Some Thoughts on the #NashvilleStatement

Here are some thoughts on the Nashville Statement

Preamble

              I wonder, in this moment in time, with so many things going on—white nationalism on the rise in this country threatening people of color, increasingly severe storms causing havoc both at home and across the globe (most noticed in Houston), nations threatening nuclear war… in the midst of all these things… I wonder why the Nashville Statement was released?

              You attack individual autonomy when it comes to issues of sex, gender, and orientation. I wonder if a similarly strong attack will be made regarding how individual autonomy shapes economic, ecological, and political life in this country? I shall not hold my breath.

              You declare gay and trans lives to be shortsighted, ruinous, and dishonorable. Then you pat yourself on the back as an unashamed courageous and clearly counter-cultural force in this country. I wonder how such counter-cultural people have gained a seat at the table of the President of the United States, and I wonder still more why this document was released to coincide with his administration’s roll out of anti-trans and anti-gay agenda items?

              I marvel at how you have sold yourself for pottage. You claim our “true identity” is as male and female—but scripture declares that our true identity is the one we have been given in baptism—we are Children of God.

In fact, you double down on this point and link a person’s gender, being male and female, to a person’s salvation. “Design” and salvation are tied together for you. There was a time when my denomination’s namesake, Martin Luther, stood against what he believed to be salvation by works. I think you go one step worse—salvation by right self-conception. As a Lutheran I must deny this—our actions, or thoughts, or anything this is ours, will not save us. We are saved only because God is gracious.

Article 1

              I have noticed you have dishonored every marriage that does not produce children and any remarriage after divorce. You also ignore the reality that when clergy perform marriages we do so partially as officials of the state. There is literally a human contract involved in what we do.

Article 2

              How often do you wed two virgins in your church? How many of you were virgins on your wedding night? I worry that these types of statements, that ignore the facts on the ground, often serve to make the church look foolish, out of touch, and easily dismissed. I remember being told not to lust by a pastor, that if I looked at a girl with lust I truly ought to pluck out my eye. I was a teenage boy going through puberty, this scared the hell out of me. When I finally went to a lay adult with my genuine struggle to be perfect, his response was, “just don’t listen to the pastor, no one ever actually does anything like that.”

Article 3

              In what ways are male and female distinct? Which differences are the ones that matter, which are the “divinely ordained differences”? I would venture to guess that decision will be made by mainly men, at least judging by the average signer of this statement.

              I wonder, if sexual difference does not render inequality of dignity or worth, does that mean you will work to close the gender pay gap? That you will fight for the Equal Rights Amendment? That you will ordain women…

Article 4

              It seems to me that discerning what aspects of our present life are part of “the fall” and which are “divinely ordained” is not an easy thing to discern. After all, when God showed up on earth the religious leaders of his day crucified him, and the Apostle Paul, no slouch when it comes to biblical interpretation, attacked the early church on account of his reading of Deuteronomy—he who dies upon a tree is cursed. If you think God’s will is clear, you will likely crucify Christ and persecute his church.

Article 5

              Taking this affirmation seriously for a moment, this would mean part of a man’s self-conception ought to be non-monogamy, as our “reproductive structures” contain enough sperm to knock-up the whole planet a hundred times over. Natural Law arguments only work if you ignore nature.

Article 6

              You seem to mean well.

Article 7

              Again, you’ve tied self-conception to redemption, you lean toward salvation by self-conception. How does God save me based on my manliness?

I wonder as well, how this and article 5 play out. One looks to natural law, the other to scripture. For that matter, what all does the bible say about sexuality, gender, and orientation?

Article 8

              I wonder how many married gay people you’ve talked to? By and large their marriages and relationships with their partners have made their lives richer and more fruitful. I’ve seen the fruits of the Spirit blossom on account of homosexual relationships.

              I also wonder how this article squares with your natural law arguments. If homosexual sex is found in most every animal in nature, how then is it unnatural?

Article 9

              Again, if article 5 means anything you have to take seriously sexual desire as natural.

Article 10

              If supporting homosexual marriage and transgender people is a sin, then I’ll sin boldly.

              By the same token, there are ways in which fellow Christians can disagree, respect for the bound conscience of the neighbor. But if you aren’t practicing it in your statement, I shall not do so in my response.

Article 11

              This is a strange article. I hope it is not saying we ought to purposefully misgender people. Maybe its call for truth about one another as male and female calls us to fight toxic masculinity and sexism?

Article 12

              You all are pietists!

              You seem to believe people might be holy before the general resurrection. Yet we are both justified and sinner—claiming otherwise leads people to hide their sins and foster hypocrisy. We’re only as sick as our secrets. Don’t make people sick with false promises.

