To Heck* with "Change the World" or Barabbas over Jesus one more time- *insert a stronger expletive

It's Holy Saturday and I was cleaning out my e-mail and I came across an e-mail from United Methodist Communication inviting me to an event in May (not sure where) on the topic of "Change the World." For the last several years the United Methodist Church has put together events - at least one here in Indianapolis -- on the topic of "Change the World."

Earlier this week I'd been reading "Power & Passion" by Samuel Wells and came across these words: "The choice between Barabbas and Jesus, a choice that I am suggesting is a central choice in the whole gospel story, is not a choice between a man who took a political route and a man who took a spiritual route. It is not a choice between a man who wanted outer change and a man who called people to inner change. It is a choice between a man who changed too little and a man who changed everything."

Here is what the advertisement for the "Change the World" event literally says, "This year you will get a free marketing kit if you register online. The kit includes a re-usable lawn banner, a Change the World t-shirt and a sermon series DVD." Sounds about the same as Well's doesn't it? (okay - the dripping sarcasm is probably a bit much)

It goes on to say...

"Here's what others are doing:

Clever spins on Outreach: Distributing coins and detergent at a local laundry; Mother's Day dinner for homeless moms; dog runs and pet care; gas giveaways for single moms; gathering for bikers that includes food, music, sharing...the list goes on!

Fun Runs, Bake Sales and even Dinner Theatre in support of Imagine No Malaria: United Methodists around the world are fighting malaria in diverse ways.

Health Fairs and Nutrition: Many are teaming with local not-for-profits and government agencies to bring health care and food to neighbors in need.

Each year United Methodists demonstrate God's boundless love through Change the World community projects. What will you do?

Change the World is not just about strengthening the discipleship of those who follow Christ now. It's about inviting new people into Christian community."

Now - I do not have one problem with the United Methodist Church and its peoples doing any of these things. That's fine. But packaging it as "Change the World" is not only false marketing it's worse...it's what Bob Lupton has called in his book of the same title "Toxic Charity."

The problem is not with doing these things - it is that this is what we in the church, package and present as Changing the World. It would be appropriate to say - if you'd like to help someone out and do some good here are some things you can do. But this is not a serious discussion about changing the world. It is severely dumbing down that conversation.

There are serious conversations going on around the world - including in the United States - about changing the world. Some of these conversations involve and even are led by people who are United Methodist - yet those conversations are not highlighted and those persons are not noticed as those doing these things. And we aren't helping our sisters and brothers in churches who are leading and involving themselves in these congregations with spiritual support. In fact, we are - as the advertisement makes clear - completely ignoring them. I'm tired of this.

It is like the embarrassingly reductionistic "Vital Signs" dashboard we are to report on every week that among other things ask "Total number of persons from the congregation engaged in local, national, and international mission/outreach: Enter here the number of persons who participated on behalf of the congregation in ministries intended to transform people in your community, your region, and the world." Now - in a sidebar - let me just say that I have real problems with the theology that we are transforming people that I believe God has already transformed (i.e. Matthew 11 - Jesus' report back to John in prison). Our work at Broadway, for example, is not to transform people locally - it is to celebrate and help make clear the transformation that God has truly wrought in the lives of our neighbors in the life of the world. As Stanley Hauerwas once said at a gathering at Broadway Christian Parish UMC in South Bend: "God's God, and you're not." God has transformed the world - and has done so gloriously, miraculously, mind-blowingly - and yet the world (and too often the Church) still don't recognize that.

