Pussy Riot and the Prophet: Sermon for February 9, Fifth After Epiphany

Isaiah 58:1-12, Psalm 112:1-10, 1 Corinthians 2:1-16, Matthew 5:13-20

This week I was wrestling with three problems. First, one of you members had asked me a theological question: "Why aren’t we adding more books to the Bible, and how come we don’t have a Third Testament after the Old one and the New one?" Good question.

My second problem was trying to make a sermon that would speak to the new elders and deacons we are installing today as well to the whole congregation.

My third problem was that my sermon wasn’t going anywhere. By Thursday morning all I had was a moderately interesting lecture on Biblical themes that was all head and no heart. I got up from it to start my breakfast and I said to Melody, "I can’t get this week’s lessons to talk to me."

And then as I was finishing my omelet and listening to Morning Edition on NPR I was caught by a story. It was an interview with two members of the Russian protest punk band Pussy Riot. They had been at the Barclay Center in a concert for Amnesty International.

Well, I’m not fan of punk bands and this band’s name made me uncomfortable. I didn’t like what they had done that got them in trouble two years ago in Moscow. They entered the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Savior and right in front of the altar they staged a provocative musical protest. Of course they got arrested and convicted of hooliganism and put in prison for two years—actually a labor camp. That was terrible, of course, and it’s not their cause I did like. They were protesting the loss of free speech under Vladimir Putin and also the Orthodox Church’s collaboration with Putin’s government. But I didn’t like them desecrating a church. Any church.

Well, I got converted. As I listened to their story on NPR, all of a sudden our lesson from Isaiah 58 came to life. It’s like they got their protest strategy right out of Isaiah, as if God were saying, "What to me is your magnificent cathedral? What to me is your beautiful icon screen and your altar? What to me is your glorious liturgy and your fasting twice a week? Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free?"

The conflict between the freedom of the Gospel and the yoke of organized religion that we hear of in Isaiah 58 is also the conflict between the Lord Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 5, and between Martin Luther and the Roman hierarchy during the Reformation, and in every single church today if we honestly examine ourselves. I represent organized religion. I keep asking you to serve on this committee and that, and devote your time and money to the cause of this old church, and maintain this building as a sacred place, and follow our liturgy, but does this all truly serve the freedom of the gospel?

I was so taken by the story on NPR that I posted the link to it on my Facebook page. You might recognize the voice of the interviewer, David Greene. He interviewed the two band members who had just been released from their two years in the labor camp. They were Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina, along with their interpreter. He said to them, "You are both mothers, and you both have young children. If you had known what your punishment would be, would you have done this protest? Do you have any regrets?"

It was Masha who answered: "This might be hard to understand, but I am actually grateful to the leadership of Russia for providing me with this experience of being in jail. I think I became a freer person as a result, and understood many things that will now enable us to work on fixing this prison system." David Greene sounded surprised. "You feel ‘freer,’ you say, what do you mean?" She said, "Freedom as responsibility for your every step and gesture, freedom for choosing to act honestly and honorably or dishonestly or dishonorably, freedom as in life."

I could have been listening to Ruby Bridges or Rosa Parks. Or the Apostle Paul. And now the epistle lesson was coming to life. I could hear the freedom in it, the radical freedom of the Apostle Paul when he came to Corinth. You see, the Corinthians were prosperous and sophisticated, but he did not tailor his message to their expectations. He did not calculate for his success. He was free of what might impress them. He decided not to know anything among them except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. I could hear the freedom in that, because of what Masha Alyokhina had said.

Even in the labor camp those two young women were free. Their story judges all our talk of freedom in American when you consider what we use our freedom for. "Don’t tread on me." For so much self-indulgence and individual independence. Their freedom is for the cause of justice in their land and their greater service in dangerous places. Freedom does not reduce the sacrifices in your life, it just changes that for which you sacrifice. Like with Jesus Christ, and him crucified. The Lord Jesus said, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven." He means the righteousness not of obeying the rules or even keeping clean, but of getting on God’s bus, of siding with God in what God is doing in the world, as in Isaiah, as in the prophets and the Torah, as the Kingdom of Heaven has its way within the world.

I know I do get sentimental, but I believe that on Thursday morning I was spoken to by God. Not through NPR. I’m not that much Park Slope. But through the Bible as it was conversing with the morning news. The great theologian Karl Barth said that a preacher has to have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. And that is the third testament. That’s the answer to your question.

This old Bible that we have is sufficiently rich and relevant to engage with freshness all the other words around us in the air, and in your magazines and meditations. God still speaks, through the harmonies between the gospel and the news, or in the contradictions between the prophets and the book you are reading, or in the interplay between the epistle and you just heard on the phone. The third testament is the Bible’s conversation with our culture and with your mind and your life.

In just a few moments I will be asking five of you if you believe that you were called by God into your sacred offices. It’s a problem. Can you believe that God was behind it when you were contacted by someone trying to fill some vacancies in the interest of organized religion? Was God behind it on Thursday morning that I happened to  make my omelet at 8:15 AM instead of at my usual 7:45?

