Praying for the Innocent in Palestine and Israel

Pray for the Little Ones

We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the innocent children of Bethlehem by order of King Herod. Receive into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims. By your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

 

Yesterday was the Feast of the Holy Innocents, where we remember those slaughtered by Herod (Mat. 2:13-18). I shared the above prayer on multiple social media platforms, and folk really responded to it, most probably seeing it as a commentary on what’s going on in Gaza; one person explicitly mentioned the 9,000 children killed there.

              Now, for a blog where at one time I commented on everything, quite frenetically, my saying nothing about 10/7 and the invasion of Gaza might seem strange. Well, in the tradition of my wife, the Quaker tradition, there is a question you ask, “Are you improving the silence?” Or to put it another way, would my hot take on the Middle East simply contribute to the noise? I thought so, so I took time to listen; I noticed the people I most trust regarding Israel and Palestine were silent or lamenting.

              The Sunday after 10/7 I did say a few pastoral words to my congregation, essentially, I’ve met Israelis and Palestinians who have worked together every day for decades, middle aged men engaging in commerce, sometimes across or through fences. Folk living their day to day the best they can, do not want war, do not want each other dead or wounded. War and violence rarely cause the powerful and the ideologically driven to be defeated. Those who will be hurt and will die, will be the little ones. We ought to pray for the little ones.

 

Reasons for Silence

              Since then, I’ve been silent, because it seems like any words of support get warped here on American soil. Compassion toward those murdered and mutilated and raped on 10/7 is transformed into support for Islamophobia; horror at bombs and disease and starvation decimating the Palestinians in Gaza bolsters Antisemitism.

              For that matter, it seems like we can’t even settle on what terms mean. I’ve seen people use “From the River to the Sea” as a way to talk about Gaza and the West Bank becoming an independent country cradling the equally independent country of Israel, and others who use it to call for killing every Jew in the Middle East. Likewise, I’ve heard people saying they are “Zionists” and mean that they advocate for depopulating every country from Kuwait to Egypt, in order to ensure that God will bless America, because God blesses those who bless Israel. I also know people who call themselves Zionists because they believe Israel has a right to exist within the framework of the 1947 UN partition plan.

People are choosing sides like it’s a baseball game, or a twitter poll. We’re picking a slogan and inserting whatever meaning we want into it. We’re excusing the excesses of our own side, because at least they are on our side. We are polarizing and radicalizing in the process, and I don’t want to participate in that!

 

Who Benefits

              It is worth asking, who benefits from the misery and death of so many?

Hamas, surely, that’s why they provoked Israel, knowing Israel’s response to Hezbollah’s similar provocation years back. Recently, more Arab countries have begun to make peace with Israel while sidestepping the Palestinian question. Hamas’ action stopped that process in its tracks. Peace in the Middle East can only go through Palestine.

Netanyahu, a politician uniquely despised by his own people. His policies toward the Palestinians tended to delegitimize Palestinian Statehood by weakening moderates and strengthening militants; the same militants who eventually attacked the country he was supposed to be protecting. He caused a revolt in his own military when he undermined Israel's court system. He might well go to prison once he is out of power… so keeping the conflict going as long as possible, is in his best interest. His government currently has the legitimacy of a national unity coalition in the face of an external threat, once the threat ends, so does his rule.

Russia, the attack happened on Putin’s birthday, and some say that was not a coincidence. 10/7 diverted US and EU attention, munitions, and funding from Ukraine. Russia can pretend to be a disinterested and responsible third party in negotiations between Israel and Palestine. Russia, not America, is lauded as the force of stability in the Middle East and the wider world.

Iran has declared that 10/7 was retaliation against America for killing their chief spy a few years back. The war in Gaza helps their ally, Russia. It undermines the alliance against them being formed between Israel and the Arab world. Additionally, it has given Iran reason and opportunity to attack US service people, in an effort to gain power in Iraq and set up a sympathetic regime.

