tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90409178082974656412024-03-17T23:18:55.789-04:00Valley Rise Upwonder, curiosity & passionDavid Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comBlogger2216125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-36721648572451043272024-03-17T23:14:00.004-04:002024-03-17T23:18:24.523-04:00HOMILY: "Unless a Grain of Wheat" (Lent 5)<span style="font-family: arial;">March 17, 2024<br />John 12:20-33<br /><br /><i>“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit…”<br /></i><br />1.<br /><br />In the 1970s Carter Heyward was among the first small group of women to be ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. After a long and bitter fight. And like Bishop Gene Robinson here in New Hampshire, these women met fierce opposition in certain circles, and even in some churches. Where meanness and prejudice get especially cruel. And Carter Heyward tells a story about communion, and serving communion in those first few months at a small parish in Ohio. A high moment for her, but a bizarre one for the church.<br /><br />You may know that, in the Episcopal tradition, parishioners often come forward and kneel at the altar rail to receive the bread from priest’s hand. And that Sunday, newly ordained, Carter Heyward stepped to the rail to greet her people with the consecrated bread, the Body of Christ. She stepped down the line, offering each one communion, inviting each one to ministry and partnership with Jesus.<br /><br />That day in Ohio, one man arrived at the altar rail with a grudge to bear. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t let it go. Carter Heyward’s ministry, her priesthood was so abhorrent to him, so threatening to everything he held dear in the world—that he came to the rail, kneeling but seething. And when she offered communion, he batted the bread away and angrily bit the priest’s finger. So committed was he to his own resentment, so unwilling to receive the gift that was literally at hand. And so opposed to the idea of a woman priest. He just batted the bread away, and bit her finger hard. Can you imagine? Carter Heyward says that the cost of discipleship and the risky business of the priesthood got a little clearer for her that day. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpRnkvkWJZboVKHaQEQwC907nnlEZHqzBqXTox2XaJulwQRk9brAZ3VWHDtDCe_Up9Z-QCuAz4dVyAozYTiLhWwIRlzQJWGPvrzaoZ8XNDKunp35NJR2aF4Agd9o9FlsqZNoR6wftUKn3Kf-Mh1ttN8YIyeR_P3y4Ce2ABtlMbHRzzZWHAQirFjTnzkes/s500/WERWIN-Abstract-art-Contemporary-Art-Contemporary-Art.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="364" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpRnkvkWJZboVKHaQEQwC907nnlEZHqzBqXTox2XaJulwQRk9brAZ3VWHDtDCe_Up9Z-QCuAz4dVyAozYTiLhWwIRlzQJWGPvrzaoZ8XNDKunp35NJR2aF4Agd9o9FlsqZNoR6wftUKn3Kf-Mh1ttN8YIyeR_P3y4Ce2ABtlMbHRzzZWHAQirFjTnzkes/s320/WERWIN-Abstract-art-Contemporary-Art-Contemporary-Art.jpg" width="233" /></a></div>It’s tempting, of course, to take communion for granted—this simple, if sacred, transaction, couched in prayer and blessing. We’ve done it a hundred times, five hundred times before. It can seem rather routine. But what if it’s more than that? <b>What if this simple monthly meal at the table is both our lived memory of Jesus’ sacrifice and our solidarity with that sacrifice?</b> What if we take the broken loaf in our hands, and into our lives—to welcome and embrace this promise: That just as his heart was broken open in love, so it will be with us. After all: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies,” Jesus said, “it bears much fruit.” The broken bread, the emptied cup. What if this sacrament—this eucharistic reenactment is more than just a familiar ritual—but also a risk we take in faith, a faithful risk that our journeys and Jesus’ journey are one and the same. To be offered up to the world in love. To be poured out upon the earth as mercy. To be justice and peace, en-fleshed, in-carnate, in wartime. <br /><br />Maybe we should follow Annie Dillard’s wonderful advice in <u>A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek</u>, and show up for Communion Sundays in batting helmets, shoulder pads and shin guards. Because this isn’t just a quaint exchange of consumer goods; <b>it’s a commitment we make—every time—to “soul force” and total transformation. </b> It’s a commitment to trust and courage and solidarity with Jesus. If we dare. If we dare to let go. <br /><br />And of course, that’s exactly what that parishioner in Ohio couldn’t do—or at least, couldn’t yet do. He couldn’t let go. He couldn’t give up on his own grievances, release his anxieties to God’s grace, turn over his patriarchal prejudice at the altar. And because he couldn’t—at least, couldn’t yet do that—he met the gift of God’s grace with contempt. He took the promise of new life and mangled it. He rejected his own liberation, and the Love that even in that moment sought him out. I want to believe that that wasn’t his last trip to the altar. I want to believe that—like the rest of us—he was given a second, a third, a fourth chance. As many as he needed. To wake up. To give up on his grievances and release his fears at last. To receive the gift of faith. To see his world reawakened and his life within it. <br /><br />2.<br /><br />This morning, on his way to the cross, inviting you and me to join him, Jesus says: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” And this kind of poetry, which means to bewilder but inspire, invites reflection around sacramental practice and communion itself. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” And then: “Those who cling to their life in this world will lose it, and those who let go will keep it for eternal life.” There’s a koan in all this, a sense of mystery and strange blessing, an invitation to curiosity and hope. <br /><br />If that fellow in Ohio has to learn, somehow, to turn over his privilege and prejudice, in order to fully and gracefully receive what Jesus is doing in his life, maybe I too have privileges to sacrifice at the altar. <b>Maybe every one of us has grievances to release, and fears, anxieties, burdens to set aside—so that we can accept the healing, love and partnership Jesus is extending. </b> In the bread. In the cup. In the hands of a priest or priestess. And we do this over and over and over again. Communion is transformation. Communion is conversion. Communion is poetry; and faith then is like the art of being alive in wounded but wonderful world. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” <br /><br />So I want to offer this as a way to approach this ancient, but dynamic sacrament at the table with Jesus. To step into that Upper Room with Jesus, to lean into his presence at the table—is to bury our fears in the gospel of love. To acknowledge his suffering, to bear witness to his lovingkindness—is to release every grievance that blurs our vision, every bitterness that diminishes our hope. Maybe your fear has something to do with your own unique vulnerability in the world, your own mortality perhaps, a sense of foreboding or shame that just clings to your soul. Lean into God’s presence. Here at the table. <b>Bury your fears in the gospel of love. </b><br /><br />In this broken bread, in this common cup, in this sweet feast, Jesus says: “As I give up my fears, as I release my grievances, as I welcome God’s abundant love—so can you. Break this bread.” And then, “As I receive God’s promise of everlasting mercy and endless abundance—so can you. Drink this cup.” See, it’s not transactional, not at all. This sacrament is the promise in the midst of your awakening, the assurance in the midst of your transformation, and the strangely satisfying gift of divine presence—as you and I move into the conflicted spaces, and unsettling challenges, and critically important ministries of our lives. And there will be conflicts. And there will be challenges. But always, always, always, in releasing our fears to God, in casting off our grievances, in putting our hand in Jesus’ hand—we are renewed and refreshed and awakened again and again by the Love that sets us free. If we dare. If we dare to let go.<br /><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span>3.<br /><br />Just this week, we received an invitation from UCC leaders in Concord to participate in an exciting program they’re calling Guns to Gardens. Guns to Gardens. It’s something they’ve done elsewhere in the state, asking gunowners to bring unwanted and unnecessary weapons to the church parking lot on a particular Saturday morning. And right there, with police supervision, repurposing the guns into garden tools and farming equipment used right here in New Hampshire. It’s a beautiful project conjured and manifested in the hearts and ministries of UCC friends right here in our state. “Swords into ploughshares.” “Spears into pruning hooks.” And I’m hoping that some Saturday this spring or summer, we’ll be hosting just such a day, a day of hope and promise and conversion, right here in Durham. Wouldn’t it be cool if we had the choir out that morning, in the lot, singing hymns to the Prince of Peace? As brave neighbors turned in their weapons?<br /><br />I learned in the New York Times this week that gun violence is now the number one cause of death among children and youth in this country—finally surpassing traffic and automobile deaths. And—there are now more guns privately owned in this country than there are people. That’s right, more guns than people. Under beds. In basements. Locked up. Not locked up. Car glove compartments. Racks on your pickups. <br /><br />You can—and some do—offer political and even constitutional reasoning for why this all the case. But it seems to me, friends, that it all speaks to the profoundly spiritual issue tearing at the soul of our families and neighborhoods, our states and the country itself. We are terribly and undeniably afraid. We are afraid of our own frailty, we are afraid of economic and political forces beyond our control, we are afraid of death, and we are sadly and tragically afraid of one another. This most of all. <b>We are sadly and tragically afraid of one another.</b> And there are companies here and elsewhere making a fortune on our angst. <br /><br />You and I have a message for our friends. We have good news to share with our neighbors. And we simply must invite our friends and neighbors to lay their weapons down. It’s in the DNA of our tradition, the heart and soul of the gospel itself. As strange and unnerving as the world may be, we follow the Jew from Nazareth who rejected violence as a way to feel safe. As befuddling and unhinged as humans may be, we follow the Palestinian from Galilee who insisted that only love and mercy and disarmament could heal the nations of their cruelty and fear.<br /><br />I hope you agree. If our faith has anything to offer a culture of despair, an anxious world—it is this gospel we celebrate at the table, the gospel that invites our partnership and collaboration every time we break bread. We do not need weapons to live our lives in God’s world. We do not need ever more dangerous magazine clips to feel safe and secure among the children of God. That’s simply not who we are as disciples of Jesus.