You can’t know for sure, and there is no proof. It would be nice to just hang it all on God. But you can’t, and you shouldn’t, because the point is your freedom even when God calls you, that you answer the call in freedom, and you have to make the choice, and you take responsibility for your choice without being able to prove it. As Masha Alyokhina said: "Freedom as responsibility for your every step and gesture, freedom for choosing to act honestly and honorably, freedom as in life."

I am asking the five of you to do what seems to be rare in organized religion. Please keep this 359-year-old monument to organized religion open to the freedom of the gospel and therefore a light for the world and a city on a hill. Guide this congregation to be a communal conversation with God, a living third testament, the conversation between this old Bible and every latest thought and motivation. With your bodies and your emotions. With politics. With science. With literature. With painting and art. With breaking the bonds of injustice and sharing your bread with the hungry and bringing the homeless poor into your house.

I know that’s what you want, what you have heard, what you have seen, that’s why you are here, that’s why this congregation has elected you. God has given you the Spirit of wisdom that you may serve this congregation in doing these good works, so that this part of Brooklyn might see your good works, and give glory to your Father in heaven.

You all have so much freedom here. No one forces you to do anything, except the IRS. You will not be put in jail for using your free speech. Be worthy of the gift that you enjoy. You have so much freedom in this church. Your freedom is for responsibility. And your chief responsibility is to love. I want you all to love these elders and deacons. And I want you to love them because God loves you.


Copyright © 2014, by Daniel James Meeter, all rights reserved.
The NPR link is here: http://www.npr.org/2014/02/06/272359826/pussy-riot-russian-prison-sentence-will-help-us-fiix-system

Thoughts On Mitigated Hell

I'm finishing up my manuscript,

"Why Be A Christian (If No One Goes to Hell)". I am claiming the Biblical case that we take St. Paul literally, that "the wages of sin is death," not hell. I am claiming that no one goes to hell, certainly not in the way that people think of it today.

This summer I discussed this with a pastor friend of mine. He disagreed with me. He said that he agrees with C. S. Lewis, as he pictures in The Great Divorce (a book I certainly love), that some people will spend eternity in a total separation from God, even if it's a total separation of their own design and prejudices.

I imagine that the damp and chilly hell of C. S. Lewis is not as horrible as the torturing hell of Dante, so maybe it's more attractive to Christians. Well, maybe it's not as cruel in terms of pain, but I think it's no less cruel in terms of God.

As I understand it, the only way fully to be separated from God is to not exist at all. To imagine hell as a somehow less cruel eternal separation from God does not hold up. Psalm 139 says, "Though I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there." Now I know that's a poetic statement, and not to be forced, either theologically or philosophically, but it confirms something about God, and the impossibility of any existing thing being "separated" from God.

C. S. Lewis' hell is a passive aggressive hell, more hypocritical, I think, for being cooler. You spend eternity in God's cold anger, God's distant anger, and it's not eternal separation from God (because that is not possible with this God), it's eternal suspension in the chill of a jealous God. The hot hell is actually more honest (if wrong), because at least it's an honest anger.

But to not exist---that and only that is eternal separation from God.

Yes, yes, I most certainly believe in eternal life. I believe in the "resurrection of the body and the life everlasting." I don't believe in the immortality of the soul. Neither did the Apostles.

So I take the Apostle Paul literally: "The wages of sin is death." That's it. You're dead. Dead dead. It's over. No hell. No eternal punishment.

Ratner Admits He Has No Plans To Build Affordable Housing

Brooklyn, New York—For his Atlantic Yards project Bruce Ratner promised a grandiose "urban room” and a tax generating office tower at the gridlocked Atlantic and Flatbush intersection at the heart of Brooklyn. He also promised to build "affordable housing.”

None of that is going to happen.

Instead, today the developer unveiled designs for an outdoor "public plaza” where the tower and atrium structure were promised, and told reporters at a press conference that his firm has no plans to build 15 of the 16 towers he promised to build, which would include nearly all of the "affordable” housing Ratner used to sell his plans to Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Paterson and a long list of other politicians.

"Ratner's not-so-pretty drawings of a barricaded, exhaust-enveloped plaza—including the absurd rendered fantasy of a traffic-less Atlantic and Flatbush intersection—is not the Atlantic Yards news of the day. The news of day, which is not surprising but is very troubling, is that Bruce Ratner admitted that he has no plans whatsoever to build the affordable housing he promised or the office tower he promised. It is crystal clear that Atlantic Yards is nothing but a scam, a money-losing arena, surrounded by massive parking lots, in the middle of a housing and unemployment crisis,” said Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn co-founder Daniel Goldstein.

"Bruce Ratner has broken every promise he has made to the public—Mayor Bloomberg, Governors Paterson, Pataki and Spitzer, Marty Markowitz, Senator Schumer, and all the politicians who rammed this debacle down Brooklyn's throat, owe the public a big explanation, and need to take this land back from Ratner since he is not going to meet any of his promises.”