 

Israel’s 9/11

              I’ve thought some about Biden’s warning to Netanyahu that responding to 10/7 like we did on 9/11 would be a mistake. The American people called for things to be smashed to undo the smashing of our precious city, death for death and eye for an eye. Then we occupied Afghanistan for 20 years and Iraq for 12. As I alluded to above, we still have troops in Iraq who Iran is taking pot-shots at.

We could have tackled Al Qaeda as a police action, but we did not. As with many things in global governance, I don’t know enough to second guess that choice, but I do often wonder how different my generation’s formative years would have been if we’d tried to restrain and redeem the evil of 9/11, instead of trying to destroy it.

Does Israel want to still be fighting in Gaza in 2043? Do they want to occupy Lebanon until 2035? Could those who killed, maimed, and raped Israeli citizens be brought to justice by non-military means?

              The other wrinkle in all this is there are hostages out there. A few of them have been accidentally killed by the Israeli army already. Bombs don’t seem to be getting them home; the brief ceasefire did bring some people back. And it be clear, the prisoner exchange did further legitimize Hamas in the eyes of some, so I’m not saying there aren’t consequences to such an action.

 

Ceasefire

              It seems like war only hurts the least of these. This war is propping up Hamas and Netanyahu, strengthening the hand of bad state actors, and spreading global chaos. War won’t get the hostages back. War encourages radicalization, polarization, and more war. War saps the creativity of people of goodwill.

              For all those reasons, it seems like the best bad option is a ceasefire in Gaza.

I hope saying all this has not created more noise and nothingness, and I surely don’t know enough about the Israeli Palestinian conflict to say as much as I have, but my conscious told me that I had to say something. I pray for the little ones who are bearing the brunt of this conflict, pray that the Spirit might spark a creative way out of this destruction, and that we might know war no more.

Intended Unintended Consequences of War

               When I was a Freshman History major at the University of Oregon, I took an introductory course on the History of War. This was during the lead up to the US invasion of Iraq, so I heard everything the professor said in light of the upcoming conflict. One of the main lessons I remember from this course was that wars have unintended consequences, and often lead to radicalization of goals and national identities.

              An example of unintended consequences: The Napoleonic Wars led to the creation of Germany as a unified state. When France invaded and captured territory of the Holy Roman Empire they consolidated the tiny little principalities into larger administrative states (many of them that still exist to this day). This made it much easier for Prussia to consolidate them all into a single country.

              An example of radicalized goals: At the outset of the American Civil War the Union’s goal was its preservation, returning the Southern states to the Union. As the war drug on, battlefield choices were made regarding freeing slaves to undermine the war fighting capacity of the Confederacy, and frankly the average Union soldier saw slavery up close instead of through the eyes of newspapers and Southern songs. In a variety of ways this strengthened the hand of the abolitionist cause, and eventually moved Lincoln to shift the goal of the war from the moderate goal of returning slave states to the Union, to the radical goal of the eradication of slavery on the continent.

              Another thing I remember is the professor saying that there are people whose job it is to game out possible unintended consequences of war. In other words, to discover unintended consequences of an action and make them intended consequences. This brings me to the current war in Ukraine. I wonder what unintended intended consequences and radicalization might be hoped for by people whose job it is to think about these things.

              I imagine Russia chose to escalate the war in Ukraine (because they’d been in a proxy war there for some time) as they did, with the hope of destabilizing the post-Cold War world order. They invaded so that “the West” would make choices that undermined their place on the world stage and bolstered that of BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Additionally, they likely hoped to draw BRIC nations closer together, at this point their main commonalities are rising economies, not alliances. I have noticed India is rather muted in their criticisms of Russia’s choice to go to war, and both they and China are buying Russian oil now that Europe and America have lessened their purchases.

              On the other side of the coin, Europe has responded more forcefully than expected. Russia may have singlehandedly re-armed Europe. Russia’s choice to invade may have prompted the European Union to seek a policy of knocking out their potential rival in the East out of contention as a regional player on the world stage as we move to being an increasingly multipolar world. Traditionally neutral-ish countries like Sweden and Finland are formally joining NATO, Ukraine might join the EU. There are reports that Russia has depleted its stock of some types of missiles, even as Germany is gearing up to create more such weapons as a deterrent.