But my main problem with this question is the idea that is fairly clear that somehow every member of our congregation is not in mission/outreach/discipleship through every aspect of their life. Whether that is the woman who works at Lilly, the man who is a stay-at-home-dad, the waitress at Johnny Rocket's at the mall, the retired military officer in the retirement community on the north side, the young man in school at Fall Creek Academy or Broad Ripple High School, the young woman in school at Lawrence Central, the woman who is a single mom with 8 kids still at home, the young man going to Martin University and working to be the best single dad he can be, the 98 year old woman who leads a prayer group and meets with the United Nations group, the woman who works for Red Cross and spends time talking with young people who are her neighbors, the man who works for a travel company, the man at the state unemployment office, the woman who works in administration at Ivy Tech, the woman who is a principal at an IPS elementary school. I could go on and on and on. Every member of our congregation is in mission - and so is every member of every congregation I know. The issue more than anything is that we in the church have convinced people that a) mission is only what happens in and through the agency of the Church and b) that doing good is the same thing as changing the world. Neither of these are true and accurate and worse than that they are dangerous and blasphemous. The word "toxic" has rarely been more true.

When the Indiana Annual Conference is held here in Indianapolis this June - they will "send" people out in mission at local food pantries and social service agencies. All of those are good things to do. But I weep that what is not asked of us is to (also) convene conversations with the incredible people from around the state who will gather - with folks from our local communities - to talk about the ways in which God has transformed our lives - and how we, working together, can change the world (that has been transformed by God) to see and celebrate that change. Why can't we - alongside of working in social service agencies - have people get together and talk about how to do something about the economics of our communities (so that perhaps food pantries may not be needed any more - is that not changing the world?)? What would it look like to have folks from around the state who are interested - get together and talk about education (a pretty big issue in our state right now - not to mention around the country and world) - we have students and teachers and parents and administrators - what a rich resource - are we really only going to ask them to put together school backpacks? And what about in the arena of health? Why wouldn't the Bishop invite a conversation with people in our congregations and community who work for the state health department, who run health care institutions, who work as doctors and nurses and aides and dieticians and physical therapists and more, who care about health and pregnancy, to come together - pray together, celebrate what God is doing and see how we can build on that so that people can see the healing that is right in our hands (rather than just putting together packets of handy wipes and bandaids and aspirin for the homeless)? Is the reason we don't have these conversations because they are too touchy - too dangerous? Doesn't Holy Work remind us that we can have dangerous conversations and keep on going? For crying out loud!

On this Holy Saturday why are we selecting Barabbas over Jesus all over again? Isn't it about time we chose Jesus? Isn't it about time we stopped settling for so little? Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Kyrie Eleison...

"Of Course She's a Prostitute"

Yesterday I attended a meeting with the folks from The Mindtrust an Indianapolis based group that is working on education reform (among other things they act as a funder for some organizations). They have developed, in their words, "a bold plan to transform Indianapolis Public Schools." I was a part of a small group of folks from Christian congregations to whom they were presenting their plan "for conversation." What follows is my reflections on some of the gathering. I imagine that the folks from The Mindtrust would disagree with some of my characterizations of what was said. I only present them as my interpretation of what was being said and publish it here in the hopes that in as many ways as possible conversation can be engaged on the issues that they are raising.

Let me also say that I am proud that the founder of the Methodist movement, and subsequently the Methodist Church, John Wesley, was deeply committed to and involved with education - particularly among low income populations over 200 years ago. I hope that the Methodist movement can recover some of that original fire.

My central issue about this conversation is that it is trying to address directly urban education, and particular the challenges that develop around poverty - and yet do it by not talking about or addressing poverty in any way at all - except to say that "the answer to poverty is education." This seems to me to be an example of what Wendell Berry calls "superstitious thinking." While education has certainly helped some people out of poverty...we have pretty universal education in this country - but clearly still have a poverty problem.

During this conversation those who live in poverty were spoken about as people who "needed to be involved" and who would be (this was on a slide in the power point presentation) "informed" about the plan once it was transitioning into action. People talked about "programs" with "wrap-around services." One of the participants in the discussion, Seana Murphy, who used to run the 21st Century Scholars Program in Indiana, did an excellent job of asking how it was that the people they were talking about could be engaged in governance of this plan and hired to be part of the work that would be going on. No - neither The Mindtrust folks nor those from churches seemed to understand what she was saying.

