aunts and cousins, and those we thought were our cousins). I remember that the doors of my grandparents’ house were seldom – if ever - locked, and I remember that we would run and play outside without seeming ever to worry about anything or anybody.

I remember my grandmother’s cooking, and I remember my grandfather’s large garden. He called it a garden, but it seemed like a farm to me. I also remember that my grandparents had several fruit trees in their yard. One of the fruit trees was a large peach tree. I can remember – every summer - watching that peach tree, and waiting until the middle of summer when the peaches on the tree would be ready of picking and eating. Sometimes, we would pick the peaches, and eat them right off the tree – right at the tree. We didn’t think to wash them – we would just eat the peaches off the tree. It was good fruit.

I realize now that such good fruit did not emerge instantaneously. The good fruit of that tree emerged within the context of a peach seed that had been planted many years before. It was a seed that had been planted in good, fertile soil - soil that had been watered by consistent rains, which with the sunlight that beamed down on it, served to nourish the seed, and helped the seed grow into a fruitful tree over the years. As a result of all of this, the tree that eventually emerged that would bear good fruit.

The lesson that Jesus is trying to teach here in what has come to be known as the Sermon on the Mount is a lesson about good fruit. In Matthew 7:17, Jesus says, "You will know them by their fruit." Here he makes a clear distinction between two types of fruit - good fruit and bad fruit. Good fruit is born from a good tree; good fruit cannot be born from a bad tree, and bad fruit is born of bad trees.

These words afford each of us an opportunity to take stock of how fruitful our lives are. In other words, what kind of tree are we? And what kind of fruit are we bearing? Are we bearing good fruit or bad fruit?

Thinking back on my grandparents’ peach tree, we knew as soon as we bit into a peach from the tree, whether the fruit was good or bad.

The nature of bad fruit is that it is either overly ripe and rotting, or not yet fully developed. Overly ripe and rotting fruit has lost its texture and its flavor has become a distortion of what it would taste like if it were still good. And if it is underdeveloped it is hard and usually hasn’t developed the full measure of what it would taste like if were allowed to grow to maturity.

Indeed, bad fruit manifests itself in many ways around us. It is born in the racism, sexism, classism that afflicts our world, and even many of our churches. It is born in our inattention to the poor and oppressed among us. It is born in self-interest and self-centeredness among too many. It is born in materialism and greed. It is born in what Marion Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund has called the dis-ease of “affluenza.” We possess too much that is worth too little.

Bad fruit is born of our collective inattention (or silence) amidst the wars in our midst, and violence on too many of our streets. It is born in our inability or unwillingness to heed the words of the psalmist, and to “seek peace and pursue it.”

In light of this, Christ points us to how we can bear good fruit. At another place in the Sermon on the Mount, he reminds us to “seek first the kingdom of God, and its righteousness, and all other things will be added to it.” He reminds us in the beatitudes that “blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God.” And he points out that we are to love not only those who look like us, think like us, believe like us, worship like us, and agree with us – but that we are to love even our enemies.

The apostle Paul said that the “fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, faithfulness, long-suffering, generosity, and self-control” (Galatians 5:21-22). In other words, these nine things are the marks of fruitfulness for Christians.

May God grant us, in the living of these days, the grace, strength and courage to bear good fruit.

UNPACKING HOPE

by Rev. Wanda Bynum Duckett, Baltimore Hope Fellow

This past summer I was blessed to travel to Zimbabwe, Africa to participate in the Pastors’ School and an international partnership summit. What a discipleship adventure! I met some of the most amazing people and was able to connect with a part of myself that is deeply rooted in my cultural heritage and history. I am still unpacking lessons and gifts from this trip as I continue to reflect on the many moments of growth and inspiration. One of the most powerful gifts I brought back from this journey was a new and revived sense of Hope. So often we base our hope on things seen, that which we expect to follow as a result of what we believe to be feasible given a certain set of resources, gifts, or talents. But the bible tells us that our faith is about a different kind of hope. Our faith is now faith. It is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. It is hope that lives before, without, nevertheless, and in spite of.

In Zimbabwe, I saw the very substance and evidence of that kind of hope. I saw hope come to fruition as Bishops Schol and Nhiwatiwa dedicated a new church that was built on nothing less than hope and faith. The people had a vision and a mind to work. Most of all they had hope that if they started moving toward their vision, God would see it through. The Zimbabwean people believe in the principle of chabadza which says that if one is engaged in productive work, God will send others to help bring it to completion. In the spirit of chabadza, the women of Muradzikwa made bricks with which to build this new church. The team planned and prayed and worked with their vision ever in mind. And when they had come to the end of their resources, Hope kicked in! God allowed our Hope Fund dollars, combined with the work of the faithful people of Zimbabwe, to contribute to the completion of this magnificent new worship space in only 13 months.

