Janani Jakaliya Luwum, Martyr, Priest, Enemy of Idi Amin
Janani Jakaliya Luwum knew that he carried only a letter and no weapons but he was aware that the actions he was setting himself about would carry violent repercussions. As Archbishop of the Anglican church in Uganda, he knew that critical words could very well result in his own death at the hands of the man whom his letter addressed: Idi Amin. Yet, he was gripped with a faith that said it would be better to suffer while speaking truth to the dangerous and powerful than it would be to poison his soul and mind by stifling the movement of the Holy Spirit. He had converted to Christianity when he was approximately twenty-six years old and had gone on to ministerial training the following year. Janani had taken vows before God and the Church that he would not shirk his duties as a shepherd and priest and in doing so he might have been signing his own death warrant. He was ordained a priest in 1954 and Amin came to power in 1971. Yet, Amin’s power could not deter Janani. So, he wrote a letter and personally delivered it to Idi Amin. The letter was a group effort of clerical leaders in Uganda protesting Amin’s way of keeping power and control through the easy distribution of military death to those who stood in his way. For bringing yet more attention to these deaths and disappearances–and especially for the letter–Janani was arrested and charged with treason.
It was January 16, 1977, when Janani was arrested along with two other cabinet ministers. Idi Amin and his henchmen immediately went to work spreading slander and lies about Janani’s politics and offenses. He was labeled a traitor and paraded before a crowd. As he and a large audience looked on, other men were brought onto a stage who confessed to knowing about and participating in illegal activities with Janani and his companions. Idi Amin insisted to all who would listen that Janani had been trying to initiate a coup against him and was intent on violent insurrection. The men who had confessed had never met Janani but Idi Amin had used them to implicate the Janani and his companions. The “confessors” were freed for they had done their part and there was never any intention to punish them–they were merely there to win the crowd’s approval. After the supposed “confessions” were heard, Janani and the men were put into a car to be transferred to an interrogation center. The next day, it was reported that they had crashed on their way to the interrogation center and all three had died from their injuries.
Yet, when they found the bodies and prepared them for burial they noticed that Janani had been shot multiple times are relatively close range. He had been shot once with a pistol in his mouth and three times in the chest. The story leaked out that they had been transferred to a military base where they were beaten, tortured, threatened, and finally shot to death. Idi Amin himself pulled the trigger that stole the life of Janani. He died a martyr because he refused to compromise the truth and he would not be frightened by the threats of those in power. For this offense, he died. By this offense, he proclaimed life deeper and more real than any that the world’s powers could offer.
Read more from Joshua Hearne at his personal website and the website of Grace and Main Fellowship, the non-traditional community he ministers with.
Faithlab chosen as launch partner
Faithlab is excited to be chosen as a launch partner with TypeEngine, a new service that enables publishers to easily create and share elegant and fast-loading digital magazines through Apple’s Newsstand. Faithlab will be publishing a new magazine titled, Spare Change. We will be revealing more about the publication in the coming weeks.
Read the full press release below:
TypeEngine chooses 12 publishers to create iPad/iPhone-optimized magazines
Apple Newsstand platform opens beta to US, international digital publishers
SEATTLE, Wa 18 Feb 2013 – TypeEngine, an Apple Newsstand publishing platform, released the names of its launch partners prior to its roll-out in Q2 2013.
TypeEngine is part of the growing movement toward micropublishing and subcompact publishing, where magazines are specifically designed for digital platforms and their unique requirements.
Previously, digital magazines were designed with print aesthetics in mind, sacrificing functionality and user experience.
The first set of magazines to be launched span a wide range of topics and interests. Technology, music, market research, green living and crafting are among the themes represented.
Publishers are located in the US, Thailand and Australia. Where applicable, publication names were also shared. Titles may change closer to launch.
- The King’s Tribune
- 30 Day Books – The Write Life
- Frank Frank Frank – Frankly
- I Am The Lab – The LAB Journal
- The Faith Lab – Spare Change
- Logic Product Group
- Maritz Research – Research Forum
- Matthew Guay – Techinch
- Patrick Rhone
- Riccardo Mori
- The Mac Instructor – The Newsletter
- I Care If You Listen
TypeEngine creates magazine apps that are designed from the ground up for Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Publishers own their apps, release magazines under their own names and get subscription fees paid directly to them from Apple.
TypeEngine will also submit apps for Apple’s approval on behalf of publishers, removing an important barrier to entry for independent publishers.
Images, video and audio are supported. TypeEngine’s web console allows writing and editing using MultiMarkdown and a multi-user editing workflow.
“Magazines are categorically not dead,” said Jamie Smyth, founder of the Smyth Group which is developing TypeEngine. “But regurgitating PDFs onto iPads is dead.”
“We are enabling both indie and business publishers to publish magazines optimized for reading on iPhones and iPads. Readers have suffered through slow-to-download, cruft-ridden PDF magazines long enough. We are helping writers and publishers create high quality reading experiences.”
The Smyth Group is based out of Seattle, Washington.
