Signs of the Kingdom

Preached at Prescott Baptist

December 2, 2012

Psalm 25:4-10

Luke 21: 25-36

I learned to swim at Santa Fe Lake in north Florida. Nothing fancy about the place. It’s just a lake, spring fed, surrounded by cypress trees and sprawling live oaks. When the extreme heat of a summer day made all of us wilt and get cranky, my mother would make sandwiches and put them in a basket and when she was ready, my father would honk the car horn and all four of us kids (along with any of our cousins or friends who happened to be visiting) would scramble into the back of our Rambler station wagon and drive to the lake.

There was a sandy parking area next to a small dilapidated dressing room. When the car stopped we ran down the hill screaming and hollering as if to warn any snakes or alligators of our approach.  The water was the color of weak coffee. Older kids ran to the end of the dock and jumped as high as they could and then grabbed their knees up around their bodies competing to make the largest canon-ball kersploosh! I daintily put my toes into the shallow water and disturbed the rippled sand on the shore.  That’s what I did until I learned to swim. 

Laverne Sullivan, a neighbor boy and my older brothers’ friend, took time and patience to teach me how to swim. It began with floating on my back. “You need to learn to trust the water and not be afraid of it,” Lavern kept his hands and forearms under my back as I stretched my arms out straight. The other boys would come splashing around, kicking and making waves. A fishing boat would pass by and waves would lap up over my cheeks. “Just breathe and relax,” Lavern said. “The best swimmers know how to relax and trust the water to hold them up.”

In the scripture from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus points out these frightening cosmic signs: the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth distressed, the nations at war and roaring of the sea and the waves. Jesus tells the gathered crowd that when these signs arrive our redemption is getting close. But it sounds more like a tidal wave will push us under and wash us away. We can see the congregation cringing from Jesus and the images he’s using.

So Jesus gets closer to what’s familiar for us: a fig tree heralds the arrival of a beginning. We see the green leaves sprouting signaling that spring is not far away. At the same time the green buds signal an ending, the end of winter and its cold air.

We are familiar with endings and beginnings. We know birth and the signs to look for: the pains get sharper and the contractions come closer together. Breathing gets rapid and shallow. The baby is on the way! We are familiar with death as the gaze of the one dying moves from the faces in the room toward a spot up high in the corner, toward a place most of us don’t yet have eyes to see. The breathing slows, gets further apart, rattles and halts. The spirit ends this life and enters its new life and leaves the weight of the human body behind. We are familiar with the changes that come with beginnings and endings. We think of it as natural.

We have been encouraged to think of Christ’s return as terrifying. Some will be taken, some will be left behind. All who are left behind will be terrified. The language and images that are used by ministers like John Hagee in San Antonio and Hal Lindsey of the Left Behind series would have us believe that some people will be driving a car and be lifted up into the air out of their car and the car, left to drive itself, will careen into children on their bikes and old folks walking home from the grocery store. Pilots in airplanes will suddenly fly out of the cockpit to be with Jesus while the plane and all its passengers hurtle to earth. But rapture theology is a distortion of Christian faith. According to the basic rapture credo, the world cannot be saved. God intends to destroy it: every blade of grass, every tree, every sparrow, every elephant and ocean.

This kind of theology rose up in reaction to the social gospel movement in the early 1900’s. The social gospel focused on making the world a better place, reaching out and expanding God’s grace so as to increase advantages for the poor and marginalized. The creators of rapture theology reacted to that notion, emphasizing that there is no need to improve conditions here on earth. There is no need to take good care of the earth itself: its water, air, land and animals since it is doomed. Rapture theologians encourage Christians to focus, instead, on saving people (individuals) out of this sinful world. Chicago evangelist, Dwight L. Moody used the image of a shipwreck, saying “individual survivors might be rescued, but the vessel itself was beyond hope.” This might be called a theology of despair.  (13) Rossing

God does not come to take us away from our home and this earth. God is not some terrorist who suddenly shoots fireballs from the sky. What we know of God is that Jesus came to live with us, among us, sharing every joy and sorrow, every beginning and ending that human life can experience. For love of life God has become one of us. 

The signs are all around us that God is love. And we have nothing to fear when it comes to entering the Kingdom of God. 