There is one outstanding lawsuit challenging Atlantic Yards. The suit awaits a ruling from a Manhattan State Supreme Court judge. The case made by DDDB and its 21 community co-plaintiffs, is further bolstered by today's admission by Ratner that Atlantic Yards needs a new environmental review as it is not the project that received a rubberstamp environmental approval in 2006. The case was argued on June 30th.

Fifth Annual Brooklyn Blogfest

I attended the Blogfest last night, a remarkable event altogether, and a grand success. I tend to be quiet at such events, but the people sitting next to me were right in it with Lemon Anderson's "Ode to Brooklyn" and were cheering Spike Lee. I really enjoyed the "Blogs Aloud" quotations from the blogs (as if I were not self-interested) and I loved the Photo Bloggers video.

I was impressed by how many people gathered after the main program for the "Blogs of a Feather" workshops. I was spent, and wanted some food and drink. But all these other people stayed involved, and were serious about their blogging enterprise, and kept working for another good half hour or more.

As for the Panel Discussion, I was intrigued by Andrea Bernstein's continuing question which was something like this: "Is there something special about Brooklyn which generates all this blogging, and if there is, what is it?"



I think there is, and I think it's more than "creativity versus money". Three things come to mind:

First, Brooklyn is a multi-cultural international city but not a "capital". Manhattan is a world "capital", and its creativity is big time, and its creators are stars. The blogging medium is too egalitarian for a capital like Manhattan. But it's an extremely convenient medium for Brooklyn's people-centered, less famous, non-starring creators. (Which is maybe why Spike Lee and Woody Allen don't feel at home here anymore; we're not their chosen orbit.)



Second, Brooklyn has a sense of itself. That's the "attitude" thing that Heather Johnston mentioned. Queens is even more multi-cultural and international than Brooklyn is, but Queens has almost no sense of itself. (I can think of lots of examples.) Queens does not have a great internal conversation going on, while Brooklyn has a constant internal conversation, at a high pitch, with lots of humor, anger, and emotion. We are in each other's faces, for better or worse. People in Brooklyn shout at each other across the street, strangers calling out comments to each other about the idiot who just made that stupid left turn, etc. Well, that all goes with blogging.



Third, our stoops and sidewalks. It's never just the stoops, it's also the sidewalks, and the relationship of stoops and sidewalks. We sit with each other on our stoops, but we meet each other on the sidewalk. More than with any other borough, and certainly more than Manhattan, our sidewalks are social places, they are social media, they're not just for travelling over, they are where we meet each other. The traffic pressure of Manhattan does not allow this nearly to the same extent. I suggest that blogging is an electronic version of stoops and sidewalks.

Well, that's the post-mortem. Geez Louise, a great event, and thanks. You're on to something, Louise Crawford.

Atlantic Yards Confession

On May 21, I participated with Eleni Zaharapoulos and some Fine Arts students from Brooklyn College in a ritual of blessing for the Atlantic Yards. It was very moving. On hands and knees Eleni led a small procession around the site with incense and music. She asked me to make the Confession for reconciliation and to pray the blessing. And then a choir sang Alicia Keyes' New York State of Mind. It's hard to imagine at this distance how moving and wonderful the whole thing was, and I consider it a privilege to have been asked. (Full disclosure: I am a strong and loyal supporter of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn.)

A CONFESSION

There were trees here once. There were woods and meadows and animals. They are gone, we removed them all. Once the native tribe of the Canarsees lived here. What form their violence and violations took we do not know, but we know that they died from our diseases and we removed the few who did survive. We took the land and we felled the trees and spread our pastures and our sweet little farms on the sandy soil, and we used the labor of our slaves. After some years we covered the ground with our houses and our streets, and the native animals were gone. Let their memory rest in peace. Requiescat in pace.

The railroad came and the streets were widened and we built our shops and factories and tenements. We paved the ground over to be hot in the summer and lifeless in the winter. The flowers and the fruits were gone, and the birds all fled. That’s what we did here, but we are the beneficiaries. If not for that we could not have come here. The loss of the land was in our interest, and the grief of the ground for our prosperity. We confess our complicity, and we ask forgiveness. Let the lives beneath us rest in peace. Requiescat in pace.

And then this city became despised and rejected, and it suffered the distresses of racism and poverty and violence, the long slow poisoning of the soil and the water and the air, the sadness of the buildings, the garbage on the ground, the evaporation of community, and the emptiness of love. And underneath it all a spirit of frustration, a spirit of bitterness and loss and unrequited grief, a simmering spirit of anger and resentment. These spirits have had their power here.

But then people came back with love, and people came back here with hope, and people came here with faith, looking for each other, looking for new life on this land, a city on a human scale, of small shops and of local enterprise and ownership, a city of people for each other here.

And then others came looking for power and prestige and wealth and fame. The Empire State Development Corporation had visions of empire. They wanted not community but evidence of empire. They used the power of empire over enterprise. They overpowered the small things that were growing here.

What they did here was immoral, according to the standard of the laws of God. They coveted this neighborhood, and they coveted their neighbors’ houses, and they did not love their neighbors as themselves. There were spirits here at work. The spirit of possession took over here, and the spirits of manipulation and deceit.

