Fear and #Ferguson

Soooo it is the day after Black Friday, coming close to closing out a week joyously that we might all well just want to forget as we continue our hope that things “just get back to normal”.  We seem to hope that everyone just returns to their place, away from our place and stops complaining and protesting.  Al Sharpton can fly out to Philly where some poor rookie cop made a gruesome mistake and take the tourist protesters with him and we can get back to good old fashion St. Louis segregation (economic and racial) and be safe by empowering an underpaid group of primarily white males (whose lives are at risk every day) to profile and “broken windows” police the rest of us to peace and safety and bliss.

http://www.thenation.com/article/177842/its-time-end-broken-windows-policing

We are so afraid of the questions that have been raised…. again.  Forget about Michael Brown (with my apologies to the Brown family for their loss) and forget Officer Wilson (who whether he knows it or not will be haunted for the rest of his life).  Michael Brown is inevitable in our society.  Over and over again Michael Brown will continue to be gunned down.  Not every day.  Not every week, but certainly every month, year after year and the fact is that we as a society have decided we don't give a shit.  Let our underpaid police worry about it and take of it.  If they make a mistake we can crucify the poor cop and feel better about ourselves  and if they don’t make a mistake then killing people to keep us safe is just their job.

It is 2014 and the “wrong side of the tracks”, or highway still prevails in St. Louis and every adult who pays attention knows where the borderlines are.  We stay on our side of the tracks and the poor and the non assimilated stay on their side. If they kill each other or occasionally one of our policeman kills one of them… it is what Richard Nixon would have called “acceptable losses”.  We pay our police better on our side.  Our kids occasionally take their parents high powered automatic weapons and go on a killing spree. Then and only then our police need to shoot them down but otherwise God and only God can protect the officer that kills one of our fair and precious children.

We self identify as the most Christian nation on earth.  “In God We Trust” emblazoned on our money (think, just for a second how wrong that referencing God on our money should be for a Christian), the Ten Commandments chiseled into our courthouses, but we have totally rationalized the existence of an underclass that lives mired in cycles of poverty, violence and lack of education.  How can this be?  And don’t, PLEASE DON’T, for all that is Sacred quote Matthew 26:11 “The poor will always be with you.” as some kind of justification.  READ YOUR SCRIPTURE IN CONTEXT!  Christ was admonishing the law observes that since they had a brief opportunity to spend some time with their God incarnate, that perhaps they should take an opportunity to do so.

So we are afraid.  We say we are afraid of violence.  We say we are afraid of lawlessness.  We say we are afraid of REVOLUTION!  So we buy guns, we board up windows and we call out the National Guard.  We berate our politicians and leaders for not keeping us safe.  We cancel parades.  We don’t go “downtown” because it might not be safe.  

HOW MANY LIVES HAVE BEEN LOST IN THE FERGUSON RIOTS!?  

I am not perfect about it and I could be wrong but I do read the paper every day and I think a strong case can be made that the number is zero.  I pray for the business owners and people of ferguson who have lost property and might lose their businesses.  It is a tragedy, but no lives have been lost despite all the burning and looting and protesting.  But we, in Clayton are afraid.  There is also no reason that our police should be subjected to bricks, bottles and batteries being thrown and fired at them and I pray for their safety as well because they are our mercenaries in an undeclared war against whomever threatens our status quo.

I think if we would pause and be honest with ourselves we are afraid of the questions raised by the situation.  

Why are we comfortable with an underclass?

Why is it OK when they kill each other as long as they don't do it on our streets?

Why are their deaths only memorialized in the Law and Order section of the Post Dispatch?

Why hasn’t the privileged Christian Community lent their time and attention to their brothers and sisters?

Could the government do things differently to assist the suffering?

Why can’t we change the situation?

Why is it so hard?

Why can’t they just be like us?

Why do we want them to “be like us”?

Why do we need so many guns in so many hands?

What am I supposed to do as a Christian?

Are the government programs making it worse?

Why can’t the black community raise up leaders that are not self promoting?

Why can’t the white community raise up leaders that are not self promoting?

As a Christian, as a human, what am I supposed to do?

Sorry, these are my questions.  I pray that you have your own set and I pray it is not a set of questions about why “those people” are causing so much trouble.  As a Christian I beg you to remember that those people are God’s children and we are called upon not to turn our backs.  I am an old man (in my head I am perhaps an old Jewish man but that is neither here nor there but I am old enough to remember not only when Dan Fogelberg was alive but I remember when he was relevant.

“You better change, before the sun goes down.

You better leave, before you are, the last in town.

You better raise your fortresses, or tear them down,

tear them down.”