Philothei, Martyr, Spiritual Mother, Domestic Abuse Survivor
Philothei was a good daughter in an affluent family in Athens. She did as she was instructed by her parents and offered them her heart’s deepest love in return. When she was twelve, she was courted by a powerful and influential man. He was wealthy and involved in the politics and leadership of the city. She was very hesitant to marry, however, because she felt a calling that seemed to be at odds with marriage–passionate and sacrificial devotion to her Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, she was obedient to her parents who insisted that this man seemed like a good man and would surely give her freedom to express her faith as freely and clearly as she could.So, she was married to the man and she suffered secretly within his house and his embrace. He was an abusive man who routinely punished her for perceived slights and failures and insisted that she was an inadequate wife. She suffered his abuse–both emotional and physical–and continued to express her faith as she could but he worked hard to restrain her and limit her involvement in the Church she loved. But, no matter how hard he tried he could not turn her eyes and her heart away from the object of her devotion: her crucified Lord.
Philothei became a widow after three years of torturous marriage and she inherited his great wealth. She moved back into the home of her parents and continued to age and mature.She was unwilling to marry again and her family did not push her to do so. Perhaps they realized that the first marriage has been harmful and were unwilling to try again. Regardless, she spent his wealth in a variety of ways that aided the poor and the hungry. She didn’t see the great wealth as a thing to be used to defend or secure herself but as a commodity best used by distributing it among those with the most need.Her parents died when she was twenty-five and she was once again the recipient of a large estate. Now that she was no longer bound to a home and now that she had considerable wealth to spend on others, she took up a life of prayer and service that exceeded even her earlier devotion. The money was put into able hands that would administrate its use. In so doing, many churches and monasteries were built with it but Philothei had already turned her attention to founding a convent for women that she felt she had been directed to build by Andrew the Apostle in a vision. She did so and the convent became a refuge and sanctuary for women to flee to from abuse or persecution. A particular group of women–members of Turkish harems–became aware of this convent’s willingness to take them in and soon they were coming in droves. For her willingness to shelter these women from abuse such as she had received, she would be further abused.
The Turks who controlled Greece at the time were enraged that Christian women were helping their harem women to escape and so they began to apply pressure to Philothei and the women she was like a mother to. The politically minded hoped to crush her because of her resistance. The religiously minded hoped to afflict her and persecute her until she converted to their own religion. If they could crush or convert her, they suspected that they could do the same to all who shared her devotion to Jesus. They reasoned that she was a prime target because she was a woman and would be unable to stand up their abuses because of her sex. Neither group was successful. When they had given up on coercion, they resorted to violence. They knocked down the doors of the convent and drug her into the street by her hair. They beat her savagely while demanding she renounce her faith. She refused their demands and offered forgiveness to them for their abuse. For this, they beat her further. She died of her wounds while professing a faith that taught her to love her abusers and give her life for others.
Read more from Joshua Hearne at his personal website and the website of Grace and Main Fellowship, the non-traditional community he ministers with.
Giving Life for Lent
Remember that you are dust . . .
I dread Ash Wednesday as much as I need it. It isn’t fun being reminded of your humanity. It isn’t fun to impose ashes on friends while repeating the words that they, too, will return to dust. It isn’t fun, but it is holy. I need to reflect on my own death and realize the finality of that—and those—around me. I need to be reminded to love now, to give now, to be now.
Part of that reflection leads me to consider others around the world. 780 MILLION people lack access to clean water, a statistic that serves as a death sentence for far too many. The good news is that we can help. $25 provides clean water for one person for life. In a very practical way, it gives life. During Lent, I am giving up all beverages other than water. I am also invited you to participate with me in giving life to 40 people. I have set up a water.org fundraiser here: http://give.water.org/f/jenniferhd/ Will you consider giving and/or spreading the word?
photo credit
Read more from Jennifer Harris Dault at her blog.
Yoga Theology: Learning to Like What We “Hate”
In yoga class this week, when the instructor asked for suggestions, someone said, “Triangles.”
Triangle is a popular standing pose that students of any level can practice, and we did multiple variations of it.
At one point, as we were holding the pose, the instructor commented that some people hate triangle pose. I don’t remember what else he said because the words hit me hard.
I was one of those triangle-haters. In the thirteen years that I’ve been practicing yoga, I inwardly, and sometimes verbally, voiced my dislike of triangle. What made the dislike even worse was that it seemed like we did triangle in every single yoga class I attended! When I was teaching yoga, I did put my opinions aside and would lead the class in triangle. But I would get them into the pose and rarely ever practice it with them. I used the excuse that I needed “to adjust them.” That was only halfway true. Teaching the pose seemed a perfect way of out of practicing it in class.
Yet, on Tuesday evening, I found myself in the pose. And I was content. I had not resisted the suggestion of a triangle-themed class. The mention of triangle pose had not made me say, “Grrrr.” It had even taken me a few minutes to remember my previous distaste for the pose.
Without thinking, I had let go of “hate.” And to my surprise, I’d actually started liking that which I’d hated. The sudden acceptance of triangle pose developed not because I consciously willed myself into liking it. The surprising affection for triangles was not of my making. In the past, no matter how much I moaned and groaned, I would still do the pose. I would grit my teeth, clench my jaw, and find my way into it. I did it because I knew that it was an excellent stretch. I continued to practice it because I knew there were long-term benefits. The feelings were there, but I tried not to let those feelings control my actions. And without even realizing it, one day the dislike was gone.