I had the opportunity on Wednesday afternoon of this week to meet with the Director of Shelby County Division of Correction, Mr. James Coleman. He is a warm and friendly man, easy to like, a good listener. I took him to see the theater in the basement of First Congregational Church, the place where public performances of Prison Stories are staged. Prison Stories lifts up and respects the stories of women who are currently incarcerated in the Shelby County Jail. I told Mr. Coleman that my goal in each public performance is that no person in the audience should leave the theater feeling smug or as if he or she could never be in jail or in trouble with the law. Some of us have more advantages or privileges and that’s what’s kept us out of jail and not that we are morally superior to the women who are currently housed in our jail.

“That’s right,” Director Coleman held his hat in hand as he spoke,” the only difference between me and the inmates is that I wasn’t caught.” 

We went upstairs and sat on a couple of couches in the hallway as we continued to talk.

Director Coleman is a man my age and he has spent his career working in corrections. He has had many years to consider what goes wrong with the life of somebody who ends up in jail. 

“We live in a world where we equate success with having things, lots of things and bigger and better things. So if a person has things, a flat-screen TV, a big shiny SUV, a gold chain and expensive high-top shoes, then he or she is considered a success, no matter how those things were acquired.” 

And when you stop to think about it—how we value things and how we work to buy things—it’s no wonder that it’s easy to frighten us with talk about Christ’s return and cosmic fireballs. If what we truly value and cherish was not ours when we began this life then we will not be taking it with us when we leave. We’re frightened not because God is so terrifying and cruel but because we value things more than life, more than the natural beginning and endings that come with the cycles of God’s gracious life. 

Just as a follow-up to last Sunday’s sermon and the story of Devin McCuddy and her release from the county jail wearing nothing but a paper suit. Director Coleman asked to meet with me so he could apologize. He said, “I am sorry that you had to awaken my conscience about those paper suits. When I took this job nearly three years ago I told myself I would get rid of those things right away. But so many things have come across my desk. So many people have been at my door. I forgot. And I thank you for bringing it back to my attention. We’ll change that and make sure every person gets something decent to wear upon their release. You have my word.” 

As Christians we live in an in-between time. Christ has come. Christ has risen. And here we are waiting for Christ’s return. It is not a time to be idle or frightened. It is a time to be bold and active in the struggle to make the signs of the kingdom visible for all people to see clearly. God is love now and always for everyone and everything. 

Martin Luther is quoted as saying, “If I knew the world were going to end tomorrow I would plant a tree.” This illustrates the traditional understanding of how we are to wait for Christ’s return. We are to root ourselves more and more deeply in the confidence of God’s love for all creation. “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,” Jesus taught us to pray. God’s reign will come on earth and all creation will rejoice. 

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. For the next four weeks we will take action to prepare a place for Christ to come, a space where new life can emerge and take root in our hearts, souls and relationships with each other. We will make room in the daily and ordinary stuff of our lives. You might set aside a place and a time. Each day go to that place and spend time in silence and prayer. Open up something new inside yourself. Intentionally let go of something during the next four weeks. Put an end to something that has limited your love for yourself and God. Be bold and active as you wait for the birth of the Christ Child. 

We are familiar with beginnings and endings. We know the signs. Every story has a beginning. In the beginning there was the word and the word was God and the word was with God.

Every story comes to an end.  As kids at Sante Fe Lake we played in the water and along the shore until we were exhausted at the end of the day. We got back in the station wagon and Daddy drove toward home. We slept in the back, stacked all over each other. 

This is how the ride home goes. The one who brought us safely here in the first place is the one who will take us safely home. “The best swimmers know how to relax and trust the water to hold them up.” 

Amen

The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation, Barbara R. Rossing, Basic Books, NY, 2004

Belonging to the Truth

Preached at Prescott Baptist Church

November 25, 2012

Psalm 93

John 18:33-38

The longer I live the more curious I am about Truth. What is Truth for me and is there an absolute Truth for me?  The longer I live and the more I listen to stories that people tell about their lives, I have come to believe that every person will arrive at his or her own Truth if we listen with adequate respect and compassion.  Every teller has his or her own Truth in the story they share.

Twenty-one years ago Devin McCuddy was born in Memphis at Methodist Hospital downtown. Her mother was addicted to drugs and in such bad shape that the courts awarded custody of the baby girl to her father. He moved to Alaska for work and took the baby with him. She grew up in Alaska and remembers the long winters, periods of darkness and cold. She remembers the joy of spring’s thaw and the first signs of new life. 