The media were used and the laws abused. The politicians participated and the deals were made and the payoffs paid. The judges did not do justice and the public servants were subservient. This community was ignored and others were co-opted, falsehoods were repeated, and people were removed and silenced. We were set against each other, and our motives impugned, and our persons insulted. Might was made the right. The ground was blighted by intention. Sturdy old buildings were demolished and lovely decorations were destroyed. The simmering spirits of anger and frustration were inflamed. And this is the desert we are left with. We confess it and we lament it. Requiescat in pace.

There must be truth for reconciliation. Forgiveness is not forgetting, but remembering and still forgiving. So we name these spirits of anger and unfairness and injustice and we tell them to be gone. We will not let them keep on having their way with us. Anger is just too heavy a burden to keep on bearing. We confess our own complicities, and we acknowledge our fears and our sloth. We grieve at what we have lost and how we have lost it, we mourn what might have been, and we bless what still may be. Those who will come here in the future, we set them free from our righteous anger and frustration, and may they be free from any evil spirits in this land. We bless them to be free and innocent for hope and joy. May the empire that develops here be an imperium of love.

We bless this ground for her generosity to us. We bless this land for her hospitality to us and her patience with us, for her long enduring us. We bless the people who will stand here and walk here and live here. May mercy and truth embrace, may peace and justice kiss each other. Who makes peace in his heights, may He make peace upon us. And say, Amen. Oseh shalom bim'romav hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu. v'im'ru Amein.

(For Eleni )

Strong Love, Healthy Fear

Previously published in The Church Herald: Serving Members of the Reformed Church, March 2009, LXVI:3, pp. 24-25.

Note: the boat pictured is a South Bay oyster dredger, which only approximates the South Bay pound boat which I mention below.

I loved Joe MacMillan, and I feared him. I worked for him; he was my boss. I was afraid of him, but I would do anything for him. He was an important man in my life.

Joe had a fish market on Fire Island, New York. The village of Ocean Beach was a summer resort for New Yorkers. Ethel Merman and I. F. Stone were among our customers. I worked in the store with Joe and his two daughters, Jean and Betsy. We were three blond, blue-eyed teenagers from the Dutch town of West Sayville, on the south shore of Long Island, on the Great South Bay, and Joe would joke that he was a "converted Dutchman."

Success Story

Joe was Scots-German, from Patchogue. He dreamed of becoming a doctor, but he had to quit high school to work and support his mother and grandmother. One day, the story goes, he was hitchhiking on Montauk Highway and he was picked up by Esther Verspoor, a Dutch girl from West Sayville. They dated, and married, and her father got him work on the Great South Bay.

Joe was strong and smart. He was enterprising and hardworking, and he got accepted by the Hollanders of West Sayville. He fished and clammed and scalloped with them, and he learned the Bay and its bottom. He got to be known as one of the best baymen around. He became chief of the fire department (a big deal in West Sayville), and a deacon in the Reformed Church (for just one term).

He got a job at Whitecap Seafood in Bayshore, cutting fish and learning retail. Then Joe bought Al Klassen’s store on Fire Island and made it a great success.

There were no cars on Fire Island. Everything had to come across by ferry. The Bay was five miles wide. If you had your own boat you could cut your costs. Our boat, the South Bay, was a thirty-six-foot "pound boat," built in the 1920’s for emptying fish traps. It had a catboat hull, a wide beam, and shallow draft. It had a low deck for working the water, a big hold in front with a mast and boom, and a cabin aft. Its tiller was out back, old fashioned.

Lots of Love

I loved that boat. I loved its lines and its wood and its paint. I loved working on it and washing it down every night and getting out on the salt water twice every day. I figured I had the best summer job in West Sayville. We loaded the boat every morning, lashed it all down, and ran across the Bay, a forty-five minute trip. In the evenings, coming back, Joe counted the cash and did his paperwork and the girls and I took turns steering home. Mostly we’d perch atop the cabin and steer the tiller with a foot out behind. Vacationers would cruise by and stare at us like we were specimens.

I loved working in the fish market. The customers would be lined up at the door when we arrived. We’d often have to work straight through till afternoon without a break. Joe cut the fish, and the girls and I sold it and worked the grocery end and the cash register. We had to work hard, but he trusted us. If a customer complained, and we held our ground, just let the customer go too far and Joe would come over and tell the customer to get the hell out and never come back. Then on the trip home he’d want to know what really happened.

He had charisma. And he was honest. The regulars loved him. He was strong. He could lift a full fish box on his own. He knew the winds and tides of the Bay. He could navigate in bad weather with just his compass and his watch. He could swear to raise your scalp (though never with vulgarity) and he had a fierce temper. One Friday night we were making hamburgers in the back and he wanted a pickle and he couldn’t get the jar open and finally he just smashed the jar on the floor and took his damned pickle and walked away, and without a word we cleaned it up.