What a difference it makes when a community steps up. On South Grand they actually had property damage. They had protesters. They got out of hand and broke windows...a LOT of windows. They didn't board up in the face of loss that never happened, but when it happened they came out and made something beautiful. Something... thoughtful.  

I am not asking for anything other than we not accept a return to the status quo,  Think and pray about what God is calling you to do in response to the pain and suffering that he is showing to us.  Talk with people about it and stop being afraid of violence and looting and burning and property damage and start being afraid of why we cannot seem to work together and pray together to find answers.

PEACE!

New Pope, New Hope... for a Lutheran?

Sooooo... this old grumpy, religion skeptical Lutheran boy is impressed.  The Pope process is less than transparent.  As a Lutheran we stick our chins out at a lot of things Roman Catholic and pridefully show disdain for certain aspects of Roman Catholicism like saints, and Popes and the elevation of Mary to a Deity and praying for the dead... but we fail to mention that we adopted 90% of it whole cloth and in truth, Luther never wanted to leave but in his arrogance could not countenance that what was then the churches leadership did not embrace his version of God’s all encompassing Grace.

Of course as Lutherans we seem to have lost that.  Our leadership and the conservative Lutheran blogosphere which seems to govern our churches theology and doctrine are much more concerned about who their Pastors and laity are praying with than to be too concerned regarding something as silly as God’s Grace.  It has rarely been more important for our Missouri Synod President to appear on TV with cardinal Dolan and decry how Obama is the anti Christ and President Harrison referred to his testimony before Congress with the Roman catholic Bishop as a martyrdom.  Tears in my eyes for his suffering.  

The Catholics have been suffering hugely with their well publicized scandals which they have handled, for lack of a better word, poorly.  Benedict was a dogmatic Pope who embraced high church, wanted to bring back the Latin Mass (the language of Christ I think if it wasn’t German) and looked with at best a jaundiced eye on Vatican II.  But, for whatever reason he stepped aside.  The College of Cardinals for whatever reason was led to chose this very conservative but apparently very Jesuit Argentinian and this man, for whatever reason took the name of St. Francis as his own which holds as much symbolism as anything he could have led off with.

He is a VERY conservative guy.  He is said to dislike the “social justice” arm of Catholicism and signed a document stating that being worthy for the Eucharist includes accepting the churches stance on abortion.  But he is a Jesuit and he cares about the poor to his core and he might end up being a radical voice of God’s Grace and love from Rome.  The National catholic Reporter stated that “At a meeting of Latin American bishops in 2007 Bergoglio said "[w]e live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most, yet reduced misery the least" and that "[t]he unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers".  That is a heavy statement.

But words are just words.  I am a huge fan of Maundy Thursday where as Lutherans we celebrate the only commandment given us by Christ, that we love one another the way he loved us.  Catholics celebrate Holy Saturday as we prepare for Good Friday and Christ’s suffering and death on the cross.  Evidently there is a Vatican tradition of the Pope doing a foot washing on that day.  Christ of course washed the feet of his disciples prior to going to Gethsemane and surrendering to Judas and the mob.  Foot washing is beautiful in it’s humility and it is hard to envision any act of service more intimate.  It is my understanding (which is limited since I am of course a Lutheran) that the Pope would wash the feet of leaders of the church.  Men.  Men of station. Christian, righteous, pious, men.

But not Francis!  Francis goes to a prison.  Francis does not just visit the people in prison.  Francis goes and he washes their feet.  He washed the feet of prisoners.  he washes the feet of Muslims.  He washes the feet of... (gasp)... women.  This is not the way of the modern Church.  Our leaders like to make rules.  They like to make doctrine.  They like to enforce doctrine.  They enjoy sitting in their enclaves making edicts and then going out to visit the faithful.  Not that they are not happy when their flocks serve, so long as they serve with the right people, and of course if you Lutheran’s, so long as you do not worship with those people.  Some things are not to be tolerated.

But not Francis.  Francis goes to prison and serves the needs of the forgotten.  The needs of the lost.  The needs of the evil, broken sinners.  Francis went and served people like me.  I know I have quoted it before but Bruce Cockburn, Canadian rocker of may years, retold the nativity of Christ in his song “Cry of a Tiny Babe”, and he sings “It isn’t to the palace that the Christ Child comes, but to shepherds, street people, hookers and bums.”  Amen a

nd God Bless our new Pope.  He might not be the head of my church, I might not think he is infallible, I am sure he will take positions that offend and disappoint me but God Bless the new Pope this Easter and all my Catholic brothers and sisters for finding a man who with a humble act of mercy gives me new hope.

Happy Easter and God’s Peace.