When Devin was a teenager her father was convicted of a crime and sent to prison. She was in a relationship with a boy-friend who took her to Michigan with him, promising to work and to take good care of her in their new life. The life in Michigan was new but not good. It was bad enough that Devin escaped from her boy-friend’s life and set out to find something better back in Memphis. She hoped to find family, friends, a fresh start. 

But something went wrong. There was another guy and a fight. The police were called. She was arrested for domestic assault. The courts charged her a fine of $250.00. Devin was not able to pay the fine so she spent a month in jail and when that jail term was over she owed the county $725 because people are charged rent for the time they spend in jail. That’s something I didn’t realize until I started going to jail and listening to the stories that women tell. People leave jail with debt as well as the stigma of being an ex-con.

Two weeks ago I woke up on Tuesday morning the 1^3th of November and I called to Anna, “Hey look! It was really cold last night! The bird bath is frozen over. First time this year.” 

That same morning I got a message on Face Book from a friend at Manna House, a place of hospitality for homeless people. The message said:

This morning a woman showed up at Manna House who had spent the bitter cold night outside, in a paper suit. She had been released in the middle of the night from the Penal Farm. She made her way to Manna House. Thankfully we could offer her a hot shower and warm clothes. What is wrong with a criminal justice system that just releases a woman out into the streets in the middle of the night in freezing temperatures wearing only a paper suit?

What is wrong with a criminal justice system that releases a woman out into the streets in the middle of the night in freezing temperatures wearing only a paper suit? I would like to know the Truth in this story.

So I sent a message to Mayor A C Wharton, District Attorney Amy Weirich and Mayor Mark Luttrell. I have had no response from Mayor Wharton. The truth may be that he never saw my message. Or the truth may be that the city mayor does not feel responsible for the county’s correctional system. It just seems sad to me that if the woman in her paper suit had of died, been raped or murdered in the Memphis city streets during that long, cold night—her situation and her story would then have become a matter under the mayor’s control.

District Attorney Weirich responded to me:

Thank you for sending this [message.] My first thought is we should inquire of the penal farm what their policies are for release and how this could happen. As you know, my office has no control over the prisons. I would be interested in what you discover.

The DA wants to know what I find out.   But how we release prisoners is not, she says, under her control.

It was Mayor Luttrell who responded immediately and he expressed concern. Mayor Mark Luttrell was the director of Shelby County Division of Corrections himself not too long ago. He thanked me for telling him about the woman in her paper suit, informed me that it was not a matter under his control and connected me with other people, PR people: Chris Washington and Steve Shular.

Steve Shular, PR man for Shelby County, has been in conversation with me. He says that the county would not release an inmate on a cold night in a paper suit without also giving the person a coat. I have been listening to women in jail tell stories for three years and I have never heard a story about a coat being given to a person upon release. I have heard many stories about men and women being released wearing only a paper suit.  

Steve Shular said that he was sorry about the released woman’s story and that if I could find the woman out on the streets of Memphis he would like for me to document the story. The truth about who she is, what’s her name, exactly when she was released and under what conditions she was released. 

I talked with Pete Gathke and I drove over to Manna House where I learned that the woman who had been released wearing only a paper suit was named Devin. She was a white woman and they thought she might be twenty-five years old. I went to The Hub downtown because I teach a class at Memphis Theological Seminary and one of the students, Kelcey Johnson, in my preaching class works at The Hub. I learned that the woman’s last name is McCuddy and I found her at the Sisters of Mercy Shelter on Seventh Street. I visited with her and documented her story. 

On Monday evening, November 12, she was given a ride to the corner of Adams and Danny Thomas where an abandoned gas station sits. She was released at 6:00 pm wearing only a paper suit. It was cold and it was dark. Six male inmates were also released at the same time and at the same place. A woman was driving the bus and she said nothing to Devin. The bus driver, an employee for SCDC, simply opened the door of the bus and gestured toward the street. There was no coat on anyone’s back. Everyone was wearing a paper suit. Devin looked to see that the men were walking north so she walked south. She kept walking all night long in an effort to stay warm. A homeless man gave her a pair of socks to wear and told her about Manna House, a place where she could get hot coffee, clothes and a shower. She was there, according to the volunteers, when the door opened. They all report that she had the look of a deer in the headlights. 