              There is also a radicalization going on within Ukraine. From reports I’ve read, even the most pro-Russian mayors and governors are sounding like Churchill: they’ll fight Russia on the beaches, they’ll fight them in the forest, they will never surrender! If Russia’s assessment that Ukraine wasn’t a real state that they weren’t a real people, was true, their choice to go to war has radicalized “the” Ukraine, and it is now and forever only Ukraine. If they believed there were a bunch of Russians next door to them, who just happened to be living in a geographic region known as “The” Ukraine, now they have no choice but to acknowledge that their neighbors are Ukrainians.

Pandemic: COVID19 Edition

Pandemic: COVID19 Edition

            Hi all. In the midst of the current global pandemic, I thought I would offer a little catharsis—a variant of/add on to the board game Pandemic.

            The main differences come:

-In the set up stage.

-Restricting the first three turns.

-And the addition of COVID19 World Event Cards that reflect actual news reports. 

Click here to download the word document with the game varients.

Enjoy!

On Issues of War and Peace

              Upon hearing about the assassination of the Iranian General Soleimani and the talk of tit-for-tat reprisals from both our president and the leader of Iran, I went back and looked at the pastoral letter I wrote to you all when it looked like President Obama was about to invade Syria because they used chemical weapons. I hope and pray this letter is as unnecessary as that one turned out to be, that peace will eclipse all intentions toward war.

              I started that letter with words that loom large in my heart today as well. Kyrie Eleison—Lord have mercy.

              Kyrie Eleison… This is how we start our opening prayer to God in worship—the start of the prayer, in which we pray for peace from above and for our salvation—peace for the whole world.

              And I would ask that you take a moment to pray this prayer from our Hymnal:     

“Gracious God, grant peace among nations. Cleanse from our own hearts the seeds of strife: greed and envy, harsh misunderstandings and ill will, fear and desire for revenge. Make us quick to welcome ventures in cooperation among the peoples of the world, so that there may be woven the fabric of a common good too strong to be torn by the evil hands of war. In the time of opportunity, make us be diligent; and in the time of peril, let not our courage fail; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

              Now, I recognize the current moment we find ourselves in is different than the one we were in 6 years ago with Syria. In this case we killed a general who, during the second Iraq War, snuck rockets into Iraq that could pierce up-armored military vehicles, which killed hundreds of US soldiers. Consequently we are worried about blowback—that US soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan will be targeted and that, if things swing out of control, we’ll be re-invading Iraq to secure a place from which to invade Iran.

              And our faith has something to say about such things. For two thousand years we Christians have been struggling with being faithful in the world as it is, in situations of persecution, famine, feast, might, and war. And those struggles have given us a rich tradition of thought and action, something much deeper than the knee-jerk reactions of TV pundits and political intellectuals.

              In the early days of the Church, Christians were known for being pacifists. In fact, the Society of Friends (Quakers) and Mennonites still are pacifists, they see refusing to go to war as a witness to the world that the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, reigns. Other Christians, such as us Lutherans, follow a tradition that includes Just War Theory, “which requires certain conditions to be met before the use of military force is considered morally right. 

These principles are:

1.      A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.

2.      A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.

3.      A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just war can only be fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.

4.      A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.

5.      The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.

6.      The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered.

7.      The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.”

              Additionally, this Church, the ELCA, in 1995, created a document “For Peace in God’s World” which particularized our understanding of Just War Theory to the challenges of the 20^th and 21^st century. Here are a few stand out statements:

            “Wars, both between and within states, represent a horrendous failure of politics. The evil of war is especially evident in the number of children and other noncombatants who suffer and die.”

            “Helping the neighbor in need may require protecting innocent people from injustice and aggression. While we support the use of nonviolent measures, there may be no other way to offer protection in some circumstances than by restraining forcibly those harming the innocent. We do not, then--for the sake of the neighbor--rule out possible support for the use of military force. We must determine in particular circumstances whether or not military action is the lesser evil.”