The plan proposed that $188 million dollars a year would be re-allocated from the current administrative structure and be filtered down to the schools. There was a lot of talk from the presenters (as well as in the power point presentation) suggesting that this money would go to "new and creative and innovative" people from the outside coming into the community. There was never one reference to an investment in the parents (except that they needed to "get involved in their children's education") or to investment in creative and innovative people from within the community (even among low income folk).

And when the leaders of The Mindtrust spoke about what they were doing they told stories about the dysfunctional families that they work with - for example - one man told the story of how they had worked with a guy whose father was a drug addict and now "he's doing great in school." A little later he said, excitedly, "and I think his mother is a prostitute." Seana leaned over to me and said, "Of course she's a prostitute."

This is the way people who don't have much money (which is what being in poverty means) are talked about. As if this story proves anything. For an organization who talks a lot about accountability - there is very little accountability in their argument for why their proposal will work. And less the reader thinks I'm taking shots at these good folks, let me simply say, that this is how those of us in the church - and other religious institutions - talk about the poor all the time.

The pastor of one of the largest churches in Indianapolis (someone who was at this meeting) said to me in a meeting a year ago "poor families are so dysfunctional." I told him that I bet the folks in his congregation had just as much, if not more, dysfunction than anyone who I knew as low income. It is fascinating to me that in Christianity where we have a base line that says "we are all sinners" that we have no problem poking our fingers at people who are poor and talking about people in this condition as if they are different species.

One thing that made this really clear to me is some wonderful writing I came across this past year by two economists from MIT. Their names are Esther Duflo and Abhijit Bannerjee. They have written a book called "Poor Economics" and their introduction includes the text that follows below:

"If the poor appear at all, is is usually as the dramatis personae of some uplifting anecdote or tragic episode, to be admired or pitied, but not as a source of knowledge, not as people to be consulted about what they think or want or do.

All too often the economics of poverty gets mistaken for poor economics: Because the poor possess very little, it is assumed that there is nothing interesting about their economic existence. Unfortunately, this misunderstanding severely undermines the fight against global poverty. Simple problems beget simple solutions. The field of anti-poverty policy is littered with the detritus of instant miracles that proved less than miraculous. To progress, we have to abandon the habit of reducing the poor to cartoon characters and take the time to really understand their lives, in all their complexity and richness...

What is striking is that even people who are that poor [living on less than 99 cents a day] are just like the rest of us in almost every way. We have the same desires and weaknesses; the poor are no less rational than anyone else--quite the contrary. Precisely because they have so little, we often find them putting much careful thought into their choices: They have to be sophisticated economists just to survive. Yet our lives are as different as liquor and liquorice. And this has a lot do with aspects of our own lives that we take for granted and hardly think about."

I am struck that this language is used by economists and yet I can't think of ever (and this is stunning to me) - and I mean ever - hearing people who don't have much money spoken of in this respectful and clear eyed a way. And this is especially true among good religious folks. And I wonder why that is true.

Today's reading

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day I found it a rich day for thinking on difficult issues. A friend of mine asked me to stop by her home to look at a manuscript. She told me that a poet friend had shared it with her, for her comment. She asked him if she could share it with a few others. I was one of those who was given permission to view it.

I arrived at her home thinking I was going to pick up the manuscript and take it with me. But instead she pointed me to a chair and said "I've prepared the place for you to read." The lamp stood over my shoulder as I settled in. It is a collection of poems about the child abuse suffered by the poet at the hands of his childhood priest. He has never publicly spoken of these things.

I was struck right away by the directness of these writings. I would not call them poems. To me, poems rely on metaphor. These were not primarily metaphorical writings. They were quite good. They were stunning and startling in their directness. They were incredibly painful.