I came home from Zimbabwe unpacking a new understanding of hope. This hope is not in grants, or numbers, or in the bent minds and wills of public officials. This hope is the bright eyed hope of children who value the privilege of attending school. This hope is the hope of people who work and give, often without knowing whether or how much they will be paid. This hope is the hope of pastors who live without what we might deem the bare necessities of life, but preach and teach as if Jesus is on his way this very hour. This hope is the hope of students who study at Africa University to equip themselves for leadership, and the families that support them as the hope for the future. This hope is the hope of mothers and grandmothers who dance in grateful celebration for the life-line of malaria nets to protect their families from the deadly disease that kills a child every 30 seconds. This hope is the hope that doesn’t need an organ or pulpit to be the church, but will gather around a rock or a tree to form a congregation and band together to feed a community. These things I recall to my mind and therefore I have new hope for Baltimore. This new hope is brick-making, stronghold-shattering and death-defying! With all of the resources at our disposal, when we embrace the spirit of chabadza and work collaboratively and faithfully, we can realize our vision to make disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world right here in Baltimore.

Brick City Documentary

Check out the youtube clip from the new Brick City documentary series which is airing this week, and documents community efforts to address violence in Newark, New Jersey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc-aiSQcjqo&feature=player_embedded

The Premiere last week in Newark also made news at Drew University as a result of the work of the United Methodist Church's Communities of Shalom Initiative in Newark: http://www.drew.edu/Default-Content.aspx?id=67314.

Hope is Alive in Baltimore

Check out the article on the Baltimore Region Urban Ministry Convocation, Hope for the City-Redeeming the Dream at http://bwcumc.org/content/hope-alive-baltimore. The Convocation was held September 18-19, 2009 at the Maritime Institute of Technology.

CHOOSING CIVILITY

A bumper-sticker in one Central Maryland County offers the simple words, “Choose Civility.” Each time I’ve seen the bumper-sticker over the past two years or so, I have taken a moment to think about the role of civility in my own life, and in the lives of those around me. Events of recent days remind us how challenging these two words are: from the heckling by U.S. Congressman Joe Wilson (South Carolina) during the speech of President Barack to the joint session of the U.S. Congress; to the threatening, expletive-filled tirade of tennis player Serena Williams toward an tennis official at the U.S. Open; to the inappropriate comments of hip-hop artist Kanye West, directed toward fellow artist Taylor Swift at the Video Music Awards – we are reminded of the lack of civility among us, and the potential for harm found in our words and actions. Perhaps the words of British poet, Rudyard Kipling in his 1896 work “IF” are words that we can all use as a means of pointing us back toward civility:


IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,'
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Hope in Hard Times - The Race Debate in America

During this week, President Barack Obama addressed the nation on two occasions: first in a speech to students returning to school across the nation, and second in a speech on health care reform to a joint session of the U.S. Congress. Debate on both speeches points to the deep political, racial and ideological divisions that remain endemic in our nation. Two weeks ago, my daughter began her college studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, and in one of her courses was asked to compare and contrast the views of President Obama and former Congressman Newt Gingrich on race and racism in America. I thought that her reflections were particularly timely in light of where we find ourselves as a nation. I share them with her permission:


Race in America:
A More Perfect Union Versus The Obama Challenge - by Kristen E. Hunt, College Park, MD

In the speeches "A More Perfect Union" and "The Obama Challenge," two notable politicians express their stunningly conflicting views on the presence of racism in today’s society, and its effect on the American people. After Reverend Jeremiah Wright, declared his uncompromising opinions regarding race in America, Barack Obama responded with the speech A More Perfect Union, in which he gave a remedy to heal the malady afflicting the American population. Among a variety of issues, Obama spoke about the prevalence of racial tensions which continue to define the relationship between the black and white communities. In response to Obama’s proposals intended to combat racial prejudice, Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, pronounced his opinions in the speech The Obama Challenge. After reading and analyzing both speeches, it is evident that Gingrich and Obama assert views which differ significantly.

Within the contexts of both speeches, Gingrich and Obama explicitly state their respective approaches on race. Surprisingly, both men agree that the anger contained by the black and white communities plays a considerable role in the discussion of race in America. However, this is conceivably one of the only similarities shared by the politicians. On one hand, Obama argues that to simply shelve anger or “wish it away” could prove to be completely detrimental. Contrarily, Gingrich contends that dismissing this anger and moving on is the only way that the American people can progress concurrently as a nation.