In life we all have “triangle poses”: those activities and obligations that are necessary but not well-liked. We also may have to deal with people we’d rather avoid. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul encourages the Church (and us) to “press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us.” He acknowledges that none of us have “arrived at our goal.” Like the Philippians, we still struggle with dislikes and resistances. We fall short. But Paul basically tells us: “keep on going.” Keep on trying. Keep on loving. Keep on practicing. Don’t try so hard to change the way you feel. Instead, keep on looking towards the example of Jesus Christ. When we get our eyes on the goal and off of that which we “hate,” one day we realize that the hate not only fades, but also that he is transforming it into a liking.
On what are your eyes focused today? The drudgery of a “triangle pose”? Or on the One who changes us when we can’t change ourselves? Lift your eyes, friends. Look ahead. He is working all things for our good–even what we don’t like.
all good things, including triangles, to each of you,
Pastor Darian
Year of Jubilee
I can’t get over yesterday’s lectionary gospel passage. I’ve been thinking about it all week.
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:14-21 NRSV)
Robert Parham, executive director of EthicsDaily, suggests “Luke 4:18-19 is one of the most ignored, watered down, spiritualized or glossed-over texts in white Baptist pulpits, evading or emptying Jesus’ first statement of his moral agenda.” (Thanks to Heather Entrekin for pointing me to the article). While Robert is writing to and from a Baptist context, I’d suggest that the neglect extends far beyond Baptist life.
The truth is, as exciting as encouraging as this text is, it is hard. The church where I work hires homeless individuals to do the custodial work in exchange for room and board. In the six months I’ve been here, we’ve had an overturn of three guys (luckily at least one of those was to his own apartment — which is the goal).
These last six months I’ve also been a volunteer for the Community Mediation Program (through the Mennonite Peace Center). The most peaceful agreements I’ve seen parties (usually neighbors) come to is the decision to act as if a restraining order is in place — they decide not to have eye contact, not to talk to one another, not to talk about one another, not to call city services on one another (for the uninitiated, one of the ways to get at your impoverished neighbors is to call various city agencies and make claims of rats, garbage, etc. Your neighbor then has to take a day off work while folks determine that their home is not, in fact, infested). And while this kind of “peace” is better than pursuing a violent end, it isn’t exactly good.
Declaring a year of jubilee isn’t easy. It involves moments of wanting to pull your own hair out. It involves walking into someone else’s imperfect story and loving someone in the midst of terrible decision making.
But I can’t help but wonder what it would look like—how we would live—if we truly believed that this was the year of jubilee. Yesterday my church joined with others across the world in declaring it so. And I was thankful that it was also membership day to show that we need one another to live out this declaration. And I need all of you. What are your ideas? What are the cool things you are doing to proclaim and live out the good news to/for the oppressed? How might we be God’s agents in making this world more awesome?
Read more from Jennifer Harris Dault at her blog.
Reading the Song of Songs in a Bar on a Friday Night
A few months ago, on a Friday afternoon, I flew into the Memphis airport after a visit with family. Not wanting to drive home after dark and wanting to extend my vacation time, I checked into a hotel and went in search of food. The restaurant choices were numerous, but the lines of people waiting for tables were long. So, I opted for a favorite pastime, something that I did on a regular basis when living in more urban areas.
I sat at the bar, ordered a glass of wine, ate a hearty meal, and read.
In all honesty, the last thing I wanted to read was the Bible. After all, I was still on vacation. I wanted to disconnect. I wanted to read something completely “unspiritual”: an interior design magazine, a travel novel, or maybe one of those paperback romances with Fabio on the cover. Well, Fabio is an overstatement, but suffice it to say that I was not in the mood for anything too “serious.”
Yet somehow, my e-reader ended up on The Message, Eugene Peterson’s fabulous, modern translation of Scripture. As I browsed the “Table of Contents,” my eyes fell on the Song of Songs, a fabulous poem attributed to Solomon. I had a flashback to my Old Testament class in seminary, when a young teaching assistant “taught” us the Song of Songs in one 90-minute class. I remember only two things about the lecture to 100+ students: his first sentence and his last sentence, which were the same.
“The Song of Songs is a very sexy book.”
As I sat at the bar, that grad student’s words came back to me. And I regrettably realized that all I could remember about the Song of Songs was how the grad student opened and closed that lecture. I hadn’t read the book in whole since seminary. I turned to the appropriate page and began reading as if it were any other book.
And I was blown away. What was before me was not something that I needed to interpret or exegete or figure out. Yes, I agree that it is sensual. It understandably makes some people nervous with its often-explicit language. But it is also a simply fabulous piece of writing about love. I read it once, then read it again. I found myself reading some of it out loud in a whisper under my breath. The Word was not any less sacred by being read in a bar. It became more sacred as I saw it alive in the people around me.
There was a mix of single people on barstools and couples at tables. Some were holding hands, others were making small talk, and some like me were just trying to stay in their own worlds. Friends were catching up after a day at work. The guy two barstools down from me attempted to flirt by asking why I ordered potato soup over tomato.