In one of the pieces - in just 12 lines he invites you to join he and two other boys as they count the Sunday morning offering. The priest calls one of the other boys into his office. They know what is happening to the other boy in the room. Because they have both been that boy. But they are children - they don't know what to do. So they keep silent and keep counting. And as they do they hear the chair squeaking behind the closed door. And when the author goes home, he hears the chairs squeak in his home - and his shame and guilt and fear are home with him as well.

In the introduction (written by a well known Catholic priest) the priest asks how it is that Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) could have been so public and so aggressive in his pursuit of theologians whose writing and thought he disagreed with (often publicly silencing them, like Leonardo Boff) back in the 1980's and 1990's - but remain so quiet at the tidal wave of child abusers in the ranks of the priesthood.

It made me think about how aware I have been from the beginning of my entrance into the professional ministry of the United Methodist Church how we had our own troubles with clergy acting inappropriately (mostly I knew about inappropriate encounters of male clergy with female laity and male clergy with female clergy). In hardly any of the cases I knew about was anyone removed from the professional ministry. Instead they were often moved to another parish - and nothing was told to the people of the new parish of anything that had happened with this clergy in his previous appointment. We do not have much room to throw stones.

But it also got me thinking of how many decades in the Methodist Church (prior to 1968) the denomination had treated African-Americans and women as second class citizens, officially, in the church and how the time was spent mostly during those crises in taking on ideological/theological battles while treating our sisters and brothers very badly - in many cases ignoring the issues that divided us - or arguing that we couldn't do anything about them because it would be too divisive. Wesley's own arguments in this regard around slavery and the push back he got from his fledgling movement can certainly be seen played out again and again down through the centuries since he first wrote on this issue and continues to be played out in the battle within our denomination regarding homosexuality today.

I am fairly certain that in another couple of decades we will again, as a denomination, have to be putting together a service of repentance and reconciliation on this issue. I just wish that for once we could beat the rush. But that's probably too much to ask.

It is a little surprising to me still (and I'm embarrassed to admit this, because it marks my immaturity) that I still get surprised that we, as a denomination, spend our time fighting less significant battles while literally people are dying from poverty, young people grow up without recognizing that the people and the communities around them see and recognize their blessedness. More than 8 times since Saturday I have had conversations with people in and around the life of our parish that revolve around poor health care decisions that people have had to make because they don't have health insurance and cannot afford the health care decision that might actually make them better. And I'm not talking just among the poor. It is truly embarrassing this obsession we have with sexuality - among people of faith - who have handled the issue of sexual abuse and inappropriate behavior so very, very badly. It appears we have no shame.

I'm tired of seeing young people who die from violence in our communities, because we did not find more ways to celebrate who they are and what they have to contribute to our common life.

We had a funeral at Broadway in the week leading up to Christmas. The church was packed. Even more than on Christmas Eve. Because of a young man who had been shot and killed while visiting a relative and sitting in front of his relative's house. That our denomination here in Indiana is so much more obsessed with numbers and our reporting on those numbers than we are with the flesh and blood people around us...just causes me to weep.

And so much of the day I grappled with it. And then later in the day I talked with a member of our congregation. He was part of meal the day before that had been pulled together by some folks in our congregation. There were people in our congregation who were there (some who live close by and some who don't) there were people in our neighborhood who were at this meal (some who come to worship at Broadway and some who don't) and all were there to celebrate a young man, a literal neighbor to our church, who worships at another church. At the meal people were invited to go around the table and offer a word of thanksgiving and celebration for what they see in this young man. This young man who received a letter from his first high school (he is at his second one - he is a junior) saying (literally) that he would never achieve anything - that he would never be able to drive a car, or get a job at McDonalds and the school would be happy to go ahead and give him his "certificate of completion" (this was in his freshman year!) - because it would be a waste of time for both the school and him to continue. The meal was occasioned in part because this young man had won a scholarship at Broadway to invest in some area of gift or talent in his life. The people at the table gave him their blessings (to remind him of the blessings that fill his life). His grandmother was there. His aunt. His younger brother. Friends from the church who had been involved with him. A tutor from the school next door to where he goes to school who lends a hand with his homework. After they all spoke, he spoke - he thanked them all for being there...and he talked about how surprised he was to hear these words - to hear these words of celebration and thanksgiving (shame on us - that he was surprised by this). The report I got was that as he expressed his gratitude - and his growing awareness of his gifts as witnessed to by those gathered at table with him, the tears flowed. At the end of the meal the young man was asked to name what kind of support he could use from those gathered around. And then everyone went around again and told what they would offer to him. Beautiful. The one who reported to me told me that several people around the table said "I need to do this with all the young people I know." And what I thought was "what's stopping you?" and "why just the young people you know?"