Is it true that our county corrections system releases people into the street without a plan for a single meal on the outside or a place to belong? Is it true that we humiliate people who have already served their sentence by putting them out in public with only paper to protect their naked bodies? Is it true that we stop caring about people if they get into trouble and have to spend time in jail? Are we living with disposable neighbors all around us? And can we identify them by their disposable clothing? 

So many unanswered questions. So many people in positions of authority willing to say they have no control over the situation.  

“What have you done?” Pilate asks. He’s sure this man before him has broken a law and needs to be punished for something. The truth is that Jesus was accused and dragged in for questioning. A common criminal no doubt, a problem for Pilate to solve. What kind of control would Pilate have over the Truth in this situation? A Truth that would set people free for eternity.

Tell the truth! What have you done? What have any of us ever done to deserve being turned out alone on a cold night wearing only a paper jump suit? 

“Are you then a criminal?”

“You say that I am a criminal, a disposable person as you stop the bus and gesture for me to get lost.”

According to some men I met on the street who have been in and out of jail themselves over the last decade, the tax-payers of Shelby County used to provide case management for persons released from the county’s jail. Inmates were given individualized plans upon release, someone to pick them up and some place to belong.

The truth, I’m told by men on the street, is that the case management was taken out of the budget six years ago. Too expensive and there was no public outcry. 

The truth is that we have so many concerns in our own life stories. We feel exhausted by the truth that there are people we have chosen to stop caring about. 

 “For this I was born and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

The Son of God stood accused and in a court of law without benefit of any public defense. It was his word against all the people who betrayed him, accused him and put him before the authorities. One vulnerable man dressed in nothing special, certainly not clothes worthy of royalty. A disposable man. Pilate had his own life to live and his own plans for the evening.

The truth may be that Devin McCuddy was given a coat upon her release from jail. It is possible she is withholding that information. I doubt that. But it is possible. If she was given a coat it is a rare situation—according to the men and women who have been released into the city streets on other cold nights in the past. But maybe the truth this time included a coat. No one is denying that she was turned out on a dark street on a cold night.

Interestingly enough, the director of SCDC, Warden Coleman, has asked for a private meeting with me. He wants to meet with me on Wednesday afternoon at 2:00. And I look forward to listening to his story and hearing his truth in all of this.

We all know the truth: It is not right to abandon a neighbor to the cold and the dark and the awful experience of not belonging anywhere.  

I went to see Devin yesterday morning just to see how she is doing after a few days with the Sisters of Mercy. She is hoping to get work as a housekeeper through Job Corps. She needs a pair of black pants and a pair of black shoes in order to do the job. Size 14 pants and size 9 shoes. 

It is possible that she has no intention of getting a job or doing any kind of work that’s legal. I doubt it but it is possible.  Hearing about her need for pants and shoes allows me the opportunity to listen to something outside this world. The truth is something that belongs to me when I recognize my need to simply be a good neighbor to Devin.

The truth is that we are called by the example of Jesus to clothe the naked, visit those who are in prison and be compassionate toward those who have been left outside in the cold.

I plan to get a pair of black pants and a pair of black shoes today and take them to Devin. 

This is not something I choose to do because I am some kind of hero. It’s not something I choose to be part of because I am somehow superior to the woman who was left out in the cold. But it is one small way I can be reminded that we all belong to the Truth  and the promise of God's love, a love that brings all of us in from the cold and gives us a place to belong.

Not one of us deserves the gift of Jesus’ love and sacrifice. Yet all of us are able to receive it. And that’s the Truth that brought us together here in this place today.

Amen

Without Dread

Proverbs 1: 20-33

Preached at Prescott Baptist Church

September 16, 2012

When we were children my brother, Stanley, and I played in the creek down the hill from our home. A small waterway, Sweet Water Branch ran right through the heart of Gainesville. At its deepest the creek was about four feet deep. It widened into the duck pond about four blocks north of us. Sometimes we took stale bread to the duck pond and scattered it for the quacking birds. Elephant ears and ferns hung from the banks all along the creek bed and leaned toward the water. Live oak trees and grape vines were covered with Spanish moss in the wooded area around the creek. Stanley and I made forts in the woods. He was the soldier and I was the cook. While Stanley fought the enemies that threatened our fort, I made salads from rhododendron leaves and lantana blossoms. I dug up roots from the sandy soil and put them on a plate beside bright pieces of fungus and mushrooms. The soldier came in and pretended to eat with me.  Both of us wore cowboy hats back then; we wore cowboy boots and we had cap guns in our pants pockets. 

