Black History Month?

It has been said that the celebration of Black History Month, and the recognition of Martin Luther King’s birthday, does not belong to Caucasians. It is a celebration and recognition that belongs exclusively to those who identify as part of the African-American/Black community.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Here is why.

Reading from Isaiah in his home Synagogue, Jesus said, “The Spirit of God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. The Lord has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to those imprisoned, recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed and to proclaim a year of jubilee.”

Jesus here proclaims the will of God. Jesus here lies out his agenda, defining his mission and ministry. The Christian ethic is honored as often and as far as we, his incarnation, express this same passion in the fulfillment of his ministry and mission. That’s right: In the fulfillment of his ministry and mission. God’s presence in, with and to Christ Jesus is therefore hope for all who are poor, oppressed, imprisoned, blind or indebted.

It must be the same with those who seek to follow Christ Jesus. Our mission and ministry must be defined by, informed by, guided by, conducted through and approached from the fulfillment of his ministry and mission. We are to stand as hope for the poor, oppressed, imprisoned, blind and indebted. We are to work liberation for the captives.

Black History Month is a celebration of: 1. The decades-long work that leads to the liberation of a segment of culture and society that had been oppressed, victimized, excluded and rejected. In some ways, this segment of society remains outside the benefit of the systems under which we live and the cultural acceptance through which we exist. There is still work to do. This work belongs to all who seek to define their purpose in life according to the mission and ministry of Christ Jesus. 2. The many contributions of Black Americans to the shaping of contemporary culture and society. In so many cases, these are stories that many of us have missed in our traditional tales. The stories of Black Americans have been read only as “their story.” It is time to begin learning and celebration the stories of Black Americans as “our stories.” The celebration of Black History Month invites us all to embrace the stories of Black Americans as “our stories.”

Black History Month is not a celebration that belongs to “them.” It belongs to everyone. It is our story, ugly and abusive as it may be. The advantage of learning and reciting the stories of Black Americans is two-fold. First, we learn anew our full story as Americans. Secondly, through learning and reciting these stories, we may avoid ever repeating the social and cultural practices of exclusion, oppression, bias and prejudice.   Only when we allow the stories to become our own, ugly and unpleasant as they may be, do we stand the chance of living in peace and unity, in cooperation and liberty.

It is imperative, therefore, that we celebrate Black History Month. Allow each of those stories to become our stories, as we work together for the poor, the oppressed, the imprisoned, the blind and the indebted.

Practical Lag-Time

If the email traffic that I experienced after last week's post about sports was a fair indication, I was correct in assuming that the contribution was unpopular. Assessing the world of sport, and finding it destructive, assaulted one of our culture's sacred cows. I am not sorry, however, because I am continually more convinced that we need to take a closer look at our love of sport.

But, if last week's post was unpopular, this week's will be an outright powder keg of potential disagreement. For, this week, we examine one of the sacred cows of the traditional church and its long-embraced theological and practical life.

Progressive Church theology places the accent of congregational life on reflecting the light of Christ in ministry and mission. The church is best when it works to meet the needs of the community, with emphasis on the poor, the rejected, the ignored, the victimized and the suffering. The basic notion says that we, as culture, society and people are better when we each share in the care of those who are least benefited by the systems under which we live.

The church is called to serve as Christ to those who struggle and suffer. This was once a tremendously controversial statement. It rocked the traditional boat of our sanctuaries, where the good people gathered to unify, to share, to care for one another, and to secure the right ways of life, protecting them from the bad influences around us. We sang the right hymns, in the right congregations, reciting the right liturgies, praying the right prayers, caring for the right people, protecting ourselves and our ways from the outside and outsiders. It made little sense that the church was here for others.

That change in theology has been widely achieved. Persons now more widely acknowledge that we are the church when we serve others in Christ's stead. We are the church when we break the self-serving attitudes and approaches through which most of us earlier experienced the church. The church is not a closed, cloistered, safe community of same believers and practitioners. It is an open, welcoming community of diverse persons, beliefs and practices who join together in order to do for and with those who had been left outside.