A day that began in pain and frustration - gave way to hope for me. Hope that while so many of our leaders are spending their time fiddling and in fiddle battles with others - there are people on the ground, reaching out and bearing witness to God's goodness all around us. I hope we can play a small part in shining our light on that goodness. And that it may increase. That's what I'm working on. That's what I'm thinking about this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

What Gets God Pissed Off?

Well...let me just begin with a caveat (and a big one at that). I don't know what gets God pissed off. But I have a personal history with this question. On the second Sunday at my first appointment, Asbury United Methodist Church in Evansville, Indiana in the year 1985 - I quoted, during my sermon, from Alice Walker's book "The Color Purple" - where it says "God gets pissed off if you walk by the color purple in a field and don't admire it..." (not sure that's an exact quote, but it is as I recall it). All hell (so to speak) broke loose. They called a meeting of the Pastor-Parish Committee meeting for that very evening. I talked to my mom that afternoon and her exact words to me were "Mike, I didn't raise you to be that stupid." Point taken. I went and apologized to the members of the Pastor-Parish Committee for being young and stupid. They were gracious. But wary. But that's another story for another time.

Lately the Christian blogosphere (and a few places in the secular blogosphere) have been alive with a debate about heaven and hell (as in most cases the argument spends most of its time on the hell side of the debate - as if the debate itself wasn't a good example). The new Rob Bell book has stirred the pot most recently - but it's a hot topic nonetheless. And by a "hot topic" - I mean a hot topic in North America. My friends in Africa and Latin America have been telling me that it's not a topic of much conversation at all where they are. Hmmm. I thought that was interesting. I actually thought it would be much more of a "hot" topic there - guess I was wrong.

So, I got to thinking what did I know about what Jesus had to say about what we today call Hell - since I was 20 years old I've been reading through the Bible every year so I should have a good grasp of that right? It did take a little digging for me this afternoon to find all the references to hell in the Gospels. Seems like Matthew wanted to make sure that anytime Jesus ever said something about it that he got it covered - because Matthew's accounts touch on it twice as much as the rest of the Gospels combined!

The best known of those passages (by "best known" - I mean the ones that appear to be most widely known, anecdotally) have to do with wealth and poverty. There is the story of the sheep and the goats that can be found in Matthew 25. There is the story of Lazarus and Dives in Luke 16. There is the story of the wedding banquet in Matthew 23.

There are of course the very famous references which appear in a couple of the Gospels to taking off a hand, a foot, and plucking out an eye (so as to keep one from hell). Unfortunately I knew a young man in my last parish who took those passages so literally that he sawed off his own hand in his garage. But those passages are not as much in the public conversation (at least not the ones I'm around). I have been struck by what I have noticed as a lack of conversation at all about poverty and wealth when talking about these subjects (okay, I agree we don't talk about money at all in the church really anyway - or when we do it's more about giving to the church).

And it got me thinking that I'm hard pressed to remember any time in the Bible where God says, "you folks are being way too hard on rich people." In fact God's judgment against Israel is often around how they treat the poor. And this seems to be a somewhat common topic in the Gospels and in Paul's letters to the churches as well.