<br /><br />4.<br /><br />So friends, come to the table this morning. Come to the table to remember Jesus and to join Jesus in his compassion and brokenness and hope and mercy. Come to the table to let go—to release your fears and hear a word of hope. Come to the table to receive in your hands and in your hearts the newness of Christ, the liberating grace of God and the One Big Love that draws all life into a communion of sweet and sacred peace. <br /><br />Know this, though: <b>this sacramental moment invites profound humility, often soul-shaking, world-flipping humility, that we might welcome the unexpected, and embrace unforeseen transformation. </b> After all, to be in communion with Christ, to be in communion with one another is to be reawakened, refashioned, renewed—in the Spirit and in the Body of Christ. And this is who we are. And this is who we can be. And this is who the world needs us to be. Now more than ever.<br /><br />Amen and Ashe.</span><br />David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-58038629433835312312024-03-10T15:00:00.007-04:002024-03-10T15:03:26.863-04:00HOMILY: "Love Weeps" (Lent 4)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A Meditation on <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=577097357" target="_blank"><b>John 11</b></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sunday, March 10, 2024</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">1.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivKEcZUvw6DD3TbNS_UlDOuCa1z4V68ctoQCfqE22v4XeV1Lqyvvquif6uuVM5IPR7S788Kx2B8P6zchctSXW47puB4PhjwVGH0yo3UqCZNH7P_1jZynuuFNESGhebh2-b6QwarIWonnDdMfO4h6EWLjqk6rTghP8mHo_DKJ0JJ9NSK7l0_FmEYT2z2PU/s630/jesus-weeps-over-jerusalem-1-GoodSalt-prcas2427_1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="495" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivKEcZUvw6DD3TbNS_UlDOuCa1z4V68ctoQCfqE22v4XeV1Lqyvvquif6uuVM5IPR7S788Kx2B8P6zchctSXW47puB4PhjwVGH0yo3UqCZNH7P_1jZynuuFNESGhebh2-b6QwarIWonnDdMfO4h6EWLjqk6rTghP8mHo_DKJ0JJ9NSK7l0_FmEYT2z2PU/s320/jesus-weeps-over-jerusalem-1-GoodSalt-prcas2427_1.jpg" width="251" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Weeping for Jerusalem</span></td></tr></tbody></table>In just two short weeks, anticipating what will become a procession of palms and his own version of first century civil disobedience, Jesus will pause on a hillside overlooking Jerusalem. And there he will weep over the holy city, the city whose very name means City of Peace. The city whose reason for being is to bear the promise of inclusion and communion and justice.<br /> <br />And on that hillside, reflecting on his life, his world, maybe even human history itself—Jesus will weep over Jerusalem. And he will say: “Would that you, even now, might know the things that make for peace!” “Would that you, even now, might know the things that make for peace!” Jesus will feel all this violence in his bones, in the very marrow of his bones. He will grieve the militarism of empires, the calculated violence of nations, the hatred and venom unleashed in conflicts festering in human communities. And he will weep.<br /><br />After last night’s offering of “The Armed Man,” I spoke with several singers who told me that there’s a point in the piece—when rage overcomes human decency, when violence roars in the lyric and music—where their own tears overwhelm even the director’s instructions and they just can’t sing. For a measure or two. For a heartbeat or two or three. We’re talking about Hiroshima and Auschwitz and Vietnam. We’re talking about genocidal wars and human pride turned demonic destruction. And I’m moved by each of you, by each of those singers, and by your Christ-like weeping, and your Christ-like humanity, and your Christ-like tenderness. Your tears, I might add, are the salty seeds of a world healed, a planet reconciled, a human community redeemed not by AR 15s and weaponized drones and atomic bombs—but by love. By love and hope and your own tears.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWparYEDfkgV_44vNaQkOflhabVCA5JKSyGyqWQCUqkPJxrdJV32k7Zb2TrKIMvWL-oJ075fCUah_DIf64eKGaKocmoBguDEcbnFUApzAadI_p9cSnxsiYSVNDiwntP5Jk42a9OpXyLrINb4JL7iJcYMpxzo3o_qDnSIJ0rSnu_rOUNxZERreBCKT4VYk/s225/lazarus.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWparYEDfkgV_44vNaQkOflhabVCA5JKSyGyqWQCUqkPJxrdJV32k7Zb2TrKIMvWL-oJ075fCUah_DIf64eKGaKocmoBguDEcbnFUApzAadI_p9cSnxsiYSVNDiwntP5Jk42a9OpXyLrINb4JL7iJcYMpxzo3o_qDnSIJ0rSnu_rOUNxZERreBCKT4VYk/s1600/lazarus.jpeg" width="225" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Unbinding Lazarus</span></td></tr></tbody></table>And, of course, in this morning’s story—this long and involved story from the Gospel of John—Mary and Martha are grieving for Lazarus, their brother, their beloved brother. And their friends, their community has gathered around them, come to them with love and support. And they’re all grieving together, weeping for the one they’ve lost, leaning into one another with love, and hanging onto one another through waves of sadness and the kind of pain that rolls through the human spirit like a tsunami. And Jesus—who strangely delays—comes to them at last. And there’s a special relationship here, between Jesus and Mary and Martha and Lazarus; they were particularly close, especially dear to one another. So when he sees Mary coming, and when he hears her brokenhearted voice, and her despair for what might have been—Jesus weeps. Again, for a life lost. Again, for the circle broken. Again, for a friend in distress. Jesus weeps.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Early on, in this Lenten season, we talked about giving up fear for Lent. Instead of chocolate or TV. Giving up fear for Lent. Maybe the flip side of that is taking up grief—allowing oneself to weep, allowing our grief to roll like waves through our bodies, through our voices, across our communities. Maybe it’s our weeping that reveals the passion of God for life, and the love of Jesus for all peoples and all children and all kinds of communities and nations and human hearts. Maybe it’s our weeping that will open fissures in our spirits through which new light can shine and new hope can break forth. Give up fear for lent. But let every tear flow freely.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Now it’s interesting about today’s story. When you read the Gospel of John—the whole of it, or (really) any one piece of it—you are struck by how very different it is, how odd it is, and how wildly it wanders from the language and pacing of the other three New Testament gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Matthew, Mark and Luke are beautiful texts, to be sure. But they move more quickly. And they focus on Jesus’ deliberate movements, across Palestinian landscapes, in and out of human communities—welcoming and feeding, healing and teaching. In one moment he’s confronting shameful purity codes, and in the next he’s upending oppressive systems of debt and judgment. His teaching seems to have a clear purpose. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But often the Gospel of John raises questions that are hard to answer. Often it lingers around wonder and delight. Even celebrates bewilderment and confusion. And throughout, the Gospel of John cautions against idolatry, Christian idolatry in particular, assuming we have all the answers and that this Jesus is ours alone. “Concepts create idols,” said Gregory of Nyssa, a fourth century Cappadocian bishop. “Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything.” And that’s kind of a fitting summary of the Fourth Gospel, and what makes the Gospel of John tick. “Only wonder comprehends anything.” Even Jesus. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So the Gospel of John insists that just when we think we have Jesus pegged, just when we think we know exactly who Jesus is and what he’s about, just when we think Jesus is “our” guy—Jesus is going do something unexpected, or flip a table in the temple square, or ask an odd and unanswerable question. Just when we think we have Jesus and God figured out, Jesus aims to surprise us. To throw the doors of our hearts open wide again. To cause us to reassess his message and purpose all over again. Because it’s all about wonder for Jesus. Wonder and faith and divine compassion. And there’s no way around the messiness of life. And there’s no way around the hard edges of human experience. And there’s no quick theological shortcut through the mysteries of grace and love and incarnation. God is in the details. You heard that right, God is in the details.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a name='more'></a></span>3.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So what you find, in this Gospel, are these long, drawn-out narratives. Long stories, with pathos and dialogue, and relationships unsettled by strange questions and even stranger answers. It’s especially odd, this morning, that Jesus doesn’t go straight away to his friends when they need him. What’s that about? There’s no question that Mary and Martha and Lazarus are special friends, a kind of intentional community for Jesus. Why wait? This is the Fourth Gospel at its confounding best: provoking questions, unsettling assumptions, begging our curiosity. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This morning, I was tempted to edit this particular passage down to just a few highlights—but I wanted instead to give you a feel for the length of this text, and the back and forth of story and conversation, and the feelings it captures on all sides, and the wonder, the wonder, the wildly improbable turns in this narrative. Ending, of course, with Jesus calling his friend Lazarus out of the tomb, where Lazarus has been bound in burial cloths for days, and saying: “Unbind him, and let him go.” Unbind him, and let him go!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">You see, this kind of storytelling is the Fourth Gospel’s way of inviting you and me, inviting the church even now, into the drama of loss and grief, into the unimaginable sadness of Mary and Martha, and even their disappointment. Who is this Jesus, who claims to be lover and friend? What makes him do the things he does? And how can he possibly think that Lazarus’ death is itself an opportunity for grace and wonder and possibility and new life?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One important clue, of course, is Jesus’ own insistence on metaphor in the midst of all this. He knows, even from within the story, that this Gospel is much less interested in physical fact than it is spiritual possibility, divine promise, and hope. “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep,” he says to the disciples, “but I am going there to awaken him.” And clearly these disciples are inclined toward literalism—because they don’t get it at all. But nevertheless Jesus persists. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">4.