Article 13

              Your ongoing assumption that you know God’s revealed will reeks of self-aggrandizement. At the same time you don’t know if you are affirming “natural law” or “scripture” and seem not to have actually thought through any of it beyond that you require gender, sex, and orientation to align for everyone in the way that it does for the majority of people.

              Also, have you talked to transgender-folk about their struggles to “forsake transgender self-conceptions”? Have you talk to them about the liberation they have experienced when they’ve become who they believe God has called them to be?

Article 14

I like The Denver Statement’s response to this:
“WE AFFIRM that Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners and that through Christ’s death and resurrection forgiveness of sins and eternal life are available to every person; this is a supreme treasure.

WE DENY that God is a boy and has actual arms.”

My letter to Rep. Pallone

Dear Rep. Pallone

            I am a 33 year old man with Pulmonary Atresia with Ventricular Septal Defect. I am one of the first people to survive this condition passed age 3 or so. In fact, I’ve been told it is the audio of my heart that medical students listen to in order to know what we sound like.

            I am writing this to you as a letter of encouragement, please continue to stand for the 57 million Americans with pre-existing conditions and all those who need good laws in order to have good healthcare.

            I’ve been blessed, I was covered under good insurance as a kid, because my mom worked for the Department of Defense, the VA, and NATO and they made sure my pre-existing condition was covered. Now days, I am a Lutheran Pastor and I have insurance through the Church, I’m happy with it, and because it is a national plan connected with a national Church, it will follow me from congregation to congregation. But, I know not everyone with a pre-existing condition can be a Lutheran Pastor.

            On top of that, there was a period of time during seminary, before the ACA was passed, when I was covered by inferior insurance. I’d been told, when purchasing the insurance, that my heart condition was covered (they wanted to sell me the policy, right?), but when I went for my every-other-year heart check-up I received a $10,000 bill, nothing covered because everything to do with my heart was “pre-existing.” $10,000 was 80% of my income that year (I was a Vicar at an inner-city church in Baltimore). I had to plead poverty once I found out my insurance company would not cover it.

            It is a painful and embarrassing thing to skip out of paying what you owe. Everyone in the hospital was gracious once it was clear what had happened and that I wasn’t trying to pull one over on anyone, so it sort of worked out that time.

            But, these days, I only pay 10% of my income for health insurance as Pastor of St. Stephen here in New Jersey, because I have good insurance. I am happy to pay my fair share, and so glad that no one discriminates against me based on this condition I was born with.

            I have to admit, I am deeply afraid for my fellow pre-existing condition folk, that this protection will be taken away if the ACA is repealed. I hear Trump’s point person plans to replace the ACA with a non-taxable savings account and the ability to transfer insurance across state lines. Neither of these will do anything for the 57 million of us with pre-existing conditions. Maybe it is just my Lutheran sense of Sin with a capital S, but I am damn sure if companies are given back the right to discriminate, they will.

            Please understand me, I want to pay my fair share. I want to do right by my doctors who keep me alive. The ACA gives folk the possibility to do that—the alternative doesn’t.

            Again, thank you so much for fighting for me and the 57 million.

Peace,

Chris Halverson

Sermon: Loving neighbor is a how question, not a who question

Loving neighbor is a how question, not a who question

         Three years ago, the last time the parable of the “Good” Samaritan came up, was the week of the shooting of Trayvon Martin.

         And I remember how quickly people picked the kid to pieces.

They blamed him for his death because he’d smoked marijuana, he’d been tardy, and he’d scratched WTF into a door at school. Who he was shaped whether he was worthy for life or death!

         And that reminds me of what they’ve been saying about the shooting in Dallas.

“Why did it happen there?” they ask.

It was the model of best practices in policing.

It shouldn’t have happened there, after all before the shooting the police and the protestors were mingling, snapping selfies with one another like teenagers in love.

         Who they were as a police department should have protected them against injury and death. Their character and their person, who they were, should have shielded them from the sniper.

        

         Then there is the case of Alton Sterling, killed in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile killed outside Minneapolis. People are saying strange things like:

“It’s a shame Philando died, but so what about Alton.”

Philando Castile was the beloved cafeteria guy,

Alton couldn’t keep a regular job and instead sold CD’s in the open air, he’d been to jail and had to hustle to make ends meet.

         Imagine that,

do any of you have relatives or friends that work odd jobs?

or have seen the inside of a cell? Imagine if society decided that meant it was okay to kill them! Who they are allows for execution.

         Likewise, both the Black Lives Matter folk, and the police, are similarly feeling targeted for who they are.

         With all that weighing on our shoulders and our speech, we come up against Jesus’ command to love God and neighbor.

In the face of today’s readings and our current reality, I would suggest we must ask how questions, not who questions. When confronted with this command to love our neighbor, we must ask how questions,

not who questions.
Let us pray:

         Today, Jesus is asked the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
         Jesus, responds with his own question, “What does it say in scripture? How do you read our tradition?”