In "A More Perfect Union," Obama goes on to argue that the “black experience” is made up of a series of contradictions, such as “love and bitterness” and “fierce intelligence and shocking ignorance.” Unambiguously, the President believes that race factors into the chances provided to each American citizen. To support his belief, he notes that the inferior school systems today are often the ones that were segregated fifty years ago. Obama feels that racial tensions were undeniably the origin of the lack of opportunities for African Americans, and that it still continues to play a substantial role. Accordingly, it is both achievable and necessary for all Americans to unite and battle racial prejudices; people of all races must recognize the historically oppressive and tyrannical nature of the black experience in America.

Conversely, Gingrich challenges Obama’s outlook by reasoning that corrupt government and wayward culture are to blame for the discrepancies in today’s society. Race, according to Gingrich, is unquestionably not a current factor in the prospect for each American citizen. He notes that although one’s racial background may have lead to the denial of opportunity in the past, race is no longer an issue in the discussion of biased opportunity. To support his platform, Gingrich merely assumes that if every poor person were to move away from the areas which present “bad culture and bad government,” they would become affluent and prosperous. In order to become an even stronger nation, it is necessary to reform the corrupt culture and government leading the nation astray.

Personally, I find Obama’s views to be both accurate and relevant when examining race in today’s society. It is undeniable that the racial tensions in America have not been completely eradicated. Gingrich fails to discern this verity. Collectively, however, the American population has made definite progress in addressing the nation’s problems concerning race. Not only does Obama clearly and succinctly define the racial dilemmas which currently confine both black and white communities alike; he also provides a sensible resolution to further mend the condition of the American people. By making significant strides towards a more emancipated nation, it is clear that we, the people of the United States, are drawing nearer towards a more perfect union.

ROAD RULES - LESSONS FROM THE JERICHO ROAD

Last Sunday, I had the opportunity to worship with and preach at Mt. Vernon Place United Methodist Church in Baltimore. Mt. Vernon Place is an historical congregation which is located in the center of the city which served as the founding location of Methodism in America in 1784. In fact, Mt. Vernon Place is the place where the the first bishop of the Methodist Church in America, Francis Asbury's burial plate is located, and each week the gospel lesson is read from the pulpit that Asbury used when he preached in Baltimore. Mt. Vernon Place sits at the crossroads of much that defines Baltimore – east and west, north and south, older and newer, richer and poorer, multi-ethnic community. Thus, the title of my sermon for the day – “Road Rules.” The following are excerpts from the sermon.


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 this 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 other side of 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 (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.[i]

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 he sang as he lent a helping hand:

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…


[i] Michael Eric Dyson, April 4, 1968 – Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Death and How it Changed America (New York: Basic Book, 2008), p. 120.

Keep Dreaming

People of hope and faith today are encouraged to keep dreaming. In a poem entitled "I Dream a World," Langston Hughes offered his dream for the world:

I dream a world where no man

No other man will scorn,

Where love will bless the earth

And peace its paths adorn

I dream a world where all

Will know sweet freedom's way,

Where greed no longer saps the soul

Nor avarice blights our day.

A world I dream where black or white,

Whatever race you be,

Will share the bounties of the earth

And every man is free,

Where wretchedness will hang its head

And joy, like a pearl,

Attends the needs of all mankind-

Of such I dream, my world!

Keep Dreaming

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once dreamed that (each of us) would someday be judged not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character. These are days when we are beckoned to keep dreaming of such a world. Langston Hughes shared with us in a poem why it is important for us to keep dreaming:

Hold fast to dreams,

For when dreams die,

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

When Violence Abounds - The Church's Call to Action Against Violence

(This article was first published in June 1999 in the United Methodist Connection, and then in the book, And Yet the Melody Lingers: Essays, Sermons and Prayers on Religion and Race, 2006 by Dr. C. Anthony Hunt)

The recent acts of violence that have littered our national and local news should heighten our collective conscious and raise our level of concern. The trial and acquittal of four police officers charged in the death of Amadou Diallo is but the latest episode that serves to remind us of the pervasiveness of violence and hatred in our midst. While the issues surrounding Diallo’s death – a West African immigrant who was shot 41 times while unarmed in New York – notably points to the problems underlying some zero-tolerance enforcement policies, and rogue police officers involved in acts of brutality, other instances also serve to point to the permeation of violence in our midst.