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Maybe then the unbinding of Lazarus, indeed the resurrection of Lazarus, is an invitation to reflection and bewilderment in the church. Even among us. Yes, Jesus is a powerful, provocative teacher; and yes, he’s a transgressive rulebreaker and community builder. But maybe we allow for the wild and improbable possibility that Jesus brings hope out of hopelessness and a desire for life from our obsession with death. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Maybe Jesus really does intend to wake us up from our slumber, to draw us out from our many tombs, to lift us from the violence that has for too long scarred human communities and torn brothers from sisters and sisters from brothers: from Auschwitz and Dresden to Gaza and Jenin, from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Sandy Creek and Wounded Knee. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And maybe, just maybe, the sacrament that transfigures our transformation begins in grief, in our weeping, in our capacity for tenderness; maybe the prayer that evokes the new world we seek is not a war cry, but a tear. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And this brings us back, I think, to “The Armed Man” and to our calling as a community of Christ in 2024. What we’re doing, Sunday after Sunday, season by season, is leaning into the wonder and mystery of this strange Lover—who dares to weep and dares to love and then dares you and me to unbind one another. To love one another so bravely, to love one another so completely, to love life so fully and defiantly that we might release one another from shame, and then release one another from fear, and then release one another from the violence and hatred that so diminish us. What we’re doing—in partnership with the Holy Spirit, as a beloved community of all genders and orientations, races and backgrounds—is leaning into the wonder and mystery of this strange Christ—who steps into the darkness, even into the tomb, and invites us to sing and dance our way out; invites us to lay our guns and weapons and grievances down; and invites to live for love and to live for one another. In the New Jerusalem.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Amen and Ashe.</span></div>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-15790598974257321732024-03-08T11:24:00.004-05:002024-03-08T11:24:18.137-05:00PRAYER: "Bird of Peace 2023" (English, Hebrew, Arabic)<iframe style="background-image:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/f6Pprzo7D9g/hqdefault.jpg)" width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/f6Pprzo7D9g?si=Q_yJI9xZD2oIWtDS" frameborder="0"></iframe>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-89880370818407058492024-03-08T08:54:00.002-05:002024-03-08T08:54:20.556-05:00THIS WEEKEND: "The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace"<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=314&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F100011082737443%2Fvideos%2F770050215064061%2F&show_text=true&width=560&t=0" width="560" height="429" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-66202456352718504702024-02-26T18:30:00.003-05:002024-02-26T18:30:25.324-05:00CONSCIENCE: "Where There's Vision"<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdavid.grishawjones%2Fposts%2Fpfbid02ZfzrrqxoprpY4TQmv4PFv8xzBzYRjRrs2Pkcs9LDFXBow3C493Xsa26scLepbTaUl&show_text=true&width=500" width="500" height="539" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share"></iframe>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-1981159641729043362024-02-25T08:24:00.013-05:002024-02-26T15:23:04.556-05:00HOMILY (LENT 2): "In Remembrance of Me"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A Meditation on John 13</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sunday, February 25, 2024 (Lent 2)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">1.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Years ago, I spent a beautiful retreat day in the Santa Cruz mountains with Alexander Shaia, writer, psychologist, theologian, who's done some really exciting work on Christian spirituality and the four New Testament gospels. We're going to explore Alexander's work, and the practices he celebrates, in this Spring's Koinonia program. So I hope you'll watch for that. But that day in California, he was most interested in talking about Lent, this six week season between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What kind of pilgrimage is suggested by this 40-day journey, with Jesus, with the Beloved Community, into the mysteries of faith, leaning into the demands of discipleship and the ways of the cross? <b>Could a 21st century church find meaning and even renewal in the ancient patterns of the early church?</b> He's a pretty intriguing thinker, Alexander is, with family roots in Lebanon and the Maronite tradition, and training in several intersecting disciplines. I was pretty stirred up, to be honest. And I wondered. Maybe we were oversimplifying and underselling Lent in the church. Maybe there was a deeper vein of peace, promise and possibility to be found.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEOa1GBQbliKt2hr9KmoDpFEkyrVrDxk_GlTSTgbnp4bjssERwKpS2sM9P7G6_Duo20FQ6rJF2cL5j2-_m9jglQ4WMGG3mU7gGS_-cRG9WISCUHbgH0WF0FfhtzKmRduWCX0nwzg64OFN0kKjWjhyphenhyphen_8gJTWT_VsjFO2e_RXx8QXQIN4MLHqloNLwDfwRY/s259/feet%20washed.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEOa1GBQbliKt2hr9KmoDpFEkyrVrDxk_GlTSTgbnp4bjssERwKpS2sM9P7G6_Duo20FQ6rJF2cL5j2-_m9jglQ4WMGG3mU7gGS_-cRG9WISCUHbgH0WF0FfhtzKmRduWCX0nwzg64OFN0kKjWjhyphenhyphen_8gJTWT_VsjFO2e_RXx8QXQIN4MLHqloNLwDfwRY/s1600/feet%20washed.jpeg" width="194" /></a></div>And he started, early that January morning, as the dew still glistened on the redwoods just outside: he started with the story we've read this morning from John. Just before the Great Festival of Liberation, just before the Passover, Jesus gathering his disciples for a supper and washing their feet. "Having loved his dear companions, he loved them right to the end." Is there a sweeter summary of the gospel: "Having loved his dear companions, he loved them right to the end." And, you know, maybe that's Lent in a nutshell: <b>this deeply unsettling, but powerfully moving story about how it is that God loves you and me right to the end, that God loves the whole world right to the end, that God loves our beauty and our frailty and our brokenness right to the end.</b> "What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!" Lent is our turning, our turning, our turning toward that kind of Love. Breath by breath. Day by day. Week by week by week.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The most revolutionary thing Jesus does, Alexander said, and where the Spirit begins to resurrect Jesus and his body in us, is in that particular moment. On his knees. Beside that table. With an apron around his waist. The liberation of love begins in God's humility. Which so quickly enlists and inspires our own. This God is not a punishing tyrant. This God is not a bossy moralizing bully. This God kneels, an apron around his waist, to wash our feet. Everybody’s feet. The peace beyond all understanding ripples like a river through Jesus' fingers. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"What if," Alexander asked that day, "the Lenten practice is six weeks of prayer and fasting, six weeks of preparation, six weeks of letting go and picking up, six weeks of encouragement--so that the church is ready for Holy Thursday?" </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm sure we must have looked blankly back. Because he recognized that he needed to clarify and expand. "What if," he asked, "the Lenten practice is preparing the church, preparing the beloved community of disciples, for the Holy Week moment when we too fall to their knees, with dinner on the table, and we too tie towels and aprons around one another's waists?" <b>"What if it's all about getting ourselves ready--spiritually, physically, theologically--to wash one another's grimy, pointy, beautiful and (sometimes busted) feet?"</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a name='more'></a></span>3.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So, I know, you know, that Lent is the six week season leading us toward Easter Sunday. I think of it that way. That's always the way I’ve framed it up and always the way we’ve anticipated the joy at the end of this journey. Lent disciplines our hearts and spirits so that we're fully, radically open for the good news of hope and light and liberating possibility on Easter Sunday! Alleluias and Easter lilies and the promise of Spring.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But, no, Alexander said that day. In the earliest generations of the Christian movement--long before there were creeds and cathedrals and Easter festivals--in the earliest generations of the movement it seems that Lent was organized as a season of preparation, training and even discipline. Toward what end? Toward the idea that a diverse community--from many backgrounds and nations, speaking many languages from varied cultures, manifesting many genders and identities--toward the idea that a diverse community of friends could serve one another as Jesus did, could love one another as Jesus loved, could be humble enough and creative enough to wash one another's feet. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Lent was that. Ash Wednesday to Holy Thursday (or, as we so often call it, Maundy Thursday). Easter, then, was the joyous, magnificent, robust celebration of life and promise, on the other side, on the other side of the church's commitment to lovingkindness, servant discipleship and Jesus himself. "In the same way I loved you," he said, "you love one another." And then: "This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples--when they see the love you have for each other." When they see the love you have for each other! Then you've got some Alleluias! <b>Then you've got an Easter faith sweet enough, practical enough, real enough--to heal the world and end the wars and shower the planet in love.</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ3OENEB1VrbcZeB_GXCqWipJh6vUolvt_X6eYB4qllkGmY-dveNbI0I-OpzWxA5M1sET5_RdkLFCw5F7X2Jt2dEu3opwqYbQEeiw6DTGk3FTbhHYmWC55YWqud3HIrjqxfXriofmkaTqKfhHK7wyYeaF-x4xshgrFpvfH7PVfAuiIIQBogQzs5Vuy9a4/s400/washingthefeet1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="290" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ3OENEB1VrbcZeB_GXCqWipJh6vUolvt_X6eYB4qllkGmY-dveNbI0I-OpzWxA5M1sET5_RdkLFCw5F7X2Jt2dEu3opwqYbQEeiw6DTGk3FTbhHYmWC55YWqud3HIrjqxfXriofmkaTqKfhHK7wyYeaF-x4xshgrFpvfH7PVfAuiIIQBogQzs5Vuy9a4/w156-h216/washingthefeet1.jpg" width="156" /></a></div>If we really had it together, I think we'd take this footwashing tradition to the streets. We’d wash feet on U-Day every September in front of Thompson Hall. We'd wash feet at the Dover Friendly Kitchen on a Thursday night. We'd get down on our knees up there and watch the many faces, hear their oohs and aahs, as we wash their feet, towel them off, and wrap them up in love and prayer. If we really had it together, I think we'd take this whole thing to Pride in Portsmouth every June. Right? We'd set up a bunch of basins and chairs, we'd fluff up our best rainbow towels, <b>and we'd wash the feet of every trans kid who's looking for a blessing, and every drag queen who knows she's an angel,</b> and every single child of God who comes our way. Right? This is who we are. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What Alexander reminded us--all those years ago--is that the early church was just like that: wildly diverse, boundary breaking in just about every way, racially, ethnically mixed, integrating different philosophical traditions and spiritual lineages. Buoyant in practice and exuberant in experimentation. And within all that wonderful, wacky and (sometime) conflicted diversity (because let’s face it), they learned to serve one another. Like Jesus. They learned to wash one another's feet.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">4.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So given all of that, and my fascination with Alexander's sense of history and Lenten tradition, I had intended--this second Sunday in Lent--to set up a bunch of bowls, to fill up a posse of pitchers, and to invite you to join me in washing one another's feet. As we celebrated communion, the supper, in remembrance of him, right? I had a pretty good idea--because this isn't my first rodeo--that we'd all be a little uncomfortable by the invitation, even the optics. I mean, let's face it, and the story captures the awkwardness, it's a strange, strange thing Jesus chooses to do that night. At supper. At this table. Washing their feet. “Do this,” he says, “in remembrance of me.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ironically, perhaps, my own foot injury prevents me from turning this idea loose on you all this morning! Just the same, I want to suggest that we think about these next five weeks along these very lines, as preparation. As a sacred season of prayer, and renewal, and partnership, during which believers in mystery of Love train for Holy Thursday, for Maundy Thursday, and the sacred, holy sacrament of footwashing at the table. What would that do? How would that change our experience of Good Friday, Holy Saturday and the triumphant celebrations of Easter itself? Wow.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A couple of things about the story this morning:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4o2LRIozjICpc9GLWZ8AXcN5vX7W3nqbPCNpSrjLQ7RB4hCqED-al_4OMAIFenmg2pDzB2lxpkdeUX0ncGXbicR1bVYuRyDq4hmqsCzE8YQ-EoKwpzgIAD5smQJOTPZPqF5_Efa48IUDoHf7SMsp-cZXfi9_34zpDz2VOOHZ2XwHhebdUWEIfSiVOS2o/s1200/C-b2Zq_XUAAoo2K.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1005" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4o2LRIozjICpc9GLWZ8AXcN5vX7W3nqbPCNpSrjLQ7RB4hCqED-al_4OMAIFenmg2pDzB2lxpkdeUX0ncGXbicR1bVYuRyDq4hmqsCzE8YQ-EoKwpzgIAD5smQJOTPZPqF5_Efa48IUDoHf7SMsp-cZXfi9_34zpDz2VOOHZ2XwHhebdUWEIfSiVOS2o/w126-h150/C-b2Zq_XUAAoo2K.jpg" width="126" /></a></div>First, in Jesus' time and in Jerusalem itself, no one was washing anyone's feet at the table. That would have been not just uncouth, but totally bizarre. Often, in the homes of devout believers, guests would be greeted at the door: with water, with basins, and with generous hands. Footwashing was an act of hospitality and welcome. But most often, it was practiced by servants, often gentiles outside the tradition, folks kept around for such 'hands-on' tasks. And I frankly imagine that most of the time, female servants were charged with the task.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Jesus says, in effect: "I want to be that servant." And we are to be those servants. And hospitality is not only not a menial task, but is quite the opposite: the sacred calling of the people of God. For women and men, and nonbinary believers alike. Jesus says, in effect: "We serve God and one another on our knees." Close to the ground. Willing to touch and be touched. Unafraid and undaunted by the dust. All of us. That's what this whole project means and where it's going.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And even more radically, Jesus shocks his disciples--and maybe you and me, too--shocks us with an interpretation of communion, an interpretation of what happens at the table, that insists on active participation and partnership. "So if I, the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash each other's feet." In other words, "I've laid down a pattern for you." </span><span style="font-family: arial;">What you're doing at the table, he says, is not simply transactional: as if you come to Mass once a week, drink the magic sauce, eat the sacred stuff and are somehow set apart in the world. Saved and forgiven. The "Church of the Better and Best."</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">No, when you're breaking the bread and remembering my body, he says, you're looking one another in the eyes and feeding one another. <b>When you're passing around a common cup of wine, everyone of you sipping from that same cup (and sometimes this tests our sense of decorum and wellbeing), you're putting others at the center of your universe</b>, you're recognizing in them the presence of God, and you're humbling yourself so that their needs for recognition and sustenance are well met.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Maybe Jesus was concerned that the ritual had become routine. Maybe Jesus was interested in liturgical renewal. Because what he does--at least that night in John's gospel--what he does is to reframe and reimagine community and sacrament. It's about finding and greeting God in the space between your hand and mine. <b>It's about finding and greeting God in the space between my hand and your foot. It's about opening our hearts and eyes and lives to one another--at actual tables, in nitty gritty dining halls, with wars raging not so far away. </b> And committing to the pattern laid down by Jesus. Because the pattern itself is what Life is all about. It's the holy land where God's grace becomes so much more than a Hallmark card or a best case scenario. It's grace and discipleship and Love made flesh in you and me. Not the “Church of the Better and Best”—but the “Church of the Beloved and Beautiful.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">5.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So let’s all agree that we'll come back to this story on Maundy Thursday. Five weeks down the road. Over the past few years, we've done the footwashing thing in the parlor. It's ordinarily a fairly intimate gathering. But maybe it'll be different this year. Maybe we'll need to relocate someplace more spacious, where we have more room. To splash around. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And think about it.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">If Lent's a community-wide practice, a whole community preparing to humble itself, siblings from all kinds of places preparing to wash one another's feet, then everything we do between now and Maundy Thursday offers opportunities for reflection, courage and repentance. That's Lent. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When you put everything together for those two performances of "The Armed Man" in a couple weeks, you're imagining how it is we can put peace at very center of our Christian vocation, peacemaking at its very heart. Will we be so humble? When you step into a new Koinonia group this week, you're setting aside any nervousness to welcome God's gift of flesh-and-blood siblings, human beings whose faith will spark yours, partners in ministry whose questions may delight or challenge all you hold dear. Will we be so humble? In your prayers, you seek the faces of those whose feet may well be washing on Maundy Thursday. Over coffee downstairs, you laugh or weep with a new friend, whose weariness may now move you to light a candle tonight. All of it, all of Lent, becomes a way of training the heart, training our faith for the letting go of all pride, and the setting aside of all privilege, and the simple, humble, Christ-like moment of footwashing.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Can we find God there? Not in a thousand weighty volumes of theology. Not in a brilliant, but wordy prayer on Sunday morning. Not in the proud ranting of judges insisting that only Jesus can Make America Great Again. But can we find God in a foot, and a towel, and a soft (but mighty) river of water? Can we find God on our knees? That's the Lenten question.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Amen and Ashe.</span></div></div>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-2370443328130976232024-02-23T12:34:00.002-05:002024-02-23T12:34:12.737-05:00GOSPEL: "Skin is IN the Game"<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ffelicia.eaves1%2Fposts%2Fpfbid0hJWvH6rFpCPAwk3JqeKFkuJJ8ehETqfJbrqm5ry2wreG6rbt6TiX9C1atJeosCHil&show_text=true&width=500" width="500" height="497" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share"></iframe>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-87241460623438910482024-02-22T14:00:00.002-05:002024-02-22T14:00:31.310-05:00MOTHER: "Art as Resistance"<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fphoto%2F%3Ffbid%3D7107312559364316%26set%3Da.246955812066726&show_text=true&width=500" width="500" height="759" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share"></iframe>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-717308654579437822024-02-21T18:52:00.004-05:002024-02-21T18:52:47.412-05:00MUSIC: "Van Morrison - Into The Mystic" <iframe width="480" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/m0gvodQgu-Y?si=pTCAGRKWsVd4bm-B" frameborder="0"></iframe>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-21306150079794025902024-02-21T18:50:00.000-05:002024-02-21T18:50:00.903-05:00ECONOMICS IS LIFE: "War is Impoverishment"<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdavid.grishawjones%2Fposts%2Fpfbid04y66rz6BECvnDdytgyHX6xnnbgj6X6t8m5jSuCYtFgymXYMsvjw16TVKiu1w9BLJl&show_text=true&width=500" width="500" height="952" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share"></iframe>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-66250638472883656732024-02-20T21:36:00.001-05:002024-02-20T21:36:08.818-05:00SUMUD: "To the End of Love"<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=476&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fusama.nicola%2Fvideos%2F1796429787467593%2F&show_text=true&width=264&t=0" width="264" height="591" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-82441293024046383292024-02-19T19:12:00.009-05:002024-02-20T22:18:58.722-05:00HUMAN RIGHTS: "Violence is the Common Foe"<span style="font-family: arial;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivkrKaHpr-Zfe6M7mvtrbDt0KbDQLFpUqR10xEKR2E4XPWH1nbh-7C7mv8lWOsSU7BsCxnWUp9w9vw1lZOseH5gBrd29tK55_G9lY2ZVror_jaE7YnB3FrpHUF4kq_Zeg4PPKTQqH3au1f-v18_akn9bAkq5CpRV6FXoDJ6GhESSpo4cJJr5puJF63tgU/s1400/palestine-women-gaza-rubble-oct-2024-rafah-afp.jpg.webp" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="1400" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivkrKaHpr-Zfe6M7mvtrbDt0KbDQLFpUqR10xEKR2E4XPWH1nbh-7C7mv8lWOsSU7BsCxnWUp9w9vw1lZOseH5gBrd29tK55_G9lY2ZVror_jaE7YnB3FrpHUF4kq_Zeg4PPKTQqH3au1f-v18_akn9bAkq5CpRV6FXoDJ6GhESSpo4cJJr5puJF63tgU/s320/palestine-women-gaza-rubble-oct-2024-rafah-afp.jpg.webp" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Gaza, October 2023</span></td></tr></tbody></table>A Report from Middle East Eye: "<a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-un-experts-appalled-reports-rape-and-sexual-assault-palestinian-women-and-girls">Palestinian women and girls in Israeli detention raped and sexually assaulted, UN experts say</a>: The rapporteurs also condemned incidents of 'arbitrary executions' of women and children during Israel's war on Gaza."