Think. Pray. Vote.

As the righteous grow powerful, people rejoice; but when the wicked rule, people groan...

A king brings stability to a land by justice, but one who exacts tribute tears it down...

The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern...

Mockers stir up a city, but the wise turn away anger...

Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise quietly hold it back...

When a ruler is listening to lies, all of his officials tend to become wicked...

(from Proverbs 29)

The Bible is a highly political book, with a great deal to say about goals for good governance.

Again and again, prophets and psalmists make clear the unshakeable connection between justice, righteous behavior and shalom.

Rulers and nations, according to the prophets, are inevitably judged on how well they care for widows (powerless women), orphans (children without privilege or protection), aliens (immigrants and those without legal status), prisoners (guilty or not).

By any Biblical measure, we are not doing well.

Justice, righteousness and shalom are badly shaken.

The financial inequities in our country are staggering. The US now has the greatest income inequality of any developed nation. The top .1% has a larger share of income than at any time in history - edging out the robber baron era that preceded the Great Depression. Half the US population is now considered low-income, or in poverty.   

A recent headline claimed "Inequality is a bigger threat to our democracy than Putin."

Yet policies under consideration in Washington, both for tax reform and health care, would channel more money to the wealthy, with little benefit, if any, to the poor or middle class.

Racial disharmony, allegations of sexual abuse, fraud and allegations of corruption, another mass shooting, and another: these are symptoms of deep brokenness.

Confidence in our democracy is at an all-time, dangerous historic low.

Only 20% of Americans today say they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” (4%) or “most of the time” (16%). 

This week, an American Psychological Association study on stress in America found: 

Nearly two-thirds of Americans (63 percent) say the future of the nation is a very or somewhat significant source of stress, slightly more than perennial stressors like money (62 percent) and work (61 percent), according to the American Psychological Association’s report, "Stress in America™: The State of Our Nation".

More than half of Americans (59 percent) said they consider this the lowest point in U.S. history that they can remember — a figure spanning every generation, including those who lived through World War II and Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Yes: there's a connection between justice, righteousness, shalom.

The reverse works as well: injustice, unrighteous leadership, shattered shalom go hand in hand.

Tuesday is Election Day.

It's a year since our last election and I still find myself grieving: when we vote, we affirm and endorse the character of the one we vote for.

Last year many of my fellow Christians chose a vision of the future tragically at odds with the kingdom of God I've been working toward since childhood.

They affirmed behavior in direct contradiction of the virtues I faithfully memorized and pray to practice: gentleness, patience, goodness, self-control.

We are living through the fruit of that election and the political climate we've been sowing: anger, division, deepening distrust, policies cut loose from any pretense of public good.

Not that the 2016 election was the cause of our downward slide, but part of a troubling narrative: Loss of discernment. Failure to engage wisely. Eagerness to place blame. Willingness to swallow simple answers.

I hear from friends: "It's too hard to vote. I don't know the races, I don't know the people. It takes too much work to sort it out." 

 

All true. Completely true. 

We should not be voting for judges.

Or coroners.

We have too many races, too little information.

Even so: every judge will be deciding issues that impact our lives in ways beyond what we can see.

And every local official will set policy that will impact our communities for good or harm.

For any who claim to follow scripture, the calling seems clear, repeated in both Old and New Testaments (Isaiah 11 and Luke 4): 

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
Because the LORD has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners.

We are all called to love our neighbors as ourselves: neighbors near and far, known and unknown, like and unlike.

Called to put their needs before our own, as the good Samaritan did on the dangerous road to Jericho.

And we are all called to live and work and pray toward a beloved community where slave and free, Jew and Gentile, every language, every shape, every beautiful shade of brown and beige is welcome, valued, nurtured, loved.

We are called to love rather than fear, listen rather than condemn, act as agents of reconciliation, mercy, peace and healing.

And since we are called to use the gifts we've been given for the good of others, we're called to use the political agency we've been given, which includes the privilege of voting.

Which means we're called to pray for wisdom and discernment.

It means noticing when our news commentators' voices shift to a tone that invites hysterical response and turning them off rather than fall prey to anger and division.

It means taking time to check out outrageous stories rather than trust slick mailers or partisan propaganda.

Or choosing not to believe the bad report when we don't know for certain if it's true.