One day I was busy making salad when Stanley started shouting in the distance. He came back to the fort with a big shopping bag. It was bright blue and heavy enough that Stanley was dragging it along the path behind him. “I found a treasure!” 

And so he had! We dumped the bag on the ground inside our fort and squealed with delight! Money!! A ten dollar bill and a five, crumpled ones. Quarters and dimes. So many pennies. I found two tubes of lipstick. A Bible. Comb and brush. Purple earbobs. A bill fold. An old worn pair of shoes. Handkerchiefs. Socks. A short pencil. A bottle of perfume. We looked carefully through everything so as not to miss any coins or bills. “We’re rich!” Stanley shouted.

“How much money do we have?”

It took a while to gather it together and count it. “Thirty two dollars and eighteen cents!” Stanley crowed! 

“I can buy a red scooter!” I was already riding down First Avenue in my mind, my pony tails flying straight out behind my back. 

“I’m buying a Tonka truck, the yellow dirt-grater!” Stanley danced around. We put the money in our pockets. Then we danced and clapped and shouted our way out of the woods.  There was no place in the woods for spending money. Neither one of us said it but we both knew we were heading for McCrory’s Five and Dime.

Our neighbor, Dr. Abbott, was in her yard and pulling weeds. She looked up from her work as we came by. “What’s all the excitement about?” Dr. Abbott was the grandmotherly type. She had retired from teaching at the University of Florida and she spent hours in her yard, down on her hands and knees, weeding, planting, mulching. She was smart and she turned her smart eyes on us that day.

“We found a treasure, Dr. Abbott! We’re rich!” I boasted. I could already see how amazed Dr. Abbott’s face would look when she saw me sailing by on my new red scooter. “Look at this!” I pulled bills out of my pocket and lifted them high in the air like a prize.

“Treasure?” She was already interested. “Where did you kids find this treasure?”

“We were playing down at the creek and we found this bag!” Stanley took the bright blue bag in both of his hands and lifted it up off the ground.

Dr. Abbott stood up and brushed her knees off. She came over to look inside the bag. She pulled out scraps of paper and looked at them. “This is not a treasure that belongs to you kids,” she said. “This is someone’s bag. She’ll be looking for it. Here’s a name and address right here.”

I was feeling sad and Stanley was looking confused. He said, “No, it’s our treasure because we found it.” 

“It’s not yours to keep but it can be yours to return.” Dr. Abbott said. “I’m going in to call Franny Wells. Her name and address are written here.” She showed us the paper but we couldn’t read so we just followed along, feeling a little bit robbed.

Well, Dr. Abbott made the phone call and then she got the keys to her car. “You kids can ride with me. How about putting that money back in the bag?  I know you want Ms Wells to have her money.” I was kind of sure that I wanted a red scooter but I emptied my pockets of the money and dropped it in the bag. Stanley did the same. 

We rode in the back seat out toward Newnan’s Lake. Dr. Abbott turned off the highway on a muddy road and we rode back into a marshy area. The car stopped and we all walked up to a small house. A woman opened the door just a small crack. “Yes?”

“Are you Franny Wells?” Dr. Abbott asked cheerily.

“I am. And you’ve got my bag there. I left that bag for one minute and it disappeared.” The woman snatched her bag out of Dr. Abbott’s hand and closed the door tightly. We heard a latch turn on the inside. 

The three of us were stunned there on the porch. But Dr. Abbott quickly led us toward her car. Stanley was mad. “She didn’t even say thank you! We could have kept her old bag. She just left it on the ground! Some people might have given us a reward for returning their bag.”

Dr. Abbott started the car and turned toward home.  We sat fuming in the backseat. Half way home, Dr. Abbott turned to look at us while we stopped for a red light. “Kids,” she said, “you didn’t return that woman’s bag so she would say thank you. You didn’t take it back to her so she could give you a reward. You returned what belonged to Ms Wells because you’re the kind of children who do the right thing.”  The light turned green and Dr. Abbott drove on down the road. 

When we got to her house she opened the back door for us. “You understand?” We couldn’t look at her because we did understand and somehow we didn’t even want to hear what she had to say next. “You got your reward, both of you. Now you know that you’re the kind of children who will do the right thing.” 