</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">There is no doubt that women and children are savagely targeted in seasons of war, violence and retribution. On all sides. On every side. There is really only one HUMAN side. And war is meant to humiliate and degrade.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">And so it is that violence itself is our common foe. So long as hatred thrives--amid occupation, apartheid, dispossession--violence too will feed on resentment and fear. Is there any doubt that evil persists...where men transfigure rage into rape, and despair into destruction? Such violence knows no sides, no holy and unholy, no chosen and not. It is just violence. And desecration. Desecration in a kibbutz. Desecration in Gaza. Violence is our common foe.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">An end to the violence in Gaza, an end to the occupation itself, an end to apartheid: this is where the healing begins; this is where the repair begins; this is where human rights are honored and cherished. What the peoples of the Holy Land seek is communion and collaboration, democracy and coexistence. Truth and reconciliation. Truth and reconcilitiation. Beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. And there, there...is the possibility and promise of a world beyond horrific violence against women and children.</span></div>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-44522291175869197452024-02-19T14:51:00.003-05:002024-02-19T15:37:18.028-05:00FOR A CEASEFIRE: "Why Now, Why New Hampshire"<div><span style="font-family: arial;">February 19, 2024</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/thegirlgod/posts/720900586742817/?paipv=0&eav=Afbma33U-ty_0hNrL52RX8SJ8a_9blFgtyFfs-DYFCtCXay8QG9XwHEWBhg6Y0pCQvU&_rdr" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="578" data-original-width="391" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN7bisAL94E4bFAfJCzJqr3Q5Rz24MB6TX42luAhIFdqRofWyFg9A89sORD91wYN-gHrna1DMYNvSAQWq7QHGnS-wcwdrMMgs1g7wy3OiP9g9VOGAspHEQMJDcJFWYTMWu-tLQVQaWRkZBer43l3LOV8nMxCQEBrAFltdR5nFW-Y4V8LTT8gh7q72nX78/s320/387779487_720718736761002_6799812351265849276_n.jpg" width="216" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/thegirlgod/posts/720900586742817/?paipv=0&eav=Afbma33U-ty_0hNrL52RX8SJ8a_9blFgtyFfs-DYFCtCXay8QG9XwHEWBhg6Y0pCQvU&_rdr" target="_blank"><b>I Will Not Dance to Your War Drum</b></a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Over the weekend, I was asked by friends and neighbors to sign <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdqnrrAa7kEy5huNviEkJb3sWPMQX453rirqANOn35r0OZ_ZA/viewform" target="_blank"><b>a letter urging the Portsmouth City Council to call "f</b></a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdqnrrAa7kEy5huNviEkJb3sWPMQX453rirqANOn35r0OZ_ZA/viewform" target="_blank"><b>or a ceasefire in solidarity with the long-enduring people of Palestine..." </b></a> <b>This week, organizers from a variety of NH communities are calling on Portsmouth and Durham to join the 70+ cities across the country urging nonviolence, justice and an end to the gruesome and murderous destruction of Gaza.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Despite the global community's outrage, this bombardment continues. Despite the organized efforts of so many, genocide seems more and more likely. So it's time for communities across the country to step up, to speak up. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The letter is pasted here below. And it's a very, very strident letter, animated by anger, disappointment and even rage. "</span><span style="font-family: arial;">The evil of the Zionist project of Israel, Western imperialism, and White supremacy is fundamentally repulsive," it says, "and this world is starved for humanity."</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> "</span><span style="font-family: arial;">We feel helpless and foolish contacting the federal and state government," it says, "cognizant of how preposterous it is to beg war criminals to stop committing war crimes, and <b>we can't keep watching clips of children in mass graves searching through the body bags for their parents." </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdqnrrAa7kEy5huNviEkJb3sWPMQX453rirqANOn35r0OZ_ZA/viewform" target="_blank"><b>I have signed onto this call prayerfully.</b></a> My deepest commitment is to a world where the human rights of all--Palestinian and Israeli, Arab and Jewish, Christian and Muslim--are honored by communities of care and protected by law-abiding governments. Everything I do, every prayer I say, every breath I breathe--I contribute toward that vision, that dream, that hope. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">What my friends are expressing in this letter is, fundamentally, a call for an end to the violence: an end to the bombardment of Gaza, an end to terror and mayhem on all sides, an end to apartheid and occupation and a callous disregard for international law. Over these past months (and, to be honest, many decades before), their hearts (and so many Palestinian lives) have been shattered repeatedly by broken promises, inhumane attacks, stolen lands, destroyed homes and children abducted without cause. Of course, they are angry.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>What we must do--as people of conscience--is stand with the many who imagine peace, and then work with the brave who know that it is possible, and then take steps in our own time and place to turn from brutality and profit toward reconciliation, negotiation and justice.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">And to that end, hoping to join a national groundswell, I have signed this letter. The honest truth is that my country, ours, is part of the problem. A big part of the problem. And it's past time that our government confess its complicity and choose a very different path and a very different role. <b>No more weapons for occupation. No more technologies for apartheid. No more blessing of bloodshed. This is why I have signed.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">That there may be peace, and salaam, and shalom for all!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The Rev. David Grishaw-Jones</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdqnrrAa7kEy5huNviEkJb3sWPMQX453rirqANOn35r0OZ_ZA/viewform" target="_blank"><b>You might choose to sign the letter yourself HERE.</b></a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOdoeUXOk8mzjuMXtCumILjtRnI0DaLJHlzXZU-_jHP-ACCDffnOUG-rfFkeLKz80hZLkdd0-UmptztzsK2HZwwFzT2cbMm_rC-8kpRSWSwh7XXW-bWAdLlyx4RKlk0vLlYwuUEvhazA-5HsJzS5wwIWETdSUs8spcWqIGdctq4QvBEXfoobQqH21gEbc/s660/1405529171001-AP-Mideast-Israel-Palestinians.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="373" data-original-width="660" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOdoeUXOk8mzjuMXtCumILjtRnI0DaLJHlzXZU-_jHP-ACCDffnOUG-rfFkeLKz80hZLkdd0-UmptztzsK2HZwwFzT2cbMm_rC-8kpRSWSwh7XXW-bWAdLlyx4RKlk0vLlYwuUEvhazA-5HsJzS5wwIWETdSUs8spcWqIGdctq4QvBEXfoobQqH21gEbc/s320/1405529171001-AP-Mideast-Israel-Palestinians.webp" width="320" /></a></div></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div><i>Dear City Councilors of Portsmouth,</i></div><br />For months now, Israel has been waging a sadistic genocide against the Palestinian people for the explicitly stated purpose of ethnically cleansing the land, and none of this horror would have been possible <b>without our tax dollars</b>. The context for Israel's vicious brutality includes decades of settler-colonial land theft, military occupation, ethnosupremacist apartheid law, siege that employs starvation as a weapon of war, the bombing and raiding of houses of worship, schools, homes, refugee camps, and so many hospitals, the illegal use of white phosphorus, the targeting of the families of journalists, and the imprisonment and torture of thousands of civilians in the world’s most densely populated concentration camp. We bear witness to and hold the world accountable for the documented oppression that is the Palestinian existence. Yet the US and the rest of the inhumane Western powers have defunded UNRWA, one of Palestine's final lifelines, despite the International Court of Justice’s ruling in South Africa's case against Israel. We feel helpless and foolish contacting the federal and state government, cognizant of how preposterous it is to beg war criminals to stop committing war crimes, and we can't keep watching clips of children in mass graves searching through the body bags for their parents. The evil of the Zionist project of Israel, Western imperialism, and White supremacy is fundamentally repulsive, and this world is starved for humanity. We've led chants at rallies and given speeches at demonstrations and marched against weapons factories, but today we're appealing to you.<br /><br />We know the people on this council care about fighting oppression; that's why we voted for you. At this very moment, SNH for Palestine is also bringing this fight to Manchester City Hall; we are part of a much bigger movement, and over seventy US cities now have passed a ceasefire resolution in solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine, including Somerville, Cambridge, Portland, Providence, Chicago, Seattle, and Oakland! When the American people are at odds with the American government, this is our recourse; isn’t taking a public stance against mass murder on our dime the bare minimum? Tens of thousands of people have been slaughtered during this hellish winter, largely children, systematically targeted by Zionists, and we live in an era in which these atrocities against humanity have been livestreamed on social media, much to the inconvenience of our self-serving legislators who accept funds from AIPAC. Children are suffocating beneath the rubble, because of our taxes. Their limbs have to get amputated without anesthesia, because of our taxes. Their only crime is that they are indigenous to the land that Europeans wanted and stole and continue to steal, a familiar story that should alarm you and shake you to your core.