Loving our neighbor means voting for the good of those we're called to care for: widows, orphans, aliens, prisoners.

Not just myself, my family, my party, people most like me.

So I'm looking for candidates concerned about affordable housing.

Good stewardship of land and water.

Reform of our inequitable school funding and our immoral bail/bond practices.

I no longer look for candidates who say what they think one party or the other wants to hear.

I'm looking for candidates whose biographies, activities, words and tone suggest an understanding of service, of commitment, of kindness, of grace.

Is there any evidence that they've served the poor?

Any evidence they've made hard choices?

Any hint of wisdom or mercy?

Please vote on Tuesday.

There are people who died to give us that privilege.

And there are millions of people around the globe would give anything to have that chance.

Please don't vote the party ticket.

Please take time to pray, think, read, decide.

And vote!

• For information about statewide judicial races in PA, check here: Vote411.org ( In some states, and some parts of PA, this will give you a complete ballot. In most parts of PA, it won't).
• Check here for information on the PA property tax ballot question.
• For information on local races in PA, google your local League of Women Voters Guide 2017 with the name of your county. Some provide local information, some just county and statewide information.  
• In Philadelphia, check the Committee of Seventy Voter's Guide.

For a list of past post on political issues check What's Your Platform

Some election highlights: 

Justice Matters October 15, 2015
Election Fraud and Rigged Elections  August 7, 2016
The Dance of Democracy  Nov 11, 2012
We the People   Sunday, November 13, 2016Love Your Neighbor, Vote with Prayer October 28, 2012

Acorns, King, Beloved Community

On the eve of Tu Bishvat, Hebrew New Year of the Trees, I found myself planting pin oak acorns I Jerusalem as a mark of new beginnings.

collected last fall from a healthy wetland forest. I had been waiting for a good wet day to drop them into the muck in the less healthy wetland where I do my Weed Warrior work, a fitting activity to mark the date when trees are planted in

As I squashed each acorn into the mud, I found myself thinking about new beginnings, this month’s Synchroblog topic: “Starting something new. Dreaming about the future. Second chances. Change/Transformation.”

Every acorn planted is a dream for the future. The start of something new. An occasion of change or transformation.

But the topic of new beginnings goes far beyond acorns, or trees. New beginnings are the heart of the Christian faith: new life from old, grace breaking through the tight confines of the past. Read any of the gospels and there they are, stories of new beginnings: Jesus reaching out to heal the blind, retrieve the outcast, offering new sight, new starts, new standing.

Interesting, as I think about it, how insistent the scriptures are on individual stories: names named, locations given. The point seems very personal. Interventions of grace, new beginnings, happen one person at a time. Blind Bartimaeus on the road outside of Jericho. Greedy Zaccheus. Mary Magdalene.

The book of Acts continues the pattern: Saul interrupted on the way to persecute the new Christians, and given a new name, a new mission, a new beginning. Lydia of Thyratira, dealer in purple cloth, first convert in Europe.

Yet Jesus was explicit that faith in him also marked a new beginning for the Hebrew tradition he was born to. When Nicodemus, Pharisee and member of the rabbinic ruling counsel, saw in Jesus something startling and new, he came in secret to ask more.

Jesus told him: 

“No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” 

I have heard the term  “born again” since I was small, but it never occurred to me that Nicodemus might have heard the term in a different way. Apparently, to a rabbinic Jew of Yeshua’s time, there were already at least six ways of being “born again.” Born of water was commonly understood as physical birth, while “born again” could refer to someone converting to Judaism, experiencing circumcision, getting married, becoming a rabbi, becoming a king, or becoming a leader of a yeshiva, a rabbinic academy.

All those “born agains” are new beginnings in some way under human control. The new beginning Jesus offers is something different, and in fact is a play on words. gennatha anothen, translated in John 3:3 and 7 as “born again” could also mean “born from above” or “from a higher place,” or “of things which come from heaven or God.”

There was much discussion, in Jesus day and after, about the relationship between law and faith, between Jew and Christian. Can a Jew be a Christian? Does faith in Christ null obedience to law? Nicodemus walked away from Jesus puzzled, but appeared again in John 7, urging his fellow Pharisees to take more time to understand what Jesus is doing. In John 19, he came to help take Jesus body from the cross, to wrap it and prepare it for burial.