I loved him. I admired him. I spent the whole day in his presence. I helped him load and unload heavy boxes full of ice and fish. I helped him sell filet and clams and lobsters. I followed his instructions and watched his every move. I learned from him continually, and the more I learned, the more he let me do. He let us open clams and cut fish. The fourth summer, he went back to manage Whitecap three days a week, and he let his daughter Betsy and me run the store on the days he was away. On that Labor Day he handed me a bonus of a thousand bucks in cash.

I loved him for what he brought into my life by giving me that job. I loved him for his boat. I loved him for my being out on the water on mornings when the water was like glass and on other mornings when it blew so hard we had to hold on. I loved him for his knives and how he took care of them and his skill — six strokes to filet a bluefish. I loved him for the complexities in my life that he was at the center of. I loved him for what he had done with his own life.

Healthy Fear

And I was scared of him. I was afraid of him. I could not predict him. I never feared him hurting me, not in the least, nor did I ever experience him as unfair. But he was such a force and he was so free of me. I had learned, like many kids, how to manage my parents in certain ways. But Joe MacMillan was beyond my power to get what I wanted or even to influence. He was so totally his own man. For his own reasons he had asked me to work for him, and for his own reasons he was good to me.

One of the questions I get asked in my ministry is why the Bible says we should "fear God." People are troubled by this. How can "fear" be good? Mind you, it seems to me that "loving" God is even less comprehensible, but that doesn’t violate our biases.

Love and fear are both complex. Both are ethical as well as emotional, and actions as well as attitudes. I suppose they can occur in combinations that don’t make sense or are not good. But sometimes they do hitch up like strands of RNA, or like a Patchogue boy and a West Sayville girl. My explanations of how it’s good to fear the God you love are rarely convincing, but the combination does feel right to me. I learned that from Joe MacMillan.

What to Pray for Haiti

Here in Brooklyn we have a very large Haitian community, and we meet up with Haitians everywhere. So I have been asking the Haitians I talk to for one name to pray for, and that means that now I am praying for Alfred, Margaruite, and Desiree. Aflred is the uncle of one of the custodians at Congregation Beth Elohim. Margaruite is the aunt of a friend.

Desiree is family of the woman who served me coffee at the Burger King at the NY Thruway rest stop yesterday. Her accent sounded Haitian, and I could see she was having a bad time of it, so I said to her, "You've lost someone, haven't you," and she said yes. So I'm praying for Desiree.

I don't know what specificially to pray for. That's okay, cause I don't know the people personally. I just repeat their names. To the God who created the world which has tectonic plates which have to move and cause earthquakes.

We're all stunned and numbed, of course. Some people are saying that some good will come out of this for Haiti, such as better buildings (when rebuilt), massive investment, and new attention from the world. Maybe. Maybe. I have no idea.

After 9/11 in New York we could blame the Terrorists. But where can we go with our anger over the death and destruction in Port-au-Prince?

I can't explain it, I can't justify it, all I know is that it drives us all into the depths of our faith and the deepest realities we know. I find that it doesn't shake my belief in God one bit, but it forces us beyond our limits and to the face of God.

It's not that I blame God, or even that I hold God responsible. I mean I do hold God responsible for creating this world with physical and chemical laws, and I thank God that the laws of nature are binding, and I know that the rock formations in Haiti were just obeying the law. So in a sense I do hold God responsible for this earthquake and also for allowing us the freedom to live our lives. So this does not at all cause me to lose my respect and honor for God.

By now you have been revulsed by Pat Robertson's idiot words about "the pact with the devil." (What is this guy like at home?) It wasn't the French they kicked out, it was their slavery. Their slavemasters were the ones, if anyone, who had made a pact with the devil. Not that the phrase makes any real sense, but for a Christian people to keep slaves and use slaves and support slavery as acceptable is, as the Bible says, "to make a covenant with death."

So where should we go with our anger? Well, it might be better to turn our anger against the inequitable effects of the political-economic systems which we support and which give us comfort and profit but which have their grinding underside and their usual victims. We have met the devil and he . . . is us?

But more important than that, I'm guessing that the people who are busiest in the work of relief have the least time to get angry or to look for someone to blame.

I'm also praying (I really am) that God will speak to me in my own life for how best I can do my part. Why don't you do the same. (And donate. See the entry below.)

Ruled By Children

Park Slope is a "utopian commune ruled by children." So says John Hodgman as quoted in Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn. Too true.

I read this to my wife this morning, and she laughed. "That's great," she said, and then, "You know, I think when people stop worshipping God they start to worship their children. And that's more burdensome."

Ja, and it generates more guilt than any other religion I know of, along with oppressive legalism. I am continually amazed at the guilt and legalism of the Park Slope cult of children. I fly for refuge and relief to the lighter and more pleasant ease of Calvinism.

The worst part of it is the poor kids. The last thing they want is to be in charge. And yet they are never in charge of their own little lives, being so ceaselessly watched and constantly taken care of. But that is what one does with something sacred. Like the Masai with their cattle in East Africa.