And we United Methodists certainly remember that commitments around responses of justice and charity, often around poverty, were central to Wesley's Methodist renewal movement in the Anglican Church.

I met yesterday afternoon with Terri and Katina and Duane and Lisa to talk together about what we will spend our time with this summer around Broadway. What a wonderful discussion. They talked about all the things they have been learning about their neighbors and we talked and dreamed together about how to name the abundance in the lives of their neighbors, how to bless and celebrate that abundance, and how to multiply it by joining it to abundance that it hasn't yet recognized. It's not perfect - far from it...but gosh I'm glad to be spending my time talking with my parishioners about what God is doing in the life of the world and not spending it sitting around trying to figure out how God is going to handle all the heaven and hell business. Seems like another debate for a group of rich folks to have. I wonder how God feels about that? About missing the abundance around us because of where we end up spending our time? I guess I'll find out one day.

I Can't Fix It

What a glorious day. Good worship this morning. Great sermon by Rachel at the 8:30 and 10:45. Good, good, good conversations with many folks today. Some I made some mistakes in (but the only way to have avoided that was not to have them in the first place).

We had a meeting today that went very well. Marc did a great job in getting our governing council (called Diakonia - rather than the Administrative Board) off to a good start.

There was a lot of energy in the room. And Marc did an excellent job of channeling it in a positive direction. But there was something striking to me...I often say "go where the Holy Spirit is" (how do you tell? -- It's where the energy is...) - but today all the talk was about church growth - and I realized that this was coming out of anxiety. Not an irrational anxiety...but anxiety nonetheless. We all want to solve it and fix it. And me as much as anyone else. But anxiety is not the same as energy - and it is, I'm afraid, the opposite of the Holy Spirit (who surely is always saying to us "fear not"). So - how do we face our anxiety and fear and move on? I don't know. I can beat myself up plenty about that too.

I was talking with a friend about it this evening and he sent me this little youtube video - only 2 minutes and 23 seconds - of Parker Palmer which helped me. And that sent me back to a Mary Oliver poem I read this afternoon. And I'll share it here.

Another Everyday Poem

Every day
I consider
the lilies--
how they are dressed--

and the ravens--
how they are fed--
and how each of these
is a miracle

of Lord-love
and of sorrow--
for the lilies
in their bright dresses

cannot last
but wrinkle fast
and fall,
and the little ravens

in their windy nest
rise up
in such pleasure
at the sight

of fresh meat
that makes their lives sweet--
and what a puzzle it is
that such brevity--

the lavish clothes,
the ruddy food--
makes the world
so full, so good.

After reading this poem I thought some more (and it seemed an appropriate thing to do during Lent) about how it is that we, in the church, seemed to be just as scared about dying as the rest of the world - while we have a story that could set us free from that fear - or at least free from being overwhelmed by it.

And then I realized the extent to which that fear often binds me. I want to fix things and when I can't I beat myself up pretty well about it. But I forget that it's not mine to fix and as Samuel Wells reminds me - I don't write the last act of this story. God does. And thank God for that.

I think the next time I feel that fear coming up and on around me I will stop us for a moment and tell the Emmaus story...and then share a little bread and wine. I've got to keep that stuff closer at hand.

And so should our denomination. I feel like so much of what we are facing as a denomination is our fear of dying - it's why we argue about so much that counts for so little. Such fear is...as Walt Wangerin says -- "a saw-toothed tool of the devil." Amen. Mary Oliver sees the world through resurrected eyes. I'm going to give that a try myself.

Cherished Diversities

A couple of weeks ago I had a big thrill. A friend of mine invited me to dinner, and the third party at our meal was Walter Brueggemann. What a delight. A genuine delight. I loved his sense of humor. I don't know - when I usually think of the Hebrew Scriptures - "Humor" is not the first word that jumps to mind (though perhaps it should). He laughed, we laughed, loud and long and often. We told stories and reveled in the mysteries and joys of life in the world, life in the Church, and life in the seminary.