         The Lawyer’s response is not unusual, he thinks back to the second verse of the Jewish morning and evening prayer known as the Shema:

         “Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord, is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”
         To which he adds from Leviticus, of all places, “You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
         And that could have ended the discussion right there. Jesus answers, “Yup. So go on and love God with your whole self and love your neighbor as yourself.”

         But, the Lawyer insists upon asking the who question.
“Who,” he asks, “is my neighbor?”
“Who,” he asks, “must I love as myself?”
“Who,” he asks, “must I love to gain eternal life?”
         But Jesus takes this question about eternal life

—this who question

—and takes it out of the abstract

—he solidifies,

“love your neighbor as yourself,” in story.
After all, “Once upon a time,” is a more effective instructor than, “thou shalt not,” or even, “thou shalt.”
         He takes this lofty concept and lowers it onto a road

—the Road from Jerusalem to Jericho.
         This road winds and twists, gets narrow, and is an easy place from which to ambush someone.
         This road, was a dangerous road and a deadly place to ponder earning eternal life.

         For that matter, Jesus answers the “who question” very clearly and very concretely.
         -Who? The bloody carcass of a man mangled on a dangerous road—he is your neighbor.
         -Who? A man stripped naked, so you can’t tell if he’s your kin or not—he is your neighbor.
         -Who? A man without any means to repay you—he is your neighbor.

         Confronted with the ways in which our country devalues the lives of black men:

         -Who? Alton Sterling, the father of five selling CD’s, surprised and shot.

         -Who? Philando Castile, the man pulled over for a torn tail light, caught in his car and confessing to the cop that he had a concealed carry permit and a gun, before he was killed in front of his girlfriend and her 4 year old daughter.

--They are your neighbor.

         Confronted, as well, by the ambush in Dallas:

         -Who? The 5 officers slain there in the street and all the injured that night.—They are your neighbor.

         In the face of these tragedies…

         -Who? The families of all the fallen.—They are your neighbor.

         Acting merciful in the midst of death and danger—that’s how Jesus answers the eternal life question and the who question.

         When you can’t even tell who it is you’re helping and you help them anyway

—that’s when you know you’re loving your neighbor.

         But he doesn’t stop there.
He then turns to those who ask the who question,
and shows how the who question leaves men stranded and dying on deadly roads.
         The Priest asked the who question,

“Who is that there, is he dead?

Who is he?

Is he Israelite?

Who will ambush me if I try to help him?”
He then decides that he’ll go to the other side, to be on the “safe side.”
         The Levite asks the same questions—the who questions. And he too decides to go to the other side, in order to be on the “safe side.”
         Then—to add insult to injury—the man who helps the injured man—the man who doesn’t ask the who question—is a Samaritan!

         Now, that might not strike us as odd… after all we know this story as “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.” But at that time, and at that place, there was no such thing as a “good” Samaritan.
         I could tell you all the historical reasons for Samaritans being considered bad news to 1st century Jews—but I think the startling nature of Jesus’ story can be made in another way—by placing him into our present crisis

—by sticking him here and now.

         The way some people are framing our life together in this country…

Jesus would tell the police the story of “The Good Black Lives Matter Activist.”

and tell the Black Lives Matter Folk the story of “The Good Policeman.”

         The hero of Jesus’ story—the one that doesn’t ask who—is a Samaritan.
And this Samaritan asks a different question, he asks how.

“How am I going to help this man?”
         And his actions answer this question loudly. He becomes personally involved.

He personally binds up wounds, he gives of his oil and his wine, he puts the wounded man on “his own beast” and gives of his own monies.
         When confronted by someone broken by the conflicts and snares of this world

—by banditry and by pain

—he did not ask who is that?

Is that person worth helping?

Is he someone of my religion?

From my nation?

My race?

My social standing?
No!

         He asked, “How can I help him?

What resources do I have, or do I know of, that can help that person!”
         And once Jesus finished up his parable, he asked another question of the Lawyer. Because you see the Lawyer was busy asking who is my neighbor?

So Jesus asked a different question—“Which of these three was neighborly to the man who fell among the robbers? Which one was neighborly to his neighbor?”
         Sheepishly the Lawyer must admit, “The one showing mercy on him.”

That is, the one who is moved in the gut, so that they are forced to move with hands and feet, moved to minister and give aid!

         Jesus isn’t concerned with who the neighbor is

—he’s concerned with how we treat the neighbor.

He is concerned with showing mercy in the midst of death and danger!

         As we light these seven candles for the five officers killed in Dallas and the two men killed in Minnesota and Louisiana, let us honor their lives,

who they were