Jesus said “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Rattling acorns in my hand, it occurs to me that in some strange way, the relationship between law and new life is a bit like that between acorn and oak tree. The acorn is manageable, graspable. It has defined boundaries, protective shell. But the acorn isn’t really the point. It’s what comes after.

Sprouting Acorn, Wikimedia Commons

At what point does acorn become tree? Is the new beginning the moment of planting, or the moment when the shell splits, and roots begin to sink deeper? The moment when the first shoots surface?

I love stumbling across stories of conversion: Augustine, in his garden hearing a voice saying “pick up and read.” Francis, struggling with illness and depression, confronted by a strange question: "Who do you think can best reward you, the Master or the servant?" Brother Yun, awestruck at the miraculous healing of his father, listening as his parents explained what they had learned of Jesus from missionaries banished 25 years before.  T. S. Eliot, embarrassing his companions as he knelt before Michelangelo’s Pieta.

For some, new beginnings are dramatic and immediate: my grandmother on a street corner in a rural Oklahoma town. My friend reading the gospel of John in a lonely prison cell. Other times, new beginnings are less easy to date, or track.

Martin Luther King couldn’t point to a precise moment of conversion, but instead spoke of moments when abstract theology shifted into personal conviction. In “Stride toward Freedom”, he wrote of a January night in Montgomery, Alabama when as a 27 year old pastor, new husband and father, the accumulation of abusive, threatening phone calls prompted by the Montgomery bus boycott brought him to a point of near defeat:   

It seemed that all of my fears had come down on me at once. I had reached the saturation point. I got out of bed and began to walk the floor. . . Finally I went to the kitchen and heated a pot of coffee.
 I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward. . . With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory: ‘Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right. I think I’m right. I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But Lord, I must confess that I’m weak right now, I’m faltering. I’m losing my courage. . .  I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.’ It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: ‘Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo, I will be with you. Even until the end of the world.’ . . . At that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced Him before. Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.” 

A few years later, in 1960, King wrote: 

In past years the idea of a personal God was little more than a metaphysical category which I found theologically and philosophically satisfying. Now it is a living reality that has been validated in the experiences of everyday life. Perhaps the suffering, frustration and agonizing moments which I have had to undergo occasionally as a result of my involvement in a difficult struggle have drawn me closer to God. Whatever the cause, God has been profoundly real to me in recent months. In the midst of outer dangers I have felt an inner calm and known resources of strength that only God could give. In many instances I have felt the power of God transforming the fatigue of despair into the buoyancy of hope.

What was King’s point of new beginning? Does it matter?

Will anyone remember when I planted these acorn? Will anyone note the date new life springs up out of the muck, and reaches toward the sky?

One oak tree can feed over 500 species ofbutterflies and moths, more than 100 species of vertebrate animals. One oak tree can change an ecosystem, a landscape. Not just for now, but for centuries to come, just as one courageous follower of Christ, or a small handful, growing together, can change a culture, a continent.

At the beginning of his time of public ministry, Jesus read from the prophecy of Isaiah 61:   

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,    because the Lord has anointed me    to proclaim good news to the poor.He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,    to proclaim freedom for the captives    and release from darkness for the prisoners,to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.  

The Isaiah prophecy goes on to describe the result of this work of new beginnings: a community of joy instead of mourning, of praise instead of despair:

They will be called oaks of righteousness,    a planting of the Lord    for the display of his splendor. 

Pin Oak, George Thomas, 2013

Martin Luther King described this prophetic vision as “the beloved community” – a planting of the Lord providing shelter and restoration for all seeking freedom from captivity or release from darkness.

In this time of new beginnings, I pray for all the seeds I’ve planted across the years. For the seeds still dormant in dark places. The seeds struggling toward light.

I pray for the fruit of new beginnings: for mercy, wisdom, justice, love. Food for the hungry. Joy for those in despair.

I pray for oaks of righteousness – towering trees that change the world around them. A beloved community of restoration and redemption.

For branches that reach far beyond their roots, offering shelter and nourishment in ways I can only imagine. 