            “From the posture of the just/unjust war tradition, the aim of all politics is peace. Any political activity that involves coercion should be held accountable to just/unjust war principles. They are important for evaluating movements, sanctions, embargoes, boycotts, trade policies to reward or punish, and other coercive but nonviolent measures.”

            And finally, and most solemn, "Any decision for war must be a mournful one."

            And so, I conclude this letter as I did the last one, Kyrie Eleison.

My initial "hot take" on the transcripts of Donald and Volodymyr

Anti-tank Missiles for Hillary’s Server & Discrediting Mueller’s Testimony the Day Before

VOLODYMYR: Ukraine’s President: We are almost. ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

DONALD: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation… I think you are surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.

Personal Relationship with Donald Trump for Information on a Political Opponent’s Son

VOLODYMYR: I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us.

DONALD: The other thing. There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.

Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.

The Investigation will be Done by Yes Men, You’ll Get the Result You Want
Pass on the Direction You Want the Investigation to Go

VOLODYMYR: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor First of all I understand and I'm knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament; the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned is this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to μs, it would be very helpful for the investigation

The Prosecutor Removed from Office for Corruption is the Kind of Prosecutor I Want You to Use

ALSO

I’ll Bribe You with Economic Incentive for the Results I Want

DONALD: I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have. Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to get better and better I predict.

Emoluments Clause OR The Tower of Babel is So Beautiful!

VOLODYMYR: I stayed at the Trump Tower. I will talk to them and I hope to see them again in the future. I also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically Washington DC. On the other hand, I also wanted to assure you that we will be very serious about the case and will work on the investigation. As to the economy, there is much potential for our two countries and one of the issues that is very important for Ukraine is energy independence.

Our Changing Vocation (A reflection on Luther’s Small Catechism)

              Perhaps it is because I’m nearly half a year into a new vocation—that of husband (not to mention uncle to a passel of nephews and nieces)—that I’ve been thinking again about the idea of Christian Vocation. In regular conversations we use “vocation” as synonymous with job, but what I’m talking about is all our roles and relationships. As Christians the starting point for all these roles and relationships is our baptism; God has graciously made us Children of God. We don’t have to do anything, so what do we now do? An impulse might be to try and “repay” this gift… well, God doesn’t need anything we have, none of our work will make us more Child of God-ish… but you know where we could invest that impulse to work and to give, to repay?

              Our neighbors! I mean this in the most inclusive way possible, anyone we connect to via roles and relationships, everyone from our self to the earth.

              The first relationships we have is with ourselves. Being a person who inhabits a body is something Christians (and humans in general) sometimes forget when thinking about relationships… but that’s where it starts, have you seen a 3-month-old discover that their feet are in fact part of them? That’s definitely the start of a new relationship!!! Jesus at one point says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you don’t love yourself, there is no way you can love any of the other neighbors we have.

              Part of self-love is having a sense of purpose, if you don’t know what you are for you won’t know when you’ve accomplished your calling. According to Luther we are made to be in relationship with God, experiencing awe, love, and trust. Sometimes this impulse to holiness gets misdirected, either by camouflaging our own interests in “god talk” or idealizing people and things that are not God. In both cases we have created idols. Additionally, we are made for praise and thanksgiving. We often have an urge to focus on the negative, but for our own health, if not for praise, it is imperative that we teach ourselves to recognize the good moments and give thanks for them. Finally, we need to remember the Sabbath, keeping it holy. On one hand, this means committing to Holy Time, gathering together in worship of God and engagement with scripture. On the other hand, this means taking time to rest—really rest. In our society where everyone with a cell phone is responsible for every email and phone call, where split shifts and on call work is the norm, this is no easy task, but it is still a holy calling and one that respects the sanctity of the self.

              Our first neighbor we are aware of is often a parent or relative. In our vocation as child we ought to honor these first relationships. They are incredibly formative, fostering an environment of both safety and growth. On the flip side, to various degrees based on our involvement in a child’s life, we find ourselves the recipient of an amazing amount of trust from these kiddos. We are called to raise loving and loved children!

              We also make friends. We ought to treat these relationships with care, for they are precious. Our friends must be treated as ends, not means to some other end.