There are practical remnants of the church of the past that keep us from more vibrantly shining in our communities, however. There are still many who demand right ways, right liturgies, right hymns, right sacraments, right people in right places, doing right things. There are many who demand that the church be there to attend to them and their needs, even more so than the church attends to the needs of those who struggle and suffer in the wider community.

Ecclesiology has changed in advance of practical ministries. Servant theology is more widely embraced than its practical implications. The mission and ministry of our churches are now incarnational. That is, we are the body of Christ, the hope of those who have been victimized by our culture, society and systems. But practical matters of emphasis have not yet made that same transition. Church members still tend to see themselves as those who are to be served instead of those who render the service. They continue to demand that their needs, desires and beliefs be honored over and above the needs of the disenfranchised, poor and hungry.

It is likely that practical ministry and mission will catch up to progressive theology. It is certainly likely that church participants will begin to see themselves as empowered, equipped, called and sent persons, upon whom the struggling and suffering rely for change. In the meantime, pastoral leaders will simply have to serve with a foot in both theological camps.

One additional thought occurs to me. Many in the church are called to care for the needs of the community, to feed the sheep and protect them from the wolves around and about. If that is all the church does, however, then, in progressive terms, it is minimizing its potential. It could do so much more for its neighbors, its community and the global village. It could do much more to shine with the light of Christ in the lives of those who desperately search for assistance. The evolution of the church gleams brightly, then, promising a time when the church shall genuinely shine with Christ's light.    

Wide World of Sports

For many, this will not be a popular post to The Shiloh Insider. It covers our culture's unhealthy addiction to the world of sports, and how those unhealthy addictions have led to destructive behaviors.

Do not get me wrong, I have been a sports fan. I enjoy supporting the St. Louis Cardinals, the Indianapolis Colts and the Indiana Hoosiers. It is not that I do not enjoy other sports, but these are the teams with whom I have had a more direct sports relationship. I attended and graduated from Indiana University, so I cheer for the Hoosiers, especially their basketball team. I lived in St. Louis for better than three years, met a woman from the area, and have been married to her for thirty years (as of January 18). It is somewhere in the wedding contract that I had to become a Cardinal's fan. I am originally from Indiana. The Colts were an easy choice, particularly in the early years of the franchise.

I have noticed a disappointing trend, however. What used to be healthy competition between teams of respectful, honorable and, at least occasionally, mutually supportive groups of persons has now become a battle. That which once built character and nurtured development has now stunted growth and lead to devastating and destructive behavior.

Consider the doping scandals that have taken place in several sports. Think for a moment about the abuse allegations that have been so widely publicized of late. What of the concussion statistics in football? Every year, college sports programs throughout the country are suspended, fined, even terminated, for engaging in illegal and/or unethical practices. Increasingly, the damage of unrestricted competition has eroded the foundation of youth sports, extra-curricular school activities, community recreational leagues and Little League. Parents and fans fight in the stands. In Dayton, last week's high school basketball games were played without fans in the stands because of violence.

The wide world of sports is out of control in our culture. I wonder how much time and money we spend on attending sporting events, buying the gear of our favorite teams, watching games or matches or rounds on television? We live in an age when teachers make only a scant fraction of what we pay professional sports figures, when even the most productive scientists are barely known in comparison to the starting offensive line of the Bengals, and when we skip important functions, scheduling our lives around sports schedules.

Then came this past week's wild-card game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Pittsburgh's Steelers. It was ugly from before its start. During warm-ups the game officials stood in a designated "no-man's zone'" in the middle of the field, between the two teams. They feared pre-game violence between the two teams, as such was the case the last time the two had met. The game was a pitiful portrayal of rule-bending, excessive roughness, trash talking, childishness and immaturity that I had witnesses. Most of it took place on the field, but the fans in the stands followed suit. It was embarrassing. It was a game devoid of any redeeming value, lacking even the most basic potentially positive components of sport.

But we are addicted. We swallow the world of professional sport, filling our veins with its partisanship and having to degrade those who are our enemies' fans. We call names. We fling cans and bottles. We deface opponents' wear and defile their banners. We adhere little pissing characters on our automobile windows, urinating on the name of a competing city's team. We swear and yell and throw fits. We scream at our high school kids and charge the field of our little leaguers. We abuse referees and umpires and officials. Coaches are only so good as their records of wins and losses, despite other, more important, components of sport.