<br /><br />We urge you leaders for justice in this city we call home <b>to add Portsmouth to the list of cities calling for a ceasefire in solidarity with the long-enduring people of Palestine</b>. We pray you hear our plea. We can't rest until Palestine and the entire human race is liberated from this corrupt world order.<br /><br />Sincerely,</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Southern NH for Palestine</span></div>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-50530060746749709032024-02-12T08:44:00.002-05:002024-02-12T08:44:25.373-05:00SUMUD: "A New World of Solidarity and Love"<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/V6-jhOkm070?si=D-YO8wEvN1khxi9l" frameborder="0"></iframe>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-31741151694063944342024-02-09T11:19:00.003-05:002024-02-09T11:19:53.757-05:00POEM: "Questionnaire"<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdavid.grishawjones%2Fposts%2Fpfbid02iCvpivi6tLp9d8nZXEHevCW3HRWyvLhMdVYygG4kAWHE4CBhLEqvXCsMsKXNRiXRl&show_text=true&width=500" width="500" height="498" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share"></iframe>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-48372764882569030062024-02-06T21:59:00.002-05:002024-02-06T21:59:29.546-05:00RISE UP: "Singing into Revolution"<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdavid.grishawjones%2Fposts%2Fpfbid032TifGrJi5EfjfCr8aqwxYtiVJ12oa1VGxNLt5V5cd2ngLvsHFawgtzSfbPr6tJiwl&show_text=true&width=500" width="500" height="274" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share"></iframe>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-32950566891094611952024-02-06T18:47:00.001-05:002024-02-06T18:55:47.065-05:00TESTIMONY: "On the End of Life Options Act"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Testimony:</span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.nhendoflifeoptions.org/new-page" target="_blank"><b>HB1283</b></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">House Judiciary Committee</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Rev. David Grishaw-Jones</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pastor, Community Church of Durham,</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">United Church of Christ</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">February 7, 2024</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Good morning, I am the Rev. David Grishaw-Jones. I live in Portsmouth, and I serve as pastor to the Community Church of Durham, a dynamic Christian congregation of the United Church of Christ. I’m here to speak strongly in favor of HB1283.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This morning, I’m very much aware that your calling as legislators and my calling as a pastor intersect, in such an important way, in this <a href="https://www.nhendoflifeoptions.org/new-page" target="_blank"><b>End of Life Options Act</b></a>. It’s an important moment for you and for me. You’re called to enact legislation that allows our neighbors and friends to live generous, free and self-directed lives in New Hampshire. And I’m called to provide spiritual support, tender care, loving counsel, to those who are suffering, to those who are dying, and to the families who love them. I cherish this opportunity to collaborate with you in making New Hampshire a more compassionate place, and equipping those who suffer with the resources and dignity they deserve in making huge decisions around the end of their lives.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOyIDsA9OTYl5ZzY0ZQGJz2vzTDfov9a3y9ukPuGxFYrKfZ133jNLINlygEuQhlBM-YYoG1wu-rXqwLNsSqJe_AhSFMVcXRQRUluy9NLf1MbzPnUbbYti7fgbYZVhjkJZ2AW99mJej5slb_se0cPE6e88ndvGqXBBCzDQI6T9qK779TpPB3MjQblP4Dr4/s4032/IMG_5795.heic" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOyIDsA9OTYl5ZzY0ZQGJz2vzTDfov9a3y9ukPuGxFYrKfZ133jNLINlygEuQhlBM-YYoG1wu-rXqwLNsSqJe_AhSFMVcXRQRUluy9NLf1MbzPnUbbYti7fgbYZVhjkJZ2AW99mJej5slb_se0cPE6e88ndvGqXBBCzDQI6T9qK779TpPB3MjQblP4Dr4/w173-h231/IMG_5795.heic" width="173" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">My friend Bob James</span></td></tr></tbody></table>I am deeply moved by the thoughtful way in which this Act has been drafted and the careful way in which it protects our people and communities against abuse. Instead, it builds on the experience of our neighbors in Maine, Vermont and elsewhere, allowing capable adults to work with licensed medical providers to alleviate a measure of their own suffering in an ethical and compassionate way. <b>As a person of faith myself, I can offer this: that we are created in God’s image to build relationships of trust, and to care for one another in times of trial, and to make difficult but faithful choices about suffering and how we respond to it.</b> Quite simply, this is what it means to be created in God’s image. And the End of Life Options Act makes it more possible for New Hampshire friends—like those I serve in Durham—to do just this. To discern their own path. To honor their own wisdom. And to make faithful choices. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Lastly I will say that I have served in churches in several states across the country. And I have worked and prayed with dear ones who have made prayerful use of similar legislation, at the end of their lives, and in the midst of terminal illness. I have also worked and prayed with dear ones here—who have not had access to the same. And with these beloved friends in mind, and their generous, wise and devoted families, I urge you to pass the End of Life Options Act, and to make it possible for our friends in New Hampshire to face their final days with dignity and spirit, in the loving assurance that they are respected and honored for their wisdom and discernment.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">You have an extraordinary opportunity in this matter. And I wish you well.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Thank you. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div><div><br /></div></div>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-22931350608320606152024-02-04T17:30:00.005-05:002024-02-04T17:57:54.219-05:00SERMON: "Christ under the Rubble"<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/Q-1brSPn66w?si=AxDDWQs4x5un2dzZ" width="480"></iframe> <div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">"Gaza was hell before October 7, and the world was silent...This war has confirmed for us that the world does not see us as equal..." says Pastor Munther Isaac. It seems to me that a truly <b><a href="www.apartheid-free.org" target="_blank">"Apartheid-Free" movement</a> </b>is organized to confront the "theology of the empire" and the de-humanizing violence that follows in its wake. To confront that theology, to prevent genocide, we must act together. We must create relational, political, human power--capable of democratic, diplomatic and nonviolent change. "Silence," he says, "is complicity." To preach the Gospel and avoid the call to solidarity puts the church's standing itself at risk. </span><div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Years ago, maybe even 13 years ago, I worshipped with this congregation in Bethlehem, accompanying an American delegation on a mission of discovery, fact-finding and support. Back then, in the midst of a suffocating occupation, surrounded by illegal West Bank settlements, our Bethlehem hosts asked for our help. For our advocacy. For our courage in breaking the silence, confronting the complicity of American politicians. We've done too little. We've accomplished hardly enough. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10210395013469341&set=gm.6346219805481438&idorvanity=437021569734654" target="_blank"><b>And for that I confess my own sin, my own cowardice, my own inaction.</b></a> Lord, have mercy. Christ in the rubble, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.</span></div></div></div>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-33288780231802259122024-01-29T16:23:00.004-05:002024-01-29T16:23:58.612-05:00THE WAYS WE TALK: "About Zionism"<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdavid.grishawjones%2Fposts%2Fpfbid036cCHrmqRwoxNGR46g75CRi22r3KNPBLCsCEUkmU2nLfBasvv6FB3S7FaptjgtkdUl&show_text=true&width=500" width="500" height="952" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share"></iframe>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-78423298320214516722024-01-29T10:22:00.006-05:002024-01-29T10:25:06.940-05:00TO BE CLEAR: "The Apartheid Free Pledge"<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://apartheid-free.org/pledge/" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="2880" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4J4G-OvjweLDfta1lcklFy-BzHK31sjDoGUKgQQTErnMXz8iei5DWP89nYM0lwx19lfeqst3I3Gom0c4CMK0RP4IcrO12fQ1pYK60wHgMH6Bkm1dStGXAaGb14hmoVWHCRbBlu4aKVj4XbLutxPwJB-cwupLWJAF17QutVNOG7qMFPa71yH_lPXxe0kA/w400-h250/Screenshot%202024-01-29%20at%2010.20.12%E2%80%AFAM.png" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <p></p>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-87312504120472664842024-01-28T23:05:00.008-05:002024-01-29T16:55:21.697-05:00REFLECTIONS: "On Power and Christianity"<p><span style="font-family: arial;">I remember a beloved professor saying that the real issue coursing through every vein, every text of the Christian gospel is power. And at 24, 25, I wasn't quite ready to grapple with that. Wasn't experienced enough to appreciate what he was asking. I didn't understand that every conversation about justice is also a conversation about power. And how we imagine and embrace it, resist it and distort it, how we share it and count its cost.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">After serving in churches for thirty-some years, I have questions of my own, and more often than not I return to that series of conversations at Union Seminary in the 80s. <b>Conversations about power. About power and the gospel.</b> About power and spirit. About power and community.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFXaAkY66HOsGiq-3Szy0zTHT_EPpWzRpaAJ3zsfDwNz0K5WBR1QZDDnKy9qcp_Jw-ihwWoou3Glv8PFMuIVyuCDSow8-_G4hpSse6mtvX3eDqRCcz8VldmPvrj-keEgvmwNpTFAR5Tog8v8L95oB0EzwAIcJkqUUS7r8TDYI-a6IQpCukLm5hJx408kc/s940/13726421.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="529" data-original-width="940" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFXaAkY66HOsGiq-3Szy0zTHT_EPpWzRpaAJ3zsfDwNz0K5WBR1QZDDnKy9qcp_Jw-ihwWoou3Glv8PFMuIVyuCDSow8-_G4hpSse6mtvX3eDqRCcz8VldmPvrj-keEgvmwNpTFAR5Tog8v8L95oB0EzwAIcJkqUUS7r8TDYI-a6IQpCukLm5hJx408kc/s320/13726421.