              In our romantic relationships, especially when they reach the seriousness of marriage, we are called to love and honor our spouses and significant others. We are also called to avoid pursuing romantic relationships that would make it harder for other people to honor and love their spouse.

              Then there are our actual neighbors—not just the metaphor of neighbor to mean “someone who is not me.” We are to help and support them as best we can. We are to help keep their property and interpret their actions and words in the best possible light. All these things are true about our friends as well, but neighbors, unlike friends, are rarely chosen, thus we must be more aware of our worse impulses when it comes to our neighbors. Additionally, as our country grows more diverse, so too will our neighbors (and I certainly hope our friends too). When someone is of a different race or religion than we are it can be harder to empathize with them, this only means we must make an extra effort to do so, to engage our neighbor with  curious and kind eyes, not with suspicious or malicious ones.

              Then we come to the more secular understanding of vocation—our job and those of other people. How do we as a worker, a business person, and a consumer live out our calling to be Children of God? Neither employer nor employee ought to steal from one another or their customer. This can run the gamut from wage theft (employees loose approximately 19 billion dollars a year to wage theft) to time theft (costing employers approximately 11 billion dollars a year) to selling someone an inferior product based on the color of their skin (for example, redlining). Then there is being a consumer—so much of our economy feeds off of people desiring things other people have, just watch a commercial, which is coveting… how do we keep these desires subservient to love of neighbor and ensure we do not make consumer products, and the lifestyles they sell us, into idols? This question ought to be on our mind every time we take out our wallet or log onto Amazon to make a purchase.

              Then there is that age old question of citizenship. We are citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20) and yet we live in a particular nation. The question of how these two identities intersect is a complicated one—for example St. Augustine wrote 415,280 words on the subject in his City of God. He faced a falling Roman Empire that everyone identified as a Christian Nation, and had to disentangle what was Christian and what was Roman, in order to assure his people that God had not failed, even though Rome had. In fact, St. Augustine goes so far as to describes the state as nothing more than a big band of pirates! Luther was on the other end of things, the state was protecting him from the Roman Catholic Church and he wanted to affirm the authority of the state over against the authority of the church. So, Luther saw the state as a parent figure; citizens had a duty to honor, serve, obey, love, and respect the state. Then Luther goes on to insist that the state has only one job, to distribute daily bread to both the just and the unjust, since God has already provided it. Two very different visions for two very different situations… and we find ourselves in a state categorically different than both the “Holy Roman Empire”(aka Germany, which by Luther’s day was neither Holy, nor Roman) of Luther’s day and the Roman Empire of Augustine’s day.

              We live in a democracy, where the state rules by “the consent of the governed.” So, our vocation as citizen is a little more complicated than if we were peons ruled by an Emperor. On one hand, our relationship to those in authority ought to be that of respect. On the other hand, the way our system is set up we ourselves participate in that authority and need to act as such. That means in addition to respect and deference toward the state we also need to be informed voters, the gentle voice of Christ among the many competing voices in our society, and engaged with the state to ensure that it, “restrains evil, protects from harm and upholds the common good.”[1]

              We are also, no matter how “cheesy” the phrase sounds, citizens of the world. Between the normalization of global travel and the international reach of the internet, it is no longer enough to consider our relationships with people within our own country. Now we have neighbors everywhere; if we type a lie on the internet in New Jersey it can make a man in Bangladesh lose his job, if we buy products that are unjustly made overseas we are still acting unjustly, if we cheat on our spouse while traveling internationally, we still cheat on our spouse… even if it happened far away.

              Finally, we are earthlings residing on earth—if Genesis 2:7 means anything it means we are intimately connected to this planet, we are called to keep it (Gen. 2:15). With acidic oceans, widening holes in the ozone and shrinking polar ice caps, it would serve us well if we cared and kept this sacred trust more fully.

              Remember, our vocations start from baptism—God has acted first, we are simply living into what he has already done. God acted graciously, and will continue to do so. Even when we fail, and we will, our relationship with God is still there, and so is our neighbor. So when we fall, we are still Children of God and can get back up again and continue to be kind neighbors to ourselves, to our family, to neighbors and friends, in our jobs, as consumers and citizens, as earthlings. In all things we can strive to love God and neighbor.