In all of these interactions, what I witnessed was a longing for belonging, a reaching out for relationships. That’s what we witness in the Song of Songs, too. We have an everyday desire to connect with one another as the lovers do. The Word of God affirms that these longings, relationships, and desires are part of the humanity that God created us to be. Scripture is wrought with meaning, with metaphor and allegory that point to a mystery beyond ourselves. But sometimes, why don’t we just read Scripture for the spectacular writing that it is?
Dear lover and friend, you’re a secret garden,
A private and pure fountain.
Body and soul, you are paradise,
A whole orchard of succulent fruits—
Ripe apricots and peaches,
Oranges and pears;
Nut trees and cinnamon,
And all scented woods;
Mint and lavender,
And all herbs aromatic;
A garden fountain, sparkling and splashing,
Fed by spring waters from the Lebanon mountains (Song of Songs 4:12-15, The Message)
In a world where we tend to take ourselves too seriously, would you join me in simply enjoying God’s Word? Would you be willing to read the Song of Songs in a restaurant or Genesis at a family reunion or Revelation along the beach? Let us seek such unusual times and places to read God’s unusual love story to us. Who knows what we will learn as we see the Word not just on the page but also in the people around us?
all good things to each of you,
Pastor Darian
Read more from Darian Duckworth at her blog.
Who Will Remember You?
Lent 1
Ash Wednesday
The Egyptian Pharaohs were concerned with their immortality. To insure safe passage into the afterlife, they built huge pyramids, which housed their mummified bodies at death. When death came, these mummies were buried in tombs along with food, valuable jewels, and immaculately designed masks and ornamentation, which they thought would assist them in the afterlife.
Modern man has considered such efforts to achieve passage from one life to the next the misguided hopes of an ancient civilization. However, the Pharaohs’ quest for immortality has not been abandoned. Our methods are simply more sophisticated. For many people in the modern world, the quest for immortality has little to do with living again in another world.
The primary twenty-first century way to immortality is to make sure our heroes and sometimes our villains are never forgotten. People of fame have become the Pharaohs of our society: sports stars, millionaires, those with political clout, national heroes, and movie celebrities, to name a few.
Will the Beatles ever be forgotten? Won’t all future generations see the film clips of Jesse Owens demoralizing Adolf Hitler and his idea of a superior race during the 1936 Olympics? Will the world ever forget the likes of John F. Kennedy or movie stars like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis? Is there an American who has not seen footage of Neil Armstrong taking the first steps on the moon? These people will never be forgotten, nor should they be. For many, this is the meaning of immortality, to never be forgotten.
Some of us may be fortunate enough to have fifteen minutes of fame, a phrase coined by artist Andy Warhol. But only a small number will be remembered forever. Thus, for many, lasting memory among the masses has become the ticket to immortality.
To have one’s life and accomplishments recorded through the lens of a camera, to have one’s life catalogued in a hall of fame, or to have one’s work displayed in a museum—these are the pyramids of the twenty-first century.
Even those who espouse evil can achieve a twisted celebrity status that spans generations. Hasn’t the name “Jesse James” survived more than a century? Won’t people forever remember John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald? The promise to never be forgotten seemed to drive the insanity of Timothy McVeigh. Some people are driven by the thought of living forever in infamy.
Like the ancient Egyptians, we believe that as long as a few make it to immortal status, albeit an earthly one, then life will have been worth living. Like the workers who built the great pyramids, we are developing a culture that seeks to make some people into gods.
We pay our homage to them and help feed the false belief that what matters is that centuries from now people will be talking about some of us.
Only a few of us will be remembered in books or in film, have buildings named after us, or be known for some great heroic deed or discovery. As important as such contributions may be to modern society, none of this changes the fact that the grave awaits us all. In the end, the grave is the great equalizer. The grave is a chilling reminder that regardless of how much one is adored, appreciated, loved, or even worshiped, death comes to everyone.
When death comes, what will be of ultimate importance isn’t whether we are remembered by people, but that the Creator of the universe remembers us. Will our name be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life? For if it is not, we die not only once, but twice. This is the vision the Apostle John saw and wrote about in the Book of The Revelation: “The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14-15).
A man dying on a cross on a hill in Jerusalem two thousand years ago found the key to eternal living just hours before he died. Turning to a holy man who was being crucified beside him, he said, “‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ Jesus answered him, ‘I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise’” (Luke 23:42-43).
It’s not likely that we will accomplish anything in life that will cause our names to be remembered beyond a generation or two. But that kind of immortality shouldn’t be of concern to us anyway. What should be important to us is whether Jesus remembers us and allows us to be present with Him in paradise.
So the pondering of our mortality is important because we must face the fact that beyond this life we will either live forever with Christ or we will be forever separated from Christ. It’s highly unlikely that we will live forever with Christ if we have never pondered our mortality. For if we never think about dying, then how can we ever think about living eternally with Christ?
To put it another way, a sure way to find ourselves in the worst kind of wilderness is to never ponder the thought of one. Being separated from Christ is the worst kind of wilderness a person can ever be in. If a person is separated from Christ at death, that wilderness experience will last for an eternity.
Today is Ash Wednesday. This is a day on which Christians ponder our mortality. We encourage all people to focus on words like these found in James: “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14).