I've been thinking on that evening as I've been reading, for Lent, "Prayers for a Privileged People." A couple of days this week, my friend and colleague De'Amon Harges (the Roving Listener), talked with a group of clergy (mostly younger clergy) from around the state who were gathered at Wabash College. We were asked to talk with them about the Church and it's mission and ministry in the world. I kept thinking of my evening with Walter and his little book of prayers.

Over the past week or so (okay, I'm sure it's been much longer than that) I've been meditating on the ways in which we in United Methodism in specific, and mainline protestantism in general, in this country, can get so distracted from the main thing (or even the main things) to which Jesus is attempting to draw the attention of his disciples. I wonder how it is that when I am so often around my colleagues there is so little conversation, except in the most surface and uninvolved and dispassionate way, about those around us who "the world looks down on and despises and thinks of as nothing" (in the words of Paul in the first chapter of I Corinthians). Oh...someone may offer a word in praise of a feeding ministry or a tutoring program - they may talk about housing the homeless...but if asked to name even one of the persons about whom they are speaking - nary a name arises out of their lips. And then I re-read the preface to Brueggemann's little book where he talks about how "our privilege tends to work against openheartedness." That helped me. Yes. That made some sense to me.

And then it especially came together this afternoon while talking with the poet, Mari Evans - in the midst of our neighborhood -- which even in the last 24 hours I have heard referred to as a "bad" neighborhood - as a place that people look down on - in fear and bigotry. Yes, yes, yes. Sometimes - perhaps too often -- our privilege works against openheartedness. But I had never thought of it that way before. And Mari ended our time together - talking poetry, faith and life...by reminding me of an essay in her little book "Clarity as Concept" - in which she longs for and looks forward to the day when we celebrate our "CHERISHED DIVERSITIES" (caps are mine). What a lovely term.

While that day may not yet be here - we can celebrate it on Sunday morning, sure enough. While that day may not yet be here - I can celebrate that in my conversations with others. While that day may yet not be here - I can find a way to see and know and celebrate those cherished diversities. I may find ways to cherish them actively. I can too often get bogged down in what I view to be the blindness of so many in our denomination -- a blindness that frustrates and angers me (an anger for which I'm grateful and view as a gift of God) - but that can turn me away from celebration, rather than fuel a joyful expression of those cherished diversities.

So - I am grateful today for Walter Brueggemann and Mari Evans...teachers, poets, joyful guides to this life. Thank you.

Visiting Dr. Rich and Pro-Social Investment

On Friday a group of six us from Broadway visited Dr. John Rich in Philadelphia. My mind is overflowing after the discussion. It was wonderful -- from beginning to end. My attention had been drawn to Dr. Rich from some conversations with friends who have won the McArthur Genius Grant Awards. They thought it would be a good idea to talk with Dr. Rich. They described his work to me several years ago - as work that began when he was in Boston in Med School. This young doctor, who is African-American, found himself face to face with a lot of young African-American men coming through the emergency room at the hospital he was working at in Boston - stabbed, shot and in other ways damaged by violence. A very short version of this story is that he hired them. He hired them to be community health advocates for something he called "the health cru." I loved that. It seemed to blend well with our theology that saw the answers as residing in the very places that others saw only emptiness and pain. As a Christian I believe that emptiness and pain are not the last word. And Dr. Rich put flesh on those bones by his actions.

Last fall a few of us gathered around our telephone lines at Broadway to have a conference call with Dr. Rich. Near the end of that conversation he invited us to continue to the conversation in person. Chad, at Broadway, began to pull together a group of us to visit. That visit happened this past Friday, the 25th. I wanted to take a few friends and listen to what Dr. Rich was thinking - his innovative approach, his looking at the people who crossed his paths as brothers and sisters, his creativity, and insight - being around people like that is always inspiring to me and I hoped it would be to others. So De'Amon, Terri, Orlando, Chad, Tamara and I set off on Thursday to begin our trek.