---

[1] “Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective” ELCA social Statement Summary

My Summary of the Mueller Report

My Summary:

The Russians did it, the Trump team bungles everything, there were many instances of obstruction that Congress needs to follow up on, and the President recalls NOTHING.

The Russians Did It

            The Russians used social media to influence 126 million Americans with propaganda that highlighted divisions in the country, and later assisted the most divisive candidate, Donald Trump. This had real world implications, including people attending rallies in real life.

            The Russians also hacked a bunch of Democratic Party officials and offices. They then leaked this information to Wikileaks. Wikileaks coordinated with members of the Trump political team. This included giving stolen passwords to an anti-Trump PAC website to Donald Trump Jr. and leaking the Clinton Campaigns playbook. Imagine competing against an opponent who knew your every plan and schedule; that would be incredibly unfair.

The Trump Team Bungles Everything

            One thing that comes across loud and clear in the report is that the Trump team is decidedly not the Best and the Brightest. They bluff to no end, claiming authority they don’t have; they claim that they attend meetings with people when all they did was google the person’s name; they make assumptions about what is going on that just aren’t true, but keep going because why not… 

            A crazy example that points to all of these tendencies: Papadopoulos meets a Russian academic, who won’t pay attention to him at a party, until he starts bragging that he is high up in Trump’s organization (which he is not). Then the Russian sets up a meeting with Papadopoulos and two other Russians, one of them a woman. Papadopoulos brags to the Trump team that the Russian academic, who didn’t really want to talk to him, is his good friend. Then he tells the team that the woman at the meeting he is at is in fact Putin’s niece. She is not. Later Trump Junior looks up the name of one of the Russians on Wikipedia and tells the team that he just got off the phone with the person… but in actuality all he did was google the guy’s name… this kind of thing happens A LOT in the report! In general, it seems that the entire Trump team is incapable of making true statements.

There Were Many Instances of Obstruction that Congress Needs to Follow Up On

            Discerning whether a President can obstruct justice is a complex constitutional question, above Mueller’s pay grade, so to speak.

            Defining what Obstruction of Justice is, however, was not nearly as hard. Mueller defines Obstruction of Justice as having three parts, an obstructive act, a nexus between the acts and an official proceeding, and corrupt intent. In other words, did the person do something, that would harm an official proceeding, and was it intentional? 

            Mueller then lays out 14 instances where the President’s actions could be an Obstruction of Justice and analyzes them with the above three criterion. Then he goes on and says these 14 instances, looked at together, could establish a pattern of the President attempting to Obstruct Justice. Mueller then asserts that no one is above the law and congress ought to look into these 14 instances of Obstruction of Justice.

The President Recalls NOTHING

            Finally, we can read the President’s written responses to Mueller’s questions. In a very short couple of paragraphs the president claims that he doesn’t recall specific events 30 times!

Politics, Policy, and the Church

            One of the things that concerns me in these polarized times, when everything a person say is analyzed for its political ramifications—did you say a blue thing or a red thing?—is that we lose sight of the distinction between policy and politics.

            Politics is the up and down, who is winning the next election or poll, or which side scored a point on a talk-show or with a Facebook meme or Twitter hashtag.

            Policy is how our government is run, what choices those who represent us make, and how they will shape all our lives.

            In our society, the deal we’ve made between church and state, roughly put, is that the church isn’t political—we don’t endorse candidates, the Baptists ought not be the praying wing of the Republican Party and the Lutherans ought not be the praying wing of the Democratic Party. That said, there is no such agreement about policy—so looking at how politicians vote, what the consequences of policies choices are—is not out of bounds.

            Now this agreement, at its worst, can morph religion. There are politicians who would love to be endorsed by congregations—sometimes they try to get pastors to break this societal agreement (you might remember that back in 2014 investor and political activist Steven Baer offered me a $10,000 bribe to tell you all how to vote from the pulpit that year—which I, of course, didn’t do). More often they want churches to bend this agreement. You get these “Church Voter Guides” that inform people about issues/policy, but make clear they are really about particular candidates. In fact, I think some of the shibboleths of, most prominently, Evangelical Christianity, have more to do with overblowing the importance of particular policies to favor particular political parties, than having anything to do with scripture and faith. When done poorly faith can be corrupted or bent by this separation between Church and State.