When we take inventory of our lives, we can reevaluate our priorities. We can ask ourselves whether we are placing emphasis on the most important things. If not, we can make midcourse corrections. If little things are claiming the most important spots, we can make changes, lest we find ourselves wandering in a wilderness.
At an Ash Wednesday service, a minister takes some ashes, places them on a person’s forehead, makes the sign of the cross and says something like, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ” (Genesis 3:19 and Mark 1:15).
Most people feel a little bit uncomfortable walking around with an ashy cross on their foreheads. It’s a bit humbling actually. Those who experience this service in the morning go through the entire day, not just thinking about their ashy forehead, but about the deeper meaning, that they should repent of any sin that is present in their lives. It’s also a reminder that sin is ultimately what causes death and makes all of us return to dust.
It is our sin that creates some wilderness experiences in our lives: dead places where joy, love, peace, and hope dry up and wither away. Through repentance we can put the wilderness in perspective. Through repentance, the wilderness can bloom and come to life.
During this first day of Lent, we prepare for God to come afresh in our lives. We prepare for God’s victory over death in the Easter event, which gives us the great hope that we too will one day receive that same victory. On that day, death will once and for all be defeated, when the dead in Christ shall rise.
Until then, the sign of an ashy cross is a reminder that although death will come to us, we don’t have to live in a wilderness of fear or despair. Death doesn’t have the last word!
While we may be forgotten by future generations, it won’t matter because we have the same promise given to the thief on the cross who asked Jesus to remember him. Just as Jesus promised that sinner a place with Him in paradise, Jesus extends that same promise to all who place their faith in Him.
Prayer
God of Life,
We are nothing but dust. We are soil. We are worm food. In Your overwhelming grace, You gave us life and instructed us to take care of the world and everything in it. We confess, Lord, that we waste Your gift and do not fulfill our calling. Instead, we use our time clinging to pride, feigning self-sufficiency, and worshiping celebrity.
On this day we stand at the edge of Your wilderness. You call us to leave behind the sins that have covered up our need for You. You call us to face the reality of death. You call us to journey through Your wildness, to learn and grow in Your ways, ways which don’t make sense to this world. You call us to come before You as our true selves, ashamed and terrified of being forgotten.
As we wear these ashes today, may this death mark remind us of our need for You, God of Life. Without You we would have no breath. Without You we have no hope for life. Give us strength to take our first steps in this wilderness journey, though they seem difficult and strange. Guide us through this barren land of sin and shame toward Your glorious Garden of Life. Amen.
This post is a sample meditation from “Finding Our Way Through the Wilderness: A Journey for Lent or Other Days of Spiritual Reflection and Prayer” by John Michael Helms and Erica Cooper. Get the ebook here.
In God We Trust?
I have to confess. I’ve been having some “bad” thoughts. Facebook is the cause. I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook. Mostly I scan through some time during the day to see if any of my friends have posted anything interesting.
There are some interesting things on Facebook. I have seen some photos of “friends” I would rather have not seen. Don’t misconstrue. None of my friends have posted nude photos, but some photos have been rather revealing—revealing of my friends and revealing of where they’ve been spending their time. Other friends have posted some comments . . . well, let’s say unbecoming of professed followers of Jesus. Some of my friends hold some pretty extreme political and social views, and they frequently post long rants, sometimes self-authored but often copied from some other friend’s posting. They post and post, leaving it there for all to see, including me. I find myself wondering, Do they remember that I am on their friend list?
As I said, I’ve been having some “bad” thoughts, and they stem from what I read on Facebook (and other places) and from my belief in and trust of God. There! I’ve said it. In God I trust! Dare I go further? Yes! I belong to a group—a local church composed of folks who have made a commitment to be Jesus-followers. Collectively, we declare, In God we trust! And in varying degrees, we actually do.
Some may think that my admission that folks in our church trust in God to varying degrees is itself a “bad” thought and a sad commentary on my fellow Jesus-followers and me. It is not; it is an honest admission; and the last time I checked, God liked honesty. Most of us want to trust all the time, but there are times when our trust level is not as high as it is at other times. This is not my “bad” thought.
My “bad” thought comes when I read posts about keeping “under God” in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States and about keeping “in God we trust” on our money. DON’T STOP READING; I’M NOT FINISHED.
The original pledge was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister. Bellamy’s version is as follows: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” In 1923, the National Flag Conference called for the words “my Flag” to be replaced with “the Flag of the United States of America.” On June 14, 1954, President Eisenhower signed into law a bill inserting “under God” into the pledge. On the occasion of the signing, Eisenhower stated, “From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty. . . . In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource, in peace or in war.”
I like Ike! I even like his statement, but there is a problem. Saying “under God” doesn’t make it so, no matter how many school children and/or adults say it. Oh, in the sense that all of creation is under God the United States is also under God. But shouldn’t under God mean more than that? Shouldn’t it mean something about submitting to the way of God? For those of us who are Christian (and we are the ones usually making all the noise), shouldn’t it mean that we are seeking to live in community, loving each other and our enemies . . . shouldn’t it have something to do with how we deal with poverty, slavery, personal and corporate greed, and acts of discrimination against individuals and groups with whom we disagree?