What I had not expected was that the focus of the conversation with Dr. Rich would be on healing. I don't think I had ever had a conversation with a physician that focused on healing. It was beautiful! He talked about the ways in which, in listening to the young men who came before him, he began to notice some things - for example he began to notice that these young men had experienced constant trauma - many of them from quite young - and that they had a very good ability to describe the experience and the experiences they were having. As I listened to Dr. Rich I thought about how much this made them "healers" to others around - if we could find ways to build on on term that Dr. Tamara Leech - one of our companions on this trip - described as "pro-social investment." It was Dr. Leech's attempt to describe the positive aspects of life in communities that others often look down on. Our friend, Orlando, who is on this trip (and who I've written about in this blog before) - is constantly engaging in "pro-social investment" by engaging the young people in our community around the music that he loves to make - WITH the young people. They make music together - solve the world's problems - talk, tell stories, laugh and challenge one another. How does one multiply that? At least in part we multiply that, I believe - by celebrating it.

What would that look like? We have invited Orlando to share his story in the Lesson for the Contemporary Church during worship at Broadway - and he has done that. But this is a very, very, very small step. How do we make what he is doing more visible - than it is right now? How do we hold it up so that all around our neighborhood see it - and some inspired to do such a thing themselves - that they care about? How do we celebrate it in a way that draws the attention of others around the city? I've been thinking about that. I've got a potential opening to engage the editorial leadership of the newspaper to invite them to see things a little differently (not giving away their old perspective - but picking up the new). Maybe this would be a way that it would be known more widely. But I wonder if this isn't me looking for the "easy way" - by outsourcing the work to the newspaper. I wonder if I could engage United Methodists (and others) from around our city - in helping spread the word. I don't know.

Friday began with breakfast with an old seminary professor of mine - Harold Dean Trulear the III. I was most grateful to see him again after all these years. He had graduated with a PhD from Morehouse in his early 20's - and was only three years older than me when I started seminary as a twenty-three year old. Both he and Dr. Rich have grown up in the Church, Dean has started congregations and worked in congregations and both - painfully so, to both me and them, talked about how unhelpful the Church is to them and to the people they work with in the streets. I actually agreed, wincing, along the way, with their analysis (offered separately - as we did not see them together).

This leads me to my final little section of this blog entry. I am constantly frustrated by reading the blogs of people I know and respect within the Christian community and in particular, the United Methodist community. What frustrates me is that I love the writing styles and color with which they write...but it seems to me that they write of so little that is - I don't know - let's say "real" for lack of a better term.

What do I mean by that? I have done an unofficial count over the last two months of the 10 bloggers I read most often (who post fairly regularly) and I can tell you that the overwhelmingly the social issue that they write about - and that their readers most respond to - is sexuality. Now, I believe sexuality, is an important issue - but many, if not most, of these folks - are giving it time like the Bible talks about this issue more than any other. If you took out the references in the Bible to poverty - the Bible would look like swiss cheese. If you took out the references to sexuality - you would hardly notice and would cover large swaths of the Bible between references - in some cases 100's of pages. It would be hard to cover 10 pages of the Bible without reference to the poor. Now all the references to sexuality wouldn't distress me so much - but I just wonder - where in the hell do people find all that time to look into that and never write, or at least in any sort of close proportionate way, to the issues that are killing so many of our young people, to the ways in which so many of our sisters and brothers are living and dying - with people only seeing them as empty vessels who need to be fixed and not as beloved children of God with lots to offer.

How come there are so many more discussions about the every day life and death struggles of people in secular blogs - than there are in these United Methodist blogs? I can't figure it out. It makes me crazy. Because I know many of the people writing these blogs. They are wonderful folks. Wonderful. Thoughtful. But so much of their energy is taken up with the issues that the craziest people around us want us to take time with - I think this must feel the same in every age. But it makes me crazy nonetheless.