            I say all of this as preface to what I will say now. The current immigration policy here in the US has hurt people we know and care about. Members of First Indonesian Seventh Day Adventist Church, who we share our building with, some of whom we know by sight because they worked with our Building Finance and Liaison committees, were sent back to Indonesia, where they will face persecution.

            So, let’s think about the politics and policy of all this.

            Back in the 1990’s, during the Clinton Administration, ethnically Chinese Indonesian Christians were being slaughtered—it was ethnic cleansing with a religious tinge to it. America’s policy solution to this problem was to give out travel visas to as many people whose lives were under threat as possible, with the understanding that they would overstay those visas without repercussions—doing things this way instead of taking them in as refugees was, simply put, easier and cheaper.

            During the Bush years there was occasional pressure to return. In fact, immediately after 9-11 all these folk had to register, were put on a list or two, and started checking in with ICE once a year. They did this gladly, many Indonesian Christians showed up in front of the ICE building at 2am the first morning of registration to make sure America knew they were standing with the country who saved them from persecution.

            During the first half of the Obama years there was a spike in deportations, with the assumption that increased enforcement would lead to comprehensive immigration reform. During this time some of these Indonesians went into hiding.

            Then we had the 2016 election in which immigrants were labeled rapists and refugees terrorists. This caused many immigrants to fear for their lives.

            To date the Trump administration has arrested 35% more immigrants than were arrested in the same time last year, and the arrest of “non-criminal immigrants” has doubled. Among those arrested and deported were members of FISDAC, the Massie, Timesela, and Kawuwung families—including fathers who are leaving behind a 13 year old, a 6 year old, and a 1 year old.

            We can speak up for them. We can contact the people who have authority over the policies that have sent these families away. We can make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.

            We can contact Christopher Moriarty, the Community Relations Officer of ICE Newark (970 Broad Street, Newark, NJ, 07102), the person on the ground responsible for explaining the implementation of these policies to the public.

            We can contact John Kelly, the Secretary of Homeland Security (Secretary of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C. 20528) who is in charge of implementing this policy.

            We can contact President Donald Trump (The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500) who holds the highest executive office in the land and signed the orders that activated these deportations.

            We can contact our Senators and Congresspeople, especially Representative Pallone (67/69 Church St., New Brunswick, NJ 08901) who has submitted a bill to give Indonesians with expired tourist visas a second chance at applying for Refugee status.

            None of this need be political, we’re seeking redress for a policy choice that is hurting families we’ve come into contact with. We’re seeking redress for policies that will send people back to a country in which they will be persecuted for both their ethnicity and their religion. This isn’t a red or blue issue—it is a matter of life and death.

Sermon: Never Finish a Sermon Early

Never finish a sermon early.

         It seems that, quiet consistently, when I type that last, Amen and Alleluia, and put a period or exclamation point at the end… the Word refuses to let that be the last word.

         Today we are reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans—it is written to a mixed Jewish/Gentile Christian church—one where the Jews were deported from Rome for five years under the Reign of Emperor Claudius, and when they returned there was dissension between the stayers and the returners—the Jewish Christians struggled to re-integrate into the life of the congregation from which they had been removed.

         How pertinent this situation which Paul writes to, for us today.

         You see, our partners in the Gospel—the First Indonesian Seventh Day Adventist Church who share our building—are experiencing just such a struggle.

10 of their members have been deported, or are in the process of being deported… Since the early 90’s they’ve returned to ICE—Immigration and Customs Enforcement—yearly and yearly have been given an extension on their stay here in the US on account of ongoing persecution of Christians there… This year they were immediately scooped up, persecution be damned.

         I wonder what dissension there will be between the stayers and the returners back in Indonesia…

         I wonder too of the suffering they will meet, and the culpability each one of us shares for their suffering.