Whether it is a 6-year-old boy who brings a gun into a Michigan school and kills his first-grade classmate, or two promising high school seniors in Washington, DC who are gunned down after a basketball game, or a Pennsylvania man who fatally shoots three persons because of his alleged anti-white and anti-Jewish views, we find a plethora of evidence pointing to an increasingly violent society.

Violence abounds. Whether it’s the death of Taisha Miller, the young African American woman murdered by police while sitting in her car in California, or James Byrd, an African American man who was dragged behind a truck to his death by white supremacists in Texas, or Matthew Shepherd - the young college student who - because of his sexual identity - was beaten, hung on a pole and left to die in Wyoming - violence is all around us.

The problem of violence is complex and multi-dimensioned to say the least. The death of Amadou Diallo – and the lack of justice (heretofore) for those who murdered him - points to the prevalence of racism in America. Racism has resulted in a double-standard in many policing practices. These practices are the by-products of policies that tout decreasing inner-city crime rates – but often at the expense of the selective interrogation and arrest of innocent persons of color who fit certain profiles – particularly African American males.

Several other factors seem to be complicit in the recent wave of violence in America. Widening economic disparities between the rich and the poor contribute to the escalating violence. We observe that a disproportionate number of those who are victims, as well as many of the alleged perpetrators of violent acts are a part of America’s under-class.

Additionally, the continued right-wing political influence of the gun lobby – spearheaded by the National Rifle Association - seems intent on keeping guns in the hands of any person – of any age – who for any reason wants to possess a handgun. Furthermore – violence in the media and in cyber-space serve as breeding grounds for a preponderance of the intolerance and violent acts that are carried out among us.

What is the church’s response when violence abounds? First it is incumbent upon the United Methodist Church as a community of the faithful to affirm that the problem of violence in American society is the church’s problem. The apostle James shared that “faith without works is not faith at all.” John Wesley’s notion of social holiness – that we are to “reform the nation and spread Scriptural holiness” - helps us to see that the United Methodist Church is to be prophetically and actively engaged in speaking and acting to eradicate the societal ills that plague us.

Secondly, we must affirm that the problem of violence is shared by all of us. As one of the most diverse communities of faith in the United States, we who are United Methodists are challenged to realize that whether in the city or the suburbs, violence - and its underlying forms of hatred - whether racism, homophobia, sexism or any other forms of xenophobia - must be viewed as our collective dilemma. Violence touches all of our lives, our families and our churches.

Therefore, solving the problem of violence in America is our shared responsibility. Each of our churches - and each member of the United Methodist Church - should prayerfully consider ways that we can constructively address the problem of violence among us. Our collective prayers and thoughts should then spawn us into prophetic social action.

When Violence Abounds - The Church's Unfinished Agenda

(In 2000, a group of United Methodist church leaders in the Baltimore-Washington area began to organize to work on the ongoing problem of violence in our communities and to develop appropriate ways for churches to act. Below is the foundational document which guided the Nonviolence Coalition's work.)

Premise:
· The proliferation of violence in our society affects all of God’s people, and warrants a prayerful, prophetic and proactive response from the church

· The United Methodist Bishops’ Initiative on Drugs and Violence (1988) is heretofore an unfinished agenda, and warrants further action and commitment of resources from the whole faith community

Purpose:
· Gather persons around the common concern for the violence that is a reality in all of our communities,

· Provide analysis of the problem of violence,

· Begin to discern and look at what should be the United Methodist Church’s (and faith community’s) response to violence in our society,

· Begin to consider best practices and develop action steps and church, and

· Develop and strengthen coalitions of persons in churches and community organizations to effectively deal with violence in the society.

Hope in Hard Times - How to Talk About Race

Several recent events have served to heighten awareness as to the ongoing problem with race and racism in America. Among these are Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Justice Sonia Sotomayor; the arrest of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates at his home in Cambridge, MA; and the recent debates surrounding President Barack Obama's efforts toward reforming our nation's healthcare system. During a recent visit to the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL (http://www.splcenter.org/), I and others on the visit were informed that there were over 800 hate related groups identified in 2008, and that this number is on the rise.

In these days it is important that we develop the capacity to talk about race and racism in ways that will lead toward healing among us. In a seminar titled Unlearning Racism, facilitator Lee Mun Wah provides participants with guidelines for initiating and engaging in healthy conversations around race. At the core of the seminar, Wah shares the belief that talking aboout race can lead to healthy listening skills, and that all parties need to be willing to listen to each other, not only with their ears, but their eyes – watching how information is received, and being willing to ask questions that come from genuine curiosity. Conversation becomes more than the cursory greeting, and while requiring more time, can move us past our stereotypes of each other, to understanding.