Under God and In God We Trust are not magical phrases that grant us special protection and privilege. For Christians, under God should remind us that we owe a higher allegiance to God than to country. As for In God We Trust printed on our currency, if we really believed that, we would spend more time using money for a greater good rather than buying the next bigger and better model of whatever we already have. If our trust were truly in God, would we sacrifice time needed for building marriages and raising children in order to make more money so that we can provide things for ourselves and our families without which we might actually be richer?
I’m glad to say: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” However if those words “under God” were not there, it would not change my allegiance to my country or to God. The United States existed 116 years without a pledge and 62 years with one that did not include those two words. It’s not the words that matter. It’s how we live under God.
Climate Change
Good morning, happy New Year.
It’s such an honor be your rabbi. And it’s such pleasure to wish you all a joyful Jewish new year on this fine morning.
But imagine my shock when I woke up to discover that I never heard my alarm this morning. That’s right, I overslept.
Now imagine my horror when I realized that I hadn’t just overslept by a few minutes, or even an hour or two…or three.
No, I had overslept by a dreadful margin. Somehow I went to bed last night and woke up 70 years later.
I know only one precedent for such rabbinical oversleeping.
Long ago, during the Roman Empire, there lived a Torah sage known as Choni. One time, Choni drew a circle in the dust, stepped inside it, and vowed he would stand there inside his circle until G-d ended a terrible drought and brought the rain back to Israel. Like a grandmother indulging a petulant favorite grandchild, G-d granted his request. Ever since, he’s been known as Choni ha-ma’a’geil, Choni the circle-drawer.
Another time, Choni saw a man planting a carob tree and asked him a snarky question: what made him think he would live to enjoy the fruit the tree would someday bear? Choni must have been satisfied with the man’s answer. He ate his lunch and lay down for a nap.
When this Jewish “rip van winkle” woke up he realized that the tree was now laden with carob. A man passing by turned out to be the grandson of the man who planted it. Choni had slept a full 70 years.
Something similar has happened to me.
So I wish you a happy Jewish new year, 5843, or, by the common reckoning, happy 2082.
(hey, you look kind of like Monty Karol… what? Dr. Karol was your grandfather? …oh, man…
What? …no, wise guy, I don’t own any primo real estate or stocks that gained huge value overnight.)
Please forgive me if I seem a little disoriented. Imagine how you’d feel if you suddenly saw the future. So much has changed: for Quincy, Illinois, for the United States, and for our world.
Fortunately, some things never change, like our torah portion. Just like generations before, and we pray, generations to come, so, too, do we read genesis, chapter 22, the binding of Isaac, akeidat yitzchak, on Rosh ha-Shanah.
Our story begins when G-d tests Abraham’s faith by telling Abraham to give his son Isaac as a burnt offering on an unknown hilltop. Abraham and Isaac travel three days by the time Genesis 22:4 says, in Hebrew, va-yisa avraham et einav va-yar et ha-makom mei-rachok; literally, “Abraham looked up and saw the place from afar.” But I think Genesis 22:4 really means “Abraham raised his consciousness and caught a prophet’s glimpse of the future.” Prophets were not fortune-tellers. They warned about what might happen if people did not repent their evil ways.
Our story reaches its stark climax on that hilltop in verses 9-10: “…there Abraham built an altar, arranged the wood, bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar over the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife for slaughtering his son.” (Genesis 22:9-10)
Of course, Isaac is spared the knife. For the second time: “va-yisa avraham et einav va-yar, v’hineh…” again, Abraham raises his conciousness. At the very last second it dawns on him that G-d has indeed provided the ram for the burnt offering.
But did we raise our own consciousness? Were our eyes open wide enough to become aware of the firewood in our story? Why does the word “wood” appear twice in verse 9? The text could have said, “Abraham built an altar, arranged the wood under it, bound his son Isaac and placed him on top of the altar”? Dayyeinu – it “would” have been enough.
From generation to generation, rabbis have taught that if something is in the Torah, it must be there for a reason.
This firewood – Abraham chopped it himself and hauled it all the way from Be’er Sheva. Was it twice as much as they needed? Was it from a tree that should not have been cut down, like the tree of life in the Garden of Eden?
What if it came from the Amazon rain forest, or the jungles of Indonesia or the delicate cloud forests of the Andes?
I read Genesis 22 as if I’m having a nightmare. I dream that I am Abraham but I’m binding…
Not Isaac…but my own two sons, Eli and Danny. I watch as my fellow parents tie their children up until their whole generation, our future, and even our planet’s, is bound to
the altar of industrialization and the internal combustion engine.
The demand of these modern idols for burnt hydrocarbons is insatiable. I struggle to wake but we keep burning more and more wood, and oil, natural gas, coal and uranium. Recklessly we accomplish complete global deforestation just to light up the offerings. Our jealous gods call for more and more drilling, fracking, and burning until the carbon dioxide and other noxious gases we release turn our planet into one giant greenhouse.
Just as Abraham raises his consciousness and becomes aware first of a holy place and then of a miracle in that holy place, so, too, must we lift our consciousness to awareness of the serious threat global warming poses to our entire world. We may need to be the miracle that rescues our future from going up in smoke.