         I wonder at the tensions and the paradoxes of our lives as Christians.

         Bound tense by time, living, as always we have, between the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom, and its consummation.

         Imprisoned by the paradox of our very person, always bound to Sin, and yet freed by Christ.

         Yes, I wonder at the tension of time and the paradox of person, both part of our deep reality—and when the Spirit allows it,

in small glimpses often fleeting,

I trust that here with us in all these things is the grace of God,

maybe within all this, reconciliation.

Let us pray

         We are pulled, Church, into the open arms of God, trust this to be true—from the cross, in the grave, on the other side, we are caught by Christ.

Stand firm in your faith—God is for you and not against you

—God is at peace with us, because Jesus is the Prince of Peace and we are his. God’s love, which we most clearly experience in the person of Jesus Christ, wins.

        

         Yet, this reality is one rarely experienced. In fact, much its opposite finds us. Christ’s glory is found in the glorious cross, in suffering—and so it should not surprise us when we too suffer.

         Suffer, even for our faith

—and that’s where my heart is at right now

—these 10 Christians, returning to Indonesia, members of FISDAC,

the Massie,

Timesela,

and Ka-wu-wung families.

…One of the families left for America after their cousin, who was a pastor, was beheaded. They are returning to Jakarta, where its Christian Governor was sentenced to 2 years in prison for quoting the Quran.

When I talked to Pastor Rantung he was rather realistic about what those members of his flock are to face—persecution is part of being Christian.

None of this “they don’t say merry Christmas to me at the mall—I’m being oppressed.” But life and death decided by doctrine.

         And there is the suffering of those who remain too—13 year old Joel, who is without his father, Arino, on Father Day. 6 year old Will and 1 year old Eden who are preparing to say goodbye to their dad, Billy

… a Christian community cut off from 10 of its members.

         And as I think of these siblings who live so close, who share our building—I must ask,

“What of the 200 Chaldean Christians in Michigan who are being returned to Iraq—to the midst of a war zone?

Or, what of the children from Central America who come here to escape drug cartels? Or those Syrian refugees, of whatever religion, truly just trying to escape extremism…

         …The Kingdom of God—already, but not yet…

         How can we not look at this reality of our sisters and brothers in Christ and not see the depths of sin in which we ourselves are caught?

For decades these families faithfully returned to ICE and had their status as persecuted  people renewed… then we spent an election cycle demonizing immigrants and refugees and now they’re in danger.

         We allowed these new policies that encourage and empower ICE to conduct so called “low hanging fruit deportations.”

         And I say we

—not the President,

not Congress,

not Judges

—One of the hard parts of being a Christian in a Democracy is that we can’t hide behind Roman’s 13 “Submit to Governing Authorities”

or hide behind Martin Luther’s, “Let whoever has the power use it.”  

We can not wash our hands of what the state does—This isn’t Rome or Medieval Germany—here we have the power.

         If we disapproved of sending our sisters and brothers away to be persecuted,

we would speak up.

         You didn’t know—you may say—I know what was my guilty conscience’s first defense

—but as citizens—and that is one of our Christian vocations…

as citizens, it is our duty to be vigilant, to be aware of the policies put in place in our name. And then, in our private lives and in the public square, to strive for justice and peace in all the world—to strive to love our neighbor as ourselves.

         And we’re going to fail at it…

         We’re always going to fail at it

—we’re not even going to have good intentions about our political choices most of the time—but we keep striving.

         Because we strive from a place of love—God showed us his love through Christ while we were still weak, ungodly, unrighteous, sinners … we can try to love our neighbors, because we’re loved.

Yes, sinners we are, yet made holy too. Made holy to love our neighbors.

         And today I’m asking a few things of you all:

-First, I expect all of you to sign a letter to our siblings in Christ who share our building letting them know we feel their pain. It’ll be passed around through the service.

-Second, there are sheets with a boilerplate letter you can use—as your conscience dictates— as a model to write you own letter and a list of people you can contact to tell those who have power over these things that their actions in deporting the members of FISDAC are unjust.

Third, pray throughout the week for these families.

Amen.