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">After a month of intense discernment, our congregation met today to discuss the <a href="http://www.apartheid-free.org" target="_blank"><b>Apartheid-Free Movement</b></a>, and whether our participation would be faithful, warranted and consistent with our mission as a beloved community. We didn't get around to naming 'power'--not specifically--but the issue was hidden in plain view. Is the church, one asked, an activist community, interested in partisan politics? Shouldn't we aspire to a 'big tent' vision, asked another, where so-called conservatives and so-called liberals can happily coexist and worship? Was it right to adopt such a controversial approach? These are perfectly reasonable questions, of course. And they remind me that we are--or some of us are, at least--uncomfortable with the idea that Christians should organize to create social change in the world, that churches should participate in powerful movements leveraging relationships and institutional spirit for the common good. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In the case in point, <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/on-yom-kippur-solidarity-with-palestinians-is-a-sacred-act/" target="_blank"><b>the decades-long occupation</b></a>, enforced by sophisticated military technologies and funded in large part by US support, we resist the urgent plea of Palestinian and Israeli partners--the plea for solidarity, organized support and political action. We can talk about apartheid, for example, and even name apartheid for the sin that it is <a href="https://www.globalministries.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/General-Synod-2021-Resolution-I-P.pdf" target="_blank"><b>(General Synod, 2021)</b></a>; but the idea that we'd join a movement of movements, a movement of communities building power together for social and political change: this goes too far. In a split vote, we voted to "oppose" apartheid, but not to join the Apartheid-Free Movement with its call to action and partnership.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg02hoz_Xp_ERL1JQe93MIbgEwrY8L91tTtsYJa6MQ5bphzQcvJyQ46jbgoAYnHBBfWXOHyYESXPpiAKkfiKakhzkf4tH64IBDxZTtVBEE1F1xpEKn2MFhwdKcRI28Wa9BgmshafH42vUBAqQ7LG2Jc_uT_fblMBr_efu6zQythsFtCXXNBhRGAfdmhxGk/s2880/Screenshot%202024-01-29%20at%2010.20.12%E2%80%AFAM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="2880" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg02hoz_Xp_ERL1JQe93MIbgEwrY8L91tTtsYJa6MQ5bphzQcvJyQ46jbgoAYnHBBfWXOHyYESXPpiAKkfiKakhzkf4tH64IBDxZTtVBEE1F1xpEKn2MFhwdKcRI28Wa9BgmshafH42vUBAqQ7LG2Jc_uT_fblMBr_efu6zQythsFtCXXNBhRGAfdmhxGk/s320/Screenshot%202024-01-29%20at%2010.20.12%E2%80%AFAM.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Again, it's about power. At least it feels that way to me. Do we believe that the One who calls us is interested in consequential partnerships, consequential action, nonviolent and civil disobedience (if need be) in order to create justice (to DO justice) and make peace (to MAKE peace)? Or are we wedded to the notion that the very best churches can do is keep the doors open, talk about big issues, and read good books--but resist power of any sort, in any guise, for any reason? When doing justice means offending a friend, or hurting their feelings, must we back off, back down and step aside? In the matter at hand, many friends have insisted on just this: that any kind of organized work, "empowering" work, to dismantle Israel's apartheid project is offensive, hurtful and (very possibly) antisemitic. So we just don't. We don't engage. We back off. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_df_u7yJj3k" target="_blank"><b>We acquiesce to our own powerlessness.</b></a></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But, of course, to "resist" power in this sense is simply to accomodate the entrenched systems of privilege and power already in place, already steadying the status quo. And this is precisely why the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy continues unaddressed, over years and years, decade to decade. We have had opportunities to act (as we once did in South Africa), and we have deferred. We have had clear strategies presented around principled, nonviolent, credible campaigns of powerful resistance--and we have refused.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It's my belief--I guess, it goes without saying, but I will--that the gospel community trains its people in the ways of love, nonviolence and generous relational power. To "oppose" apartheid but refuse to confront it through love and action is to give in to its logic and madness. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The call to discipleship is not--at least, in my reading--a call to passivism and inaction, an invitation to mere observation and faithful despair. It is, instead, a way of life, emboldened by the Resurection itself and the One who resurrects, and a way of being powerful together. Not patriarchal powerful. Not authoritarian powerful. Not guns-in-every pickup powerful. But power of the cross powerful. Power of the pentecost powerful.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So I wonder, friends, where we go now? What kinds of power are available to us? And whether or not we have the appetite (and the courage) to go where that gospel may lead us.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>DGJ 1/28/24</b></i></span></p>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-44353032008075296082024-01-28T20:55:00.009-05:002024-01-29T15:07:52.885-05:00HOMILY: "Discomfort in Discernment"<span style="font-family: courier;"><b>A Meditation on the Pastor's Calling</b></span><div><span style="font-family: courier;"><b>Mark 1:21-28</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">1.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtSX27raNSzccx3ulnspsymr4tOl8oyVNa3Dw0enHHaWW-pDCvf8tGoevBtZ-AUpI-HdPyR4zby2GmNGIjPl-RELjPuqevz2AiQBhN8X7yEvXggSm2656v4jZ5BVdibUFei8hW2vxKq7pgOSSn8YkRpn4V6MnM5ju7_GNr5XmWvER32zpNVquVFLQMVgo/s1200/fedf29_25de739cd1594299a86e22f81b733431_mv2.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtSX27raNSzccx3ulnspsymr4tOl8oyVNa3Dw0enHHaWW-pDCvf8tGoevBtZ-AUpI-HdPyR4zby2GmNGIjPl-RELjPuqevz2AiQBhN8X7yEvXggSm2656v4jZ5BVdibUFei8hW2vxKq7pgOSSn8YkRpn4V6MnM5ju7_GNr5XmWvER32zpNVquVFLQMVgo/s320/fedf29_25de739cd1594299a86e22f81b733431_mv2.png" width="320" /></a></div>I’ve already preached my 30-minute sermon on the <a href="http://www.apartheid-free.org" target="_blank"><b>Apartheid-Free resolution</b></a>—so you’ll be happy to know I’m not going down that long road today. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I do want to offer a few thoughts about the gospel this morning, and why it is that Jesus’ first move as a rabbi and movement builder is an exorcism. I mean, that’s pretty wild, right? That he doesn’t take the new recruits up into the hills for a picnic, or at least a showy multiplication of loaves. Instead, he and they confront this unclean spirit in the synagogue—and he sends it away. Wild!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">But first, I do want you all to know that I’m aware, this week, of a particular kind of dis/ease or tension in my heart. Not a scary tension, I think, but a creative and unsettling one just the same. And I believe it’s the tension between the pastor’s calling (which has very much defined my life) and the prophetic imperative (which so often wakes me in the darkest hours of the night). These two things living within me and stirring within my spirit: the pastor’s calling and the prophetic imperative. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I’m not alone among my peers, of course, but I am obscenely lucky, and luckier than most of them. Because I get to serve here, with you. And I can’t possibly tell you how grateful I am for the chance to do ministry in a community that values, even cherishes both chambers of my Christian heart. In equal measure. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">But this week, and I’m sure this comes as no surprise to you, the two seem to be at odds, in conflict, at least a little bit. And I just want you all to know I feel that today, I know that. <b>But it’s also my belief—and frankly, the gospel itself—that discomfort, dis-ease, can be an opportunity for spiritual growth, deeper discernment, even congregational transformation.</b> So while I didn’t sleep much last night, and the tension’s real, so too is the opportunity before us, and the God who meets us at every crossroads and every border.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">2.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPOp_jPCNXxTuRMHIR5CJ9u6RM3Z0e1hlBJhq9XS3S7scoIwHDMvWM_ej5Fab_d7sm827puqNICBfAw9orYc41ZoqI9dheV46OJjpkrC1nxPbG-8KkhCaFteWc7rv_EtE4HeadeBmXalX4cQKLQp8gG97xQPBj3vC2uYPKXmC8NYi5LqKd-NbXXaxgZxg/s1528/casefire-ad.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1528" data-original-width="846" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPOp_jPCNXxTuRMHIR5CJ9u6RM3Z0e1hlBJhq9XS3S7scoIwHDMvWM_ej5Fab_d7sm827puqNICBfAw9orYc41ZoqI9dheV46OJjpkrC1nxPbG-8KkhCaFteWc7rv_EtE4HeadeBmXalX4cQKLQp8gG97xQPBj3vC2uYPKXmC8NYi5LqKd-NbXXaxgZxg/s320/casefire-ad.jpg" width="177" /></a></div>So about that crossroads. I am, of course, both of these things—a pastor who loves his people and a would-be prophet who hears in the gospel a clarion call to peace, justice, shalom. And not just abstract justice, and generalized peace—but specific lovingkindness for flesh and blood neighbors in real neighborhoods, and concrete peacemaking in painful conflicts, where violence is real and existential. In my pastor’s heart, I want us all to get along, and I want us to feel the beating heart of God in our care for one another, in our vibrant worship and ministry together, and within these sacred walls whenever we’re together. <b>In the prophetic tradition, I am enjoined by the Spirit, even burdened by the gospel, to preach good news to the poor, to build partnerships that manifest that good news in action and living hope.</b> Even if that strikes smart folks as silly. Even if it offends the institutions and leaders that I love. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">So there’s the rub, right?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">In my pastor’s heart, I find each of you delightfully unique, curiously beautiful, and made in the image of God. Undoubtedly made in the image of God. And I hope you know me well enough now to know I’m not just sassing you. I mean all this stuff. And it’s easy for me—because I think I’m built this way—to love you and celebrate you, and to channel a bit of God’s love in the ways I listen to you and care for you. I love this work. And it’s thrilling to watch a church grow like ours is growing in just this moment. No question about that!