By that long-ago September 2012 when I was writing this sermon, there was clear scientific consensus that rapid global warming due to human activity was reality, and that its consequences were both predictable and catastrophic.
During that long ago summer of 2012, arctic ice reached record lows. Scientists observed 97%, or virtually the entire Greenland ice sheet melting. Wildfires raged across the west. Drought in the Midwest killed crops. We barely noticed food prices increasing. Even rainfall and nightfall did not bring relief from searing heat like they used to. A thunderstorm rolled in to needles, California one 115° afternoon, breaking the record set at 109 in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, just weeks before.
According to the national oceanic and atmospheric administration (NOAA), July 2012 was the 329th consecutive month, since February 1985, with global temperatures warmer than the 20th century average. Satellites measured near-record temperatures for the lower 8 km of the atmosphere. According to the NOAA the first nine months of 2012 was the most extreme for drought, temperature, and precipitation since record-keeping began in 1910, and more than double the average value of the climate extreme index.
In the arctic, temperature had increased at twice the rate as the rest of the globe by 2012.
But beyond the peer-reviewed scientific arena, we the people, our news media, and our leaders were flummoxed. Government by fight to the death in the political arena could not reach any consensus. Powerful energy industry lobbies defended their vested interests as fiercely as the tobacco industry once did, and with similar tactics. People ignored the facts as if we believed we could forever enjoy the benefits of the industrial age without accepting its consequences.
You know what those consequences were, but I’m still shocked at how deserts expanded, sea levels rose, storms blew more frequent and more violent, environments and species faced extinction, and disease and conflict killed millions.
First, climate change meant expanding deserts. From Phoenix to Las Vegas to Albuquerque the cities of the southwest are ghost towns. The peaks of the Rockies and the alps are as barren as the atlas mountains of morocco. Average temperatures in the southwestern United States in 2082 are hotter than death valley was in 2012.
Second, climate change meant storms. The warming atmosphere along with new weather pattern extremes caused arctic sea ice to melt at such an alarming rate that the arctic was ice-free by 2030.
As the sea levels and ocean temperatures of the planet rose and rose, hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical storms became more frequent and more violent. We used to give hurricanes individual names. How quaint. Hurricanes became so common that meteorologists began identifying them by year and number.
With sea levels a meter higher from the loss of the polar ice cap storm surges engulfed whole cities. The big apple never recovered from “the big storm,” aka hurricane eight of 2042 which shut down power and emergency services for days and even toppled the statue of liberty. New Orleans, Louisiana had to be abandoned when hurricane nine of 2048 left the big easy under seven feet of water. No little dutch boy’s finger could save Rotterdam, Holland, when north atlantic storm one of 2052 raised a surge in the north sea that was higher than the engineers of its massive sea gates ever conceived possible. Thousands drowned. Europe’s busiest port was sunk forever. Across the world, governments, banks, insurance underwriters, builders, and people everywhere lost confidence in coastal civilization and fled inland.
For what it’s worth, the Mississippi bustles with commerce once again. In fact, it’s hard to believe that quincy, illinois was once a tiny congregation with a visiting rabbi. Thanks to so many people who fled from the south, the west, and the coasts, quincy has become a boom town.
These people locked their doors one last time, left their keys in the mailbox and abandoned their homes. Whatever the banks said, the properties were worthless when there was no more snow melt from the Rockies to fill Lake Powell, Utah, and generate the hydroelectricity for their lights and air conditioning. Big peach Atlanta, Georgia withered once it had drunk Lake Lanier dry. The story is the same in formerly arid climates everywhere.
Third, climate change meant extinction. I remember visiting the Athabasca glacier in the Canadian Rockies with my wife hope on our honeymoon trip in 1998 before Eli was born. This frozen river of gleaming white and blue ice was cut by crevasses that could be miles deep. We could not see it move. Yet in 1998 we could see that it had retreated more than a mile from a visitors’ center the Canadians built at its very edge in the 1920s. A whole mile! Now, in 2082, the mighty Athabasca has retreated into extinction, along with every glacier on every continent.
Once upon a time, I loved snorkeling over coral reefs in Key Largo, Florida; Xel-ha, Mexico; Eilat, Israel; and Dahab, Egypt. The reefs and their tropical fish were some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I’m the only living person who can say so today: these natural marvels of biodiversity are extinct. So are the species of marine life and even the human civilizations that depended on coral reefs like the pacific island nation of Tuvalu that vanished beneath the waves.
Finally, the great 21st century warming meant death. On or about October 31, 2011, the seven-billionth human being was born. Today, the earth’s population is about 3 billion.
Heat stress itself was a major cause of death, especially among the elderly and young children in climates that were already warm.
Starvation, malnutrition, and illness killed millions more, especially in desperately poor places like Bangladesh. As crops and commercial fishing catches failed, and as cattle ranching became unsustainable, food grew scarce. People fled in search of livable temperatures, food, and water. Some countries expelled their foreign residents, frequently where rich and poor nations shared a common border such as between the United States and Mexico. Epidemics like typhus and cholera broke out in the squalid camps of the climate refugees.