We stayed away from the creek for a few days, fearful I guess that we might discover treasure that would have to be returned. But somehow that experience has stuck with me. There was an enduring reward for Stanley and me that day. We went to bed with a new understanding of what it meant to be a good neighbor, an honest person. Wisdom lived in our neighborhood and was willing to engage in our educational process. 

Inside each of us lives a mixture of light and darkness, of evil and good. At any point we might be the saint or the sinner. But when our neighbors look at us and reflect back at us the light they see within us—we begin to identify or re-identify with the light and the goodness inside us more than the darkness. 

As children we are so afraid of the monsters that live under the bed. To let my arm slip off the mattress and dangle toward the floor was to invite a nasty roar, sharp teeth and a life threatening attack. As we grow older and mature we let go of our childish fears and we develop new fears: fear of being accused, fear of being misunderstood, fear of being abandoned, fear of living without purpose or goal. We put on our adult clothes and mask our fears with some kind of defense. And along the way we lose touch with the treasure within ourselves, the wisdom that lives inside us, the wisdom that reassures us we have nothing to fear. 

The incarnation was all about reassurance:  a birth on earth and among us, and a life that brought promise to all people. God chose to address our fears and our lack of faith by coming to live among us and to show us who we really are, how significant we are to the one who created us. We are not alone. We have not been forgotten or abandoned. The reward of our faith is this: We can know ourselves as people who have been claimed by Love and filled with Love’s wisdom. We can know ourselves as people who do the right thing. It’s requires practice and none of us do the right thing all the time. But wisdom is always within us and among us to engage in our educational process, our faith building process. 

I had my sixtieth birthday this past week. It is so hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that I am so elderly now. I am among those who have lived long enough to know something of wisdom, to have something worth sharing with the younger people in my neighborhood and in our city. And yet I am so aware of my continued education as I constantly realize how much I have to learn about life, relationships, faith and death.

There is much to dread it would seem. The world is no longer as safe as it seemed when I was four. Mothers no longer let their children go down the street to play, unsupervised, at the creek. 

This last week has been another time of religious extremism and violence in the east and in the west. A Christian nonprofit in the United States created a film, “Innocence of Muslims,” that characterizes the prophet Mohammed as a womanizing buffoon and a child molester. Outraged by this insult, the Islamic extremists have staged attacks against American embassies and consulates in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunis. Australia has had angry protests too. The outrage is spreading.  Hillary Clinton said, “The people of Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia did not trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob.” 

Wisdom calls out in the streets of every nation. She is unattached to any particular religious belief. She is Wisdom and as such she is universal in her longing for peace and redemption of all life on earth. She urges each one of us toward our own center where she resides.

“Do not do unto others what you would not have others do unto you.” This wise principle lies at the foundation and in the heart of every religious system. Wisdom lifts this principle of compassion up high in our streets, in our homes, in our literature, in our media—every chance she gets. Wisdom belongs to no particular religion but urges all religious people to live in respect and compassion for one another. 

Today marks the 48th anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama.The bomb, planted by the Ku Klux Klan, a Christian extremist group, killed four black children, little girls. Just days after the bombing, white lawyer Charles Morgan Jr. spoke to the all-white Young Men's Business Club in Birmingham. “And who is really guilty,” he asked the crowd. “Each of us. Each citizen who has not consciously attempted to bring about peaceful compliance with the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States…every person in this community who has in any way contributed during the past several years to the popularity of hatred.” 

Tonight—as the sun sets—our Jewish neighbors and friends will enter the high and holy day of Rosh Hashanah and ten days of atonement.  Our Hindu neighbors and friends will celebrate Rada Stami Festival this week, the birthday of Krishna’s wife. Our Buddhist neighbors here in Memphis are inviting all of us to join them this coming week in several events focused on compassion and peaceful living.  We are not alone in our efforts to honor wisdom. We are not the only ones who are learning how to be people who do the right thing.

We are called to live our faith in the streets and market places as well as in the privacy of our own homes and places of worship. We are called to be ambassadors for wisdom, to remind one another, even when the riots come closer to our streets and churches, when violence comes to our door, that we hold a treasure within us.

We can live without dread because we are the kind of people who do the right thing. We return what does not belong to us and deliver it to its rightful owner. We hold on to the integrity of our own faith while respecting and honoring the faith of all other religions. We are one family, the children of Wisdom. In this life and in the life to come, she calls to us and shows us the way to live in peace and without dread.

Amen