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">And, just the same, in the prophetic tradition, I am responsible for the gospel I preach, I am accountable to the One who planted its seeds in my soul. In every way that I love my work, I love the tradition, the vision, the gospel that constitutes the church. So I am moved by the stories of poor friends shaking off the chains of winner-take-all capitalism; and I am claimed by the demands of black friends seeking racial justice too long deferred; a<b>nd I am responsible to Dov Baum of the American Friends Service Committee, and Rabbi Brian Walt of Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Rev. Mitri Raheb and Zoughbi Zoughbi in Bethlehem, and Jean Zaru in Ramallah</b>, for the tears they’ve shed in my company, and for the pain they’ve asked me to hold in my heart, and for their passion for peace, justice, shalom, salaam, and a new world free of hatred and tyranny and occupation. In faith and love, I am accountable to them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">And to be totally honest and completely transparent, your United Church of Christ is responsible for all of this: for the strange brew in my Christian heart, this two-step tango featuring a pastor’s heart and the unsettling and prophetic imperative. <b>I am who I am because of your United Church of Christ. </b> The passion in our community for kindness, the uncompromising commitment to inclusion and affirmation. The insistence on concrete acts of solidarity and love. Long ago, and ever since, I have discovered in the UCC a resilient faith in a God whose grace is always more wonderful than we imagined, a God whose mercy is always more forgiving than we suspected, a God whose forever commitment to the world means there is always a way to heal it, to bless it, to redeem it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">3.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>So friends, here’s what I believe, right now, today. Pastor. Prophet. All of me. I believe that you and I can disagree, even painfully, about something as important and consequential as today’s resolution. And I believe that I can continue to love you, and cherish you, and encourage you as your pastor. I have no doubt. <b>I believe that I can insist that the Apartheid Free Movement is faithful, and that it’s right, and that it’s urgently important—and you can insist that it’s too much, too soon; or that it’s sets a dangerous precedent for the church’s role in politics and foreign affairs; or that it puts our Jewish friends in a really tough spot.</b> You and I can disagree about all of that; and we can continue to love one another, build a beloved community together, serve the Seacoast together. And I can be your pastor, I can show up for you in a hundred different ways and be there when you need me. With love.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />I sure hope you believe all this too. For all the tension I’m feeling this morning, and for the knots in my tummy that tighten today, I believe in a God who does hard things, a God who allows us to do hard things, a God who insists that we love one another bravely, even and especially as we take on difficult moments and pursue justice and peace in a broken world. I believe in a God who does all that. And we’re going to be just fine. Whatever happens this afternoon.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a name='more'></a></span>4.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFn5nWb_TSOEw-gncfOaWi9SVtcfQK0PGmOP7YUhvjN8gbOwszdYOi3IplsIJzWQkgKLOj79p9prZcPrHvOdAIBFDwCCcoIqk9rg8kRWCPin1xhFOPfqYWWN-DLICB8Ml2K0vFgTp_IDSS86S6UpK_mPwPLy_d4sTSfEZcG9A2-hMQz3ypHPm2HgF1qk4/s1000/tim-mossholder-bo3SHP58C3g-unsplash%20(1).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFn5nWb_TSOEw-gncfOaWi9SVtcfQK0PGmOP7YUhvjN8gbOwszdYOi3IplsIJzWQkgKLOj79p9prZcPrHvOdAIBFDwCCcoIqk9rg8kRWCPin1xhFOPfqYWWN-DLICB8Ml2K0vFgTp_IDSS86S6UpK_mPwPLy_d4sTSfEZcG9A2-hMQz3ypHPm2HgF1qk4/s320/tim-mossholder-bo3SHP58C3g-unsplash%20(1).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>And what strikes me, then, in the gospel this morning, is Jesus’ determination to do hard things with great love. </b> What moves me in this story about the first day of his new movement is his courage in taking on painful truths for the good of the human soul. He seems to know that building a new movement, a gospel movement, means acknowledging human prejudice and pain, and generously but directly insisting on other values and other ways. So when that man with the unclean spirit confronts him--“I know who you are!”—Jesus rebukes the spirit (not the man, mind you). Jesus rebukes the spirit and says, “Come out of him!”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">There was, in Jesus’ time, a purity code that was all too often activated in religious life, marginalizing the “unclean,” privileging “normative” behaviors and “credentialed” identities, and shaming those who lived outside the boundaries of so-called normalcy and social convention. I think you get the idea. This still goes on, right? And if we’re faithful, we’re working all the time to identify this code, and clear it out of our churches. But it takes effort.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Well, in Jesus’ time, this kneejerk purity code allowed the clerical class (that’s scribes and clergy) to exert significant power within the synagogue, and it allowed them to determine who could and who couldn’t seek blessing and support from the community itself. Again, let’s be honest. This still goes on. In way too many places and way too many churches. And right from the start, Jesus seems determined to confront the way this code is enforced, and the men enforcing it. Again, he’s building a new movement, within the synagogue it would seem, but a movement exorcised of prejudice, division and caste.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Remember this is the very first thing Jesus does with his new friends. He does not take them for a picnic. He does not do that bit multiplying the loaves and fish. He takes them to a synagogue on the sabbath, presumably his synagogue on the sabbath. And he finds this fellow possessed by an unclean spirit; in other words, he confronts this believer in the community who’s twisted in knots by the code, and embittered by the code, and rendered cruel by the code; and he calls the spirit out of him. He calls the spirit out of him. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Now that’s the exorcism part; except it’s more like face-to-face evangelism. Jesus says, in effect, “This way you have of dividing up the world into the clean and unclean; this spirit that judges some so harshly and makes no space for them in your heart; this privileging of the privileged—it’s killing you. <b>It’s suffocating your soul.</b>” See what I mean. It’s that kind of thing with Jesus. “So come out of him,” Jesus says to the unclean spirit. “Come out of him now.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Just a couple of things on this.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">First, Jesus wants his disciples—those committed to learning with him, and serving at his side; Jesus wants us to know that we can do hard things, important things, with great love. Everywhere he goes, every crowd he encounters, every soul he meets in the street—is going to challenge him, and challenge his friends. The burden of human misery is heavy, heavy, heavy; and the cost of human cruelty can tie our hearts in knots, and sometimes render us speechless, and more often than not exhausted. But right from the start, first day of the new movement, Jesus wants us to know we can do hard things with great love.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.apartheid-free.org" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="2880" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPxPjzlyHxtUXy4yeULljfeC4sBU6WQ9rZceYNCSYA5On3WTUHTouCa8A9W4orPa9ztlWRKz27J4JeYrFVTsA-K_ZTUfiUjRJwUjwx7ObrQ3bQ_xB5UXWhupyiqEj1oFqTCes6vtyZnAHc9nvBrqLUIWZx5HFD2PdXcsmkAbezEcR4rSTV2BIwcbBiuZU/s320/Screenshot%202024-01-29%20at%2010.20.12%E2%80%AFAM.png" width="320" /></a></div>And then, second, Jesus engages this kind of ministry—pastoral, prophetic, gospel ministry—with profound humility. Mark’s Gospel is especially brilliant on this. Again and again, Jesus himself comes to understand his own limitations, even his own prejudice; and again and again, he has to confess his own brokenness, recognize the wisdom of another’s life, and change his mind or his heart or his way of seeing the world. It’s a powerful, beautiful example. Jesus sets out for us, for every disciple in every age, and for the church itself, an example of humility and courage. That we might take up hard moments with love, speak truth to power and envision a world redeemed; and that we might do all of this with profound awareness of our own limitations, our own need for grace, and our own humanity.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">So I’ll leave it there. You all know what’s on my heart today, and I want you to know how very, very much I appreciate the opportunity do hard things here, with great love and courage. Whatever comes of today’s deliberations, I hope and trust we will continue along this path. For as Dietrich Bonhoeffer—another exorcist, by the way—as Bonhoeffer said all those years ago: </span><b style="font-family: arial;">“We are not called simply to bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are called to drive a spike into the wheel itself.”</b><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Amen and Ashe.</span><br /></div>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-7633060790416201442024-01-26T18:22:00.003-05:002024-01-26T18:22:27.820-05:00POEM: "Earth in Hospice"<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWYP_C6_f4QVXrC1pOqV524zG9PZrdq0UsAIuV2LGGJ3xh9QaSrM3oQK01Pj724z2MdyGa5WhgwiC416M5COkjK4kKaBf1HhdTa9sIX83gtbti4U43Io8UEML1Orhbq_hr3q-pznFqWTRODImtezPFPRYF7OmeFksn4boiiufASCaB75uOl9zeTH6TwCk/s1807/417191222_10161054677770149_5392789540936556538_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1807" data-original-width="1440" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWYP_C6_f4QVXrC1pOqV524zG9PZrdq0UsAIuV2LGGJ3xh9QaSrM3oQK01Pj724z2MdyGa5WhgwiC416M5COkjK4kKaBf1HhdTa9sIX83gtbti4U43Io8UEML1Orhbq_hr3q-pznFqWTRODImtezPFPRYF7OmeFksn4boiiufASCaB75uOl9zeTH6TwCk/w319-h400/417191222_10161054677770149_5392789540936556538_n.jpg" width="319" /></a></div><br /><p></p>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-89287741732239986482024-01-25T21:05:00.001-05:002024-01-25T21:08:09.570-05:00NAHAFOCHU: "Unlearning Supremacy"<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/sEBmBr9cCKs?si=x8v5mbf_ZhIEGWX8" style="background-image: url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sEBmBr9cCKs/hqdefault.jpg);" width="480"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The humility of her preaching, the courage of her care, all of it is just transformative. I am moved to tears by this kind of moral, prophetic, faithful leadership. And I pray for her and her people tonight.</span></div>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9040917808297465641.post-62137578561886277712024-01-24T16:26:00.003-05:002024-01-24T16:26:27.943-05:00PEACE: "Do We Care About International Law?"<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdavid.grishawjones%2Fposts%2Fpfbid0D7qsvdfp5PDEiZovL7PwFcyrTKZF28ocsHg8HiRa5VGogTKYaQUM5LTEeHEk2pafl&show_text=true&width=500" width="500" height="500" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share"></iframe>David Grishaw-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421084404197264440noreply@blogger.com