On Sunday mornings, as I walk to church through Prospect Park, I often pass a "soccer school" for toddlers. Their parents dress them up in soccer gear and pay some hip jocks to teach their kids how to kick the ball, and then they watch them like medical students at a surgical theater and applaud them when they kick the ball near the goal. Those poor sacred kids.

The Next Step for our Homeless Men

Well, good news. We've got our homeless men housed. The Three Homeless of Old First, plus three more who have to Old First asking for help. Thanks to Common Ground, and the city's Department of Homeless Services, we've got a little thing going. Hooray.

But, here's the next step: Frying Pans. Curtains. Tea Towels. Dishes. Napkins. You know, the ordinary things, the personal touches that turn a house into a home.

So, the Park Slope Coalition for the Homeless is working on the next step. The Coalition includes Old First, Congregation Beth Elohim, the Park Slope Civic Council, and some neighbors.

Here’s how it works. Common Ground has selected ten clients (including the three who used to live on the steps of Old First) to receive housewarming care packages. Common Ground will help the clients with their wish lists (dishes, linens, bath accessories, small kitchen appliances, etc.). Once they finish the wish lists, it's our turn to get to work.

First, we’ll collect donated items on the wish lists, from now through July 27. Next, we’ll have volunteers work with the DHS to gather the donations and package them for delivery to the clients, and then deliver them, starting at the beginning of August.

For personal items, we'll help the clients choose their own items. They'll get gift cards to use at a the store of their choice. We'll need volunteers to assist the clients on their shopping trips, accompanied by a staff member from Common Ground or DHS.

Won’t you join us in this exciting opportunity to help our less fortunate neighbors? You can sign up with us at our coffee hour after church on Sundays. Or you can call the church office and leave your name and contact information. 718-638-8300.

(This was written by Pat Caldwell and Pastor Meeter)

Rehoboth: The Homeless Men of Old First

I have good news. Thanks to Common Ground, and the NYC Department of Homeless Services, we have found housing for our homeless men.

For Andy, for Gary, for Will, and now, finally, for Robert.

(We haven't seen Frank in many months, so I have no news on him.)

The whole new approach is "Housing First." That's what we've accomplished. God is good. Allahu akbar.

There is still so much to be addressed. Unemployment, poverty, depression, medical needs, etc. etc. Different needs for each man. You will still see them asking for your money. But they have the dignity and security of a room of their own.

"Rehoboth," said Isaac, in the Torah, which essentially means "roomy rooms." He said it when he could see that God had given him a place for home.

Despise the Shame

Watching the all the video clips of Eliot Spitzer's public statements, we couldn't help but watch his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer. (Jim Lehrer's Newshour had a piece on her last night.)

First you think, "What was he thinking?"

Then you remember why you're a Calvinist. Total depravity, etc. And why that's good news. And why we pray, "And there is no health in us. But thou O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders." If we can't get down to saying that, we can't live free.

And then, you think about the obvious courage, class, and dignity of Silda Wall Spitzer. She reminded me of that phrase in the old translation of Hebrews 2:12, "despising the shame and enduring the cross." What power and strength that takes.

How classy Jesus must have been. "Looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, and despised the shame."

Our New Homeless Ministry at Old First

God is good.
All the time.

In just a few months, God has taken Old First from a place of frustation to a place of joy and satisfaction.

Thanks to the notorious Three Homeless Men of Old First,
thanks to Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn,
thanks to Rabbi Andy Bachman,
thanks to the Department of Homeless Services, NYC,
thanks to Common Ground,
thanks to the interest of our own congregation,
thanks to the new Park Slope Coalition for the Homeless,
and thanks to God,
"Our shelter from the stormy blast
and our eternal home,"

we were able to rejoice two weeks ago (January 22) in being able to help begin to solve the homeless problem one person at a time. We were able to host, at Old First, the "Home Team" event, which, among other things, found homes for 28 people.

See the Common Ground link, and check out the "more photos" link. I love it that this was going on in our sanctuary. Makes the place kind of holy, don't you think?

That's our own Pat Caldwell, one of the volunteers, who was able to give real help, long lasting help, to someone she's been giving quarters to for years.

We hope to do more of these.

God is good,
all the time.

UCC and UMC

Watching the New Hampshire debate on Sunday night, I thought, how true to type they are.

Hillary Clinton stands for actions, not words.

Barack Obama stands for the power of words.

It's fitting that Hillary is a Methodist (UMC), and that Obama is Reformed (UCC).

The Methodists are the great pragmatists of Protestantism, the quintessential pragmatic traditionalists. The Reformed are all about the Word, sometimes even obstinately so.

Jim Wallis at Old First

Jim Wallis is the author of the book God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, and most recently of The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America.

Thanks to Wallis' organization Sojourners, and Park Slope's own Community Bookstore, Wallis will be reading from The Great Awakening at Old First on Tuesday, January 22, at 7:30 PM.

Click here for more information about the event, and for the opportunity to RSVP. It's important to RSVP as a large crowd is expected. There will be a permanent link in the sidebar of this blog for RSVPs as well.