Synchroblog had a record number of postings this month, with lots of thoughts on all kinds of new beginnings. Take some time to check some out:

Jen Bradbury - Enough

Abbie Watters - New Beginnings

Cara Strickland - Bursting

Done With Religion – A New Year, A New Beginning

Kelly Stanley - A Blank Canvas

Glenn Hager - Overcoming The Biggest Obstacle To Reaching Your Goals

Dave Criddle - Get Some New Thinking

David Derbyshire - Changed Priorities Ahead

J A Carter - The Year of Reading Scripture for the First Time

Damon - New Beginnings: Consider These 5 Questions Before Tying The Knot

Jeffrey Kranz - Where To Start Reading The Bible

Joanna990 - On survival – my one word for 2014

K W Leslie - Atonement

Happy - my One Word 365 surprise

Michelle Moseley - Ends and Beginnings

Matthew Bryant - A New Creation

Liz Dyer – It’s a new year and time to make some new mistakes

Edwin Pastor Fedex Aldrich - Foreclosed: The beginning of a new dream

Jennifer Clark Tinker - Starting a New Year Presently

Loveday Anyim - New Year New Resolutions

Loveday Anyim - New Year Resolution Dreamers

Loveday Anyim - New Year Resolution Specialists

Loveday Anyin – New Year Resolution Planners and Achievers

Jeremy Myers - Publish Your Book with Redeeming Press

Amy Hetland - New Beginnings

Phil Lancaster – New Beginnings

Mallory Pickering – Something Old, Something New

Margaret Boelman – The Other Side of Grief

Hungering Far Past "Rightness"

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

When we read the Bible, too often there are words we misunderstand, missing the richness of the original thought. As mono-lingual Americans, we assume our translations are straight one-to-one substitutions of word for word, capturing the full meaning the original implied.

Too often, the words we’re given carry only a shadow of the original intent.

“Righteousness” is one of those words.

I grew up thinking righteousness was something like “rightness.” As in: correct. The narrow tradition of my childhood church offered long lists of correct, or more often incorrect, behavior: No movies. No dances. No playing cards. No alcohol. No skirts shorter than your knees. No tank tops. No two piece bathing suits.

Righteousness was staying on the right side of the rules.

There were right opinions and wrong, on everything from baptism to women to the work of the Holy Spirit to the chronology of the end times.

“Righteousness,” to me, was a competitive activity, with a strong punitive edge.

Who would hunger and thirst after that? And what would it mean to be satisfied?

Dig a bit, and it turns out the original Greek word used in Matthew’s gospel, “dikaios,” is the same as the Hebrew word "tzedakah", a word used throughout the Old Testament to describe the character of God and God’s restorative actions: justice, truth, compassion, kindness, making right, renewing, restoring, ensuring good things for those without, restraining the powerful, lifting up the weak, repairing ruined vineyards and fields, ensuring wise governance and an equitable economy.

We have no word that comes even close.

In Jesus’ time, the “mitzvah of tzedakah,” the commands of righteousness, had been codified by religious leaders into giving alms to the poor, with the understanding that the poor had a moral claim to assistance, and that justice demanded recognition of that claim. The code of giving was spelled out precisely, with rules about who, when, why, how much. There were ways to measure the truly poor, and much discussion about which poor could claim aid, and how much aid was due.

That was the “righteousness of the Pharisees”: legalistic, motivated by codes, always asking “How much do I have to give?” More importantly: “When am I done?”

Jesus said ““Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” 

He pointed his listeners to the deeper, fuller expression of righteousness, the righteousness spelled out by the prophets, and claimed by Jesus when he read Isaiah in the temple:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
    and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
   for the display of his splendor. 

    (Isaiah 61, Luke 4)

Hunger and thirst for that, Jesus said. Hunger and thirst for restoration of the poor, joy for the suffering, freedom for the captive, light for those in darkness. Seek that, and you’ll be called oaks of righteousness. You’ll be rooted in it, breathing it, spreading it, a visible demonstration of God’s character, splendor, beauty.

When I think of hungering and thirsting for righteousness, I’m struck by the odd pairing of that beatitude with the one before it: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” I see a prophetic fervor in the quest for the righteousness Jesus describes. Where does meekness fit with that?

“Meek,” the Greek “praus” is another of those words flattened in translation. Variously translated humble, mild, gentle, weak, quiet, in the original it carries a suggestion of strength set aside in deference to God’s plan.