It has become ridiculous. It is completely out of control. Like our politics and our economics, sport is eroding the fabric of who we are as a people. It is time that we get a handle on our addiction, that we wean ourselves from its allure, that we break our unhealthy reliance on what the wide world of sports has become. It is time to focus on much more important facets of corporate life and community benefit. We tried the sporting world and it did not work to build us. If anything it continues to tear us down.

Let me see. Maybe spirituality will better serve us? I don't know. It may become the same competitive, divisive, destructive influence that we see in the wide world of sports.        

Does Jesus Make Sense?

Jesus' ethic must have seemed ridiculous to both the Roman-occupied territories of Galilee and the Temple-bound traditions of Jerusalem. While both imperial systems of Jesus' day relied on position, authority, power and militant might, Jesus' message and ministry focused on meeting the needs of the most rejected, excluded, victimized, estranged, hopeless and helpless. Kingdom certainly does not rest in inclusivity and attention to the dregs of society! Certainly, empire is not constructed on the backs of the poor and disenfranchised!

On the contrary, empire is constructed through power. Rome knew the stories well. Julius Caesar was a powerful and cunning general, a great military mind, and a force-to-be-reckoned-with. Augustus, Julius' adopted son, put an end to a costly and destructive civil war and revived reliance on the Roman system. He did so through the use of power and military authority. Centurions were stationed throughout the Roman-occupied territories in order to protect the empire from would-be revolutionaries and seditionists. Enemies were crucified as a deterrent to such disloyalty. Foreigners were controlled, coerced and manipulated into, sometimes, reluctant patriotism. No one within the Roman territories were given a choice. It was loyalty or death.

The Temple system understood as well the need for social control. The entire Levitical system was founded on the notion that personal failure to abide by the laws of the Temple led, politically, economically and militarily, to the end of Jewish hegemony. Personal sinfulness resulted in national exile. In order to maintain its traditions throughout the Roman occupation, the Temple heightened the concentration on personal loyalty to the laws and strictures of the faith, while it diminished the social aspects of the faith. The Temple knew that the articulation of liberation theology would challenge the power of Rome. So the Temple placed its religious accent on the syllables that spoke individual purity and righteousness under the law instead of social justice and liberation.

Into the climate of Roman power and Temple control, Jesus performed, taught and promoted an ethic of servanthood, where one sacrificed one's self for the sake of others, where one went out of one's way to meet the needs of those who suffer and struggle the most. Ridiculous! Silly! Asinine! How in the world can concentration on the needs of the worthless and the damned be expected to ever lead to establishment of kingdom or meet the needs of the empire? It is impossible!

Jesus makes as little sense today. In an increasingly divisive atmosphere of name-calling, hyperbole and vitriol, Jesus speaks softly of inclusion, acceptance, universal compassion and love. While politicians promise violence, exclusion, protectionism and defense of, often undeserved, privilege, Jesus embodies humility, kindness, forgiveness, openness and equality.

Jesus makes as little sense today as he made then. While we read the Gospels, shaking our collective heads at the ignorance of the Pharisees and Scribes, at the inability of the Disciples to understand and embrace Christ's actions and teachings, and at the Roman reliance on Crucifixion as a means of social coercion, we continue to rely on approaches of power, position, authority, fear, money and privilege. We place a similar emphasis today on the characteristics of corporate and personal life that Jesus rejected in promoting a system of peace. We blame those ancient examples of forces that are contrary to Christ but pardon our own collusion with human tendencies. We are as guilty now as they were then.

So, how does Jesus make sense today? As it most always is the case with history, Jesus makes the same sense now as he made then. When we are ready to give up on the human sources of pain and suffering, when we are ready to sacrifice our privilege for the sake of those who begin the race of life from considerable disadvantage, and when we are willing to be servants instead of beneficiaries, we will understand Jesus. Until then, we are destined to continually repeat the mistakes of the past. Listen to the voices that resound. See if it isn't time to embrace an entirely different code of behavior and an alternative system of belief. See if it isn't time for us to allow Jesus to make sense.