Please Not Pettitte

Oh no, not Andy Pettitte. I have always loved Andy Pettitte as much as I hated Roger Clemens. (The great things about sports is you get to love and hate with the purity of the Psalms!) And not just because Andy Pettitte taught Sunday School.

I'm sorry, Theresa, in my posting earlier this week, that I compared our Sunday School team-teaching to you being Pettitte and me Posada.

(I'll still take Posada. Theresa, you can be Dontrelle. But please come to Queens, Dontrelle, take the 7-train, not the D-train.)

I always figured that Clemens was on Rocket Juice. But to learn that Andy Pettitte is supposed to have taken "human-growth-hormone" is just too hard to bear.

I always figured that Pettitte's friendship with Clemens had to be chalked up to Grace, like Jesus loving sinners. There goes that sentiment.

When my kids were small, we all were fans of Lenny Dykstra. When Nick was six and Anni was four they would call out "Lenny Dykstra" when they saw him up at bat. We loved his energy and style of play, but also that he was one of ours, not just a Dutchman, but a Frisian!

And then he bulked up and tried to be a long-ball hitter. God made him a lead-off man, and now he wanted to hit home runs. No, Lenny, no. And how did he get such big muscles over the winter?

Well, as Frank DeFord always says, sports is the entertainment business, and sports stars are entertainers. What we do is amplify entertainers.

This past week we had some children singing in our sanctuary, and they miked them and amplified them with enough electronic equipment for a Stones Tour. Children's voices on steroids. It seems to be what people want.

It can't be good for the souls of those children, and it was very bad for Lenny Dykstra's body. I don't know if Pettitte still teaches Sunday School, but Sunday Schools have to offer children a whole different set of expectations, and give them back their own small voices, and quiet sounds, and their bodies as temples.

Jim Wallis at Old First, January 22

The Lord willing, we will host author Jim Wallis at Old First on Tuesday, January 22, 2008, at 7 pm, in partnership with the Community Bookstore.

He will be reading from his new book, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious-Right America (Harper San Francisco).

The Community Bookstore will have copies for sale, and you can have your copy signed by Mr. Wallis.

Admission is free, and all are welcome. We are the second location in Mr. Wallis' nationwide tour to introduce the book, which debuts the day before, on January 21.

It will have been a big day for us at Old First. That morning we expect to host the second "Home Team" event in Brooklyn for the NYC Department of Homeless Services, working with the Park Slope Coalition for the Homeless.

Park Slope Coalition for the Homeless

Good news. We had our first meeting last night in the study of Rabbi Bachman at Beth Elohim. Please read his account of it. "A Visit from DHS," at http://www.brooklynjews.org/weblog/

Thank you, George and Jodi of the DHS of the City of New York. Thank you, Common Ground. Thank you, Park Slope Civic Council. Thank you, Beth Elohim. Thank you, Deacons of Old First.

More to come.

Weimaraner

As I was walking through the Park this morning on the way to work, I was thinking again about William Wegman's famous Weimaraner photos, and wondering why they trouble me. They feel vaguely exploitive, and disrepectful to the very dogs they celebrate. Sort of like what we did to natives and aborigines, when the European explorers brought them back to Europe, and dressed them up in formal clothes and showed them off, remarking how much manners they could be taught.

As I approached the bridge a dogwalker came out of the trees, accompanied by a Weimaraner! What coincidence. And an ally, I thought, who doubtless would confirm my opinions on the matter.

I said, point blank, "What do you think of Wegman's photos?"

She said, "I like them."

Drat. Oh dear.

I walked on, a little chastened in my self-righteousness.

But what is it that troubles me? There's nothing wrong with children dressing up their pets. We did it too. At the other end of the continuum is The Island of Doctor Moreau. It's a very broad continuum, and I don't dispute that Wegman is way over toward Dick, Jane, and Sally.

One of the most remarkable things about dogs is how "plastic" they are as a species. Much more than cats, for example. For some strange genetic reason, we can breed them into such distinct varieties (fr0m Chihuahuas to St. Bernards) that a visiting Martian, at first glance, would have to assume they're different species.

If we humans have done this to them generally, then what's wrong with what Wegman does?

And I know firsthand he treats them royally. I have a friend who is an assistant in that studio, and whose hands I have recognized sticking forward out of sleeves. Those dogs are loved. And they seem to enjoy their work.

I can't quite put my finger on it. And I'm not going to say it's immoral, or even wrong. But isn't there anyone else who finds it disrespectful to the very dogs that are being celebrated?

Update on the Homeless Men

In the words of the Leonard Cohen song, "It's come to this, oh yes, it's come to this."

First, I thank you all for your participation in this conversation. I thank you for your comments and your interest. In particular I thank the Park Slope Civic Council for their desire to be part of a solution, and I thank Rabbi Andy Bachman and Congregation Beth Elohim for their offering to support us and assist us. ("Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things.")

Second, now that this conversation has started, it needs to keep developing. If Park Slope was just voted the best neighborhood in NYC, then why shouldn't homeless people want to live here too? A truly diverse community needs to embrace its FULL diversity. Old First wants to be part of the continuing conversation, especially with Beth Elohim and the Civic Council.