“Biblical meekness is not weakness but rather refers to exercising God's strength under His control – i.e. demonstrating power without undue harshness.” (Biblesuite) “ 

“Meekness toward God is that disposition of spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting. In the OT, the meek are those wholly relying on God rather than their own strength to defend them against injustice.” (Studylight)

When I read these beatitudes together, this is what I hear:

Your greatest joy, benefit, health, will come from trusting God’s plan, and doing your best to live it, without insisting on your own rights, your own needs, your own safety.

And your greatest joy, benefit, health will come not from simply wanting God’s plan in your own life, but longing to see it revealed in the world around you, in the health of creation, provision for the poor, restoration for those mistreated. As you long to see God’s goodness revealed, you will, in fact, have that longing fulfilled.

What does that look like, day to day?

There are some lives that make this wonderfully visible. Mother Theresa comes to mind. Shane Claiborne of the Simple Way is a more contemporary, close-to-home example.

Woman in Afghanistan, Water Missions International

And I am fortunate to know many men and women quietly seeking God’s righteousness in restoration and protection of forests, wetlands and rivers, in providing clean water where disease in rampant, in offering comprehensive health services for neighborhoods lacking care, in teaching children, youth, adults in under-served communities, in advocating for peace and justice in areas like human trafficking, prison reform, responsible investment.

But for me?

I’m trying to live this hunger and thirst for righteousness on my local, personal level.

I’m involved in a local park where untamed vines are strangling the native plants needed for food for nesting birds. I want to see restoration and renewal in that little part of creation.

I’m managing my own yard as a habitat for more and more birds, trying to plant in a way that nourishes native pollinators, trying to create nesting spaces for birds crowded out by well-manicured yards and ever encroaching development.

I’m looking for ways to encourage restoration in families battered by illness, tragedy, financial strain. I’m trying to learn compassion, and to see the needs of others as needs I carry as closely as my own.  

I’m praying for God’s wisdom and grace in the lives of young adults caught in the maelstrom of economic uncertainty and changing social constructs.

I’m praying for healing in situations that seem beyond the reach of healing.

As part of a national League of Women Voters committee studying agriculture policy, and chair of a local committee trying to further discussion about the future of food and farming, I’m trying to understand what righteousness, justice, restoration would look like in our broken food system. 

And I’m looking for ways I benefit from injustice, and trying to find ways to divest, speak out, or rethink the systems that I’m part of, on everything from food, to pension investments, to the things I buy, or watch.

One thing I know about hunger and thirst: when you’re hungry, you think of little else. Hunger distracts, disrupts, reorients attention to that one thing: food. And thirst does the same. Get thirsty enough, and the only thought is to find water.

I wonder if that’s what Jesus meant: make righteousness, justice, restoration so central it’s what you think of when you wake, when you work, when you rest. Picture it, like a hungry person pictures food. Long for it, like a thirsty person longs for water.  

And as it becomes, more and more, the motivating force of the day, you’ll see it, taste it, know it. You’ll learn to recognize it, in tired faces on dirty streets, quiet corners of empty fields, thoughtful conversations over simple, home-cooked meals.

I wonder: what would our world look like, if more of those who claim the name of Christian would live in meekness, hungering and thirsting, working and praying, for the restoration and renewal Jesus promised?

The Lord’s justice will dwell in the desert,
    his righteousness live in the fertile field.
The fruit of that righteousness will be peace;
    its effect will be quietness and confidence forever
My people will live in peaceful dwelling places,
    in secure homes,
    in undisturbed places of rest.
Though hail flattens the forest
    and the city is leveled completely,
how blessed you will be,
    sowing your seed by every stream,
    and letting your cattle and donkeys range free.
                                                         (Isaiah 32)

This is the fourth in a series on Lent and the Beatitudes:
    
    An  Alternative Narrative: February 10
    Seeking Blessing in a Fracture Land: February 17

    The Poor in Spirit and Those Who Mourn: February 24

Lenten Reflections from 2012:

     Looking toward Lent
     Lenten Sorrow : Lament and Nacham
     Lenten Silence: Charash, Be Still
     Lenten Sweetness: Tasting Towb 
     Lenten Submission: Rethinking Hupotassō     
     Lenten Song: Remembering Ranan