Finally, climate change meant armed conflict. Israel claimed another great victory against its Arab neighbors in the Four Days war of 2028. But severe overpopulation and decades of unsustainable water management led to famine. Both sides wished they had at least established open communications channels when a massive earthquake rocked the Syrio-African rift. The temblor shifted the flow of the Jordan river from south to north, which finally and truly killed the Dead Sea, which had been slowly dying anyway. It also sent the intensely saline water of the Dead Sea flowing north into Yam Kinneret, poisoning both Israel and Palestine’s key source of fresh water. By the way, the earthquake also reduced the Temple Mount to rubble and dust. Neither side had trusted the other enough to shore up the foundations of the holy sites of Judaism and Islam in time. Everyone who could emigrate did, years ago. The only Jews left are a handful of fervently religious people, learning Talmud all day and subsisting on charity from abroad. The long-awaited dream of peace in the Middle East is finally reality. The Jewish and Arab populations of this once-promising twice-promised land have simply nothing left to fight about.
In operation maple leaf of 2046 the United States invaded and occupied Canada in order to seize control of the zone suitable for growing wheat. The Canadian armed forces fought a brave but doomed defense of Ottawa. The Canadian insurrection lasted decades.
But worst of all, India and Pakistan clashed over the bread basket of the subcontinent, that long disputed region called the Punjab. One hundred fifty million died in the fourth Indo-Pakistani war, the nuclear conflagration that began on April 14, 2050.
What will I say to my own grandchildren when I meet them?
And what will they say to me?
Even the word genocide doesn’t quite describe the calamity. The word “geocide” has been
proposed.
Choni the circle-drawing wonder worker never returned to his own time. So I don’t know whether G-d will be merciful enough to return me to 2012, but I pray that the words of this sermon will somehow be heard in 2012.
If only I could talk to my generation one more time. I would beg us to heed the warnings.
I would tell my generation not to rely on miracles like Abraham did, but to rely on ourselves like choni the circle-drawer.
I would urge them to deal with bogus denials of climate change, just as we once handled the tobacco industry’s denial of the health hazards of cigarettes.
I would beg all of us to reach out more respectfully to the political opposition to persuade, find common ground, and use market-based solutions like “cap & trade” to externalities like pollution and carbon emissions.
I would urge us to reduce carbon emissions, protect delicate natural ecosystems and restore damaged habitats; use more efficient and sustainable farming and food distribution methods; stabilize human population growth through increased access to education; and even if all else failed, develop the technology to capture excess carbon emissions.
We could still make other futures possible for generations to come.
Choni ha-ma’agel asked the man planting a carob tree (rather rudely) why he would plant something he would probably never live to enjoy.
I bet the man with the tree knew that carob is a sustainable crop native to the land of Israel.
But what the man with the tree said to Choni was, “as my grandfathers planted trees for me, so do I plant trees for my grandchildren.”
May we celebrate the world’s birthday in the Jewish year 5773, which is 2012 by the common reckoning, with compassion for god’s creation instead of lust, so that when 5843 does come generation after generation will continue to find the carob trees lovingly planted by their grandparents for them.
Keyn y’hi ratzon,
So may it be G-d’s will.
1. Rosh Ha-Shanah always makes us wonder what glimpse of the future we might catch. As a traveler to you this morning from the past, from the year 2012, from 70 years, 7 whole decades ago, I feel I must warn you that I might be setting you up for a terrible present. Pun intended.
2. Naturally we who read the Torah – from those Talmudic sages who preserved the story of Choni the circle-drawer, to the medieval commentators, to our grandparents, parents, and to us, the Jewish people, modern and post-modern alike, have struggled with the meaning of this tale.
3. But are we supposed to take at face value Abraham’s willingness to bind his son, his only son by his marriage to Sarah, to the altar as his greatest deed, as the proof of his faith? Jewish authorities of the distant and recent past are split on this question. Some scholars of Torah say so, but other Jewish commentators hold that Abraham failed his test. This morning, despite my upset at my lapse of 70 years, I feel strangely vindicated. I was right. Not that it makes me feel any better.
4. Could it be? Could it really be that just as Abraham bound his son Isaac to an altar, fully intending to sacrifice him to his G1d, horribly prepared to go through with the plan until that angel finally intervened to show him the ram for an alternate sacrifice; so, too, were we in 2012 binding our own children – all of you who are here today 70 years later — to the altar of fossil fuels? Together with every parent and grandparent of my generation, were we really ready, willing, and all-too-terribly able to sacrifice our own future to this merciless, industrial God– just to keep on offering up endless burnt-offerings of oil, gas, coal, and wood, pouring endless carbon-dioxide into a troposphere already saturated with it?Are we counting on our God to save us in the nick of time with a Deus Ex Machina like Isaac’s Ram?
5. Sure, Israel today remains militarily powerful. It re-occupied and even annexed the West Bank of the Jordan River. But those iconic kibbutzim and moshavim in the Negev that the early Zionist pioneers were so proud to make bloom
6. We American Jews are grateful to the government of the United States for keeping Israel militarily strong – yet we are nervous about our government, too. The same government that stands firmly with Israel abrogated the bill of rights in order to expel Mexican immigrants and even American citizens of Mexican descent. It is respectful of Judaism due to its fundamentalist Christian character, but hostile to Islam-baiting quasi-fascist government.
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