Third, because this is a developing story, let me update you on the weekend. There are some new facts on the ground. On Sunday afternoon, the cops were called in twice by neighbors. I have to say the cops were great.

As left the church on Sunday evening, I found a steel bar the guys were keeping as a weapon. On Monday morning I learned that the men had been urinating in front of nursery school children and into their play-yard. On Monday evening a deacon confirmed to me that the men had exposed themselves in front of children while urinating.

Yesterday Frank showed me his face, very badly bruised. He told me had fallen, but I don't believe him. His face tells a different story. This morning I removed a blanket with blood stains on it.

"It's come to this, oh yes, it's come to this." (I guess I always expected it would come to this.)

I have been denying them permission to sleep on our grounds since last July, but I found it impossible to enforce. As of this morning, the Commander of Precinct 78 agreed with me that the police would enforce it.

The story isn't over. What's going to happen next, I don't know. But now that the community seems to have woken up I want it to stay involved. The men were sleeping and hanging out at Old First because Old First is public space for the community, and because, like anyone, they want a short commute, and they work on Seventh Avenue.

So please don't give them money. Give them food. Address them by name. Robert, Will, and Frank.

It's not over for us with them either at Old First. We have three deacons who will work on this with me. We'll get back to you.

Meanwhile, you might check the Brooklyn Paper for a story this weekend.

The Homeless Men at Old First

Their names are Robert Royster, Will Franklin, and Frank. They cause me a great deal of trouble, and lots of anger from our neighbors, and I do wish they would go away, but, whatever else, they remain human beings, images of God, and they need to be treated with respect.

People keep asking why don't we get rid of them. We can't. We've tried. Believe me, we have tried. They have abused our hospitality, they piss on our building, they leave food around, they leave garbage all over, they play their radio at great volumes (God forgive me, I have had to resort to theft against them to deal with that one). They are a pain in the neck. But we will not treat them as less than human beings.

We have tried to get rid of them. We've discovered the hard way that we can't do it, we can't beat them. Whenever I chase them away, they just wait an hour, two hours, and they come back. I go home at night, and they come back. No matter what we do or say, they come back.

I will confess a strong desire inside myself to just let them be. It's Jesus' church, not mine, not ours, and the New Testament is very clear about our hospitality to the poor. "The poor you will always have with you." The parable of Lazarus. Etc. You get the point. And there is no asterix pointing to a codicil that says, "the nice poor."

But at the same time I recognize we belong to a community, and the church has the responsiblity to be a good neighbor, and if the guys scare the kids, and make lewd comments at women and passersby, and if they leave food scraps around for vermin to get at, etc. etc., then, well, I know that the church has to be a good neighbor. So we decided this last July that they absolutely had to go. We tried to get rid of them. As I said, we couldn't.

We chased them away every morning. They came back every night. We threw out their stuff. They found new stuff. Only now they started getting even more hostile, to us and to other passersby. We finally found that we couldn't beat them, and the only thing was to try to control it. Yes, they beat us.

The cops can't do anything either, apparently. If you call them, you have to wait there, on the spot for about half an hour till the cops come, and all they can say is "Scram," and they give you dirty looks for taking up their time, and half an hour later the guys are back.

The cops have to catch them in the act of public urination or public consumption of liquor, which are misdemeanors, and mean nothing to anyone, or catch them inside the building, which is trespassing, and might mean a trip to Rikers Island, but Rikers is already over-crowded and they don't want to put vagrants there.

Why are they there at Old First? Easy. The money is good on Seventh Avenue. The money dries up, the guys go. Where I grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant there are no panhandlers. Up at Ethical Culture the front porch is deeper and drier, but people don't give out money on PPW.

Old First is the only church on Seventh Avenue without a fence. That's important to us, we love it that people sit on our steps and that kids run on the top of our little wall. And that's also why they are at Old First.

Today, again, I cleaned up their garbage. Waddayagonnado. But I will not remove their sleeping bags. Some of our neighbors think I should do that. But that's a moral line I will not cross. The Torah is very clear, that you should not take from a poor man what keeps him warm at night. Leaving their filthy sleeping bags there is my little attempt to be moral in this whole thing, and honor the basic dignity the Torah assigns them.

I used to talk to them and pray with them. I used to be able to reason with them. That's no longer possible. They're drinking 24/7 lately. They are nasty to me too. How long this will go on I do not know. In the short term, it's people giving them money that keeps it going. In the long term, they are killing themselves. If they manage to get arrested, they will get cleaned up at Rikers, and we'll have them back in February!

Before Robert had descended to his current condition, and when he had sober moments, he used to pray very moving prayers for certain people in the area. for poor children, for illiterates (such as himself), for soldiers, for forgiveness of his sins. I hate what has become of him. I always knew it would be coming.

It's a grief, and we're at our wits end. We have been unable to find any solution. In a strange way, the three of them are in control. Robert, Will, and Franklin.

They have names. They have souls. They belong to our community. They tell us something about ourselves.