The following are Lee Mun Wah’s nine healthy ways to build healthy conversations around race:
1. Reflect back what is being said. Use their words, not yours.
2. Begin where they are, not where you want them to be.
3. Be curious and open to what the are trying to say.
4. Notice what they are saying and what they are not.
5. Emotionally relate to how they are feeling. Nurture the relationship.
6. Notice how you are feeling. Be honest and authentic.
7. Take responsibility for your part in the conflict or misunderstanding.
8. Try to understand how their past affects who they are and how those experiences affect their relationship with you.
9. Stay with the process and the relationship, not just the solution.

Lee Mun Wah is the founder of StirFry Seminars. For more information go to www.stirfryseminars.com.

(A part of this article is an adaptation of an article by Jeanene Jones in CORR Directions, a publication of the General Commission on Religion and Race of the UMC , June 2009, http://www.gcorr.org/.)

Signs of Hope - A Legacy of Lessons

The Rev. Dr. Ira Zepp, who passed away on August 1, 2009, was a teacher like no other. He was a mentor to many of us, and a passionate seeker of justice. In his recent book, Pedagogy of the Heart: A Teacher's Credo, Zepp wrote:

"A teacher is someone who is willing and humble enough to drink from the instructional wells of those who have preceded us and continue to be nourished by them: the Hindu sages, the prophets' call for justice, the discipline of the shamans, the wisdom teachers of all traditions, the gifts and graces of the saints, plus every teacher we've ever had. A teacher is someone who is devoted to students and is willing to endure the vertigo of vulnerability which inevitably accompanies the intimacy of human relationships and unanswered questions. This is the pedagogy of the heart."

Hope in Hard Times - God's Answer to the Health-care Crisis

Recently, while I was working with a group of graduate theological students, the question was raised within the context of a discussion on social justice and civil rights, as to whether anyone in the group had recently heard a sermon dealing with the current health-care crisis facing our nation. In the room there was silence – none could point to having heard- or having preached - such a sermon. This is particularly interesting in light of the constant news coverage focusing on the struggles facing President Barack Obama and his administration in moving forward with a comprehensive plan to reform our nation’s health-care system and provide access to coverage for the more than 45 million Americans who do not now have adequate coverage – most of whom are women and children – and the majority of whom are brown and black persons living in urban areas.

The response of this group of students led me to wonder what God has to say about the current health-care crisis facing us. In the 7th century B.C.E., the Prophet Jeremiah posed a series of questions to the Israelites: “Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?” (Jeremiah 8:22)

Jeremiah's questions were raised in light of the experience of exile and pain among the people of Israel. The region of Gilead was known for producing a healing balm. This balm was known for its medicinal powers. When people were 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 cure, and if it couldn’t heal one’s wounds, there was perhaps nothing that would.

Jeremiah spoke to the Israelites who found themselves dealing with brokenness and alienation from God, brokenness and alienation from their land, brokenness and alienation from their possessions, and brokenness and alienation from one another. And the questions that the prophet poses in light of this serve as a reminder of God’s will of mercy and justice among God’s people.

Later in the book of Jeremiah, the prophet again offers a reminder of God’s will. Jeremiah says “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare…” “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” Jeremiah 29:7, 11(NRSV)

Jeremiah’s reminder of God’s will for the welfare of those in the city (and the suburbs and rural areas) has significance for the church and society today. For “welfare” in the context in which Jeremiah speaks on behalf of God, has broader connotations. It speaks to wholeness, wellness, peace (shalom), health and healing (and by extension health-care). Indeed, it is clear that God wills for the health(care) of God’s people.

Today, a number of coalitions of faith-based groups have begun to organize their efforts in attempts to speak to concerns around the health-care crisis among those in the religious community. The Washington Post reports (July 25, 2009) that one coalition has been organized by Sojourners and has provided a guide for leaders and members of congregations, which uses biblical teachings to make the point that the nation’s health-care system is un urgent need of repair. “A Guide to the Health Care Reform Debate” shares that “The Bible does not outline specific policies around the provision of health-care, but it does make clear that protecting the health of each human being is a profoundly important personal and communal responsibility for people of faith… Physical healing was a part of the salvation Jesus brought … Healings represent a sign of the breaking of God’s reign into the present reality. "

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us that “true peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice. May God inspire us to speak and act with justice in light of those who are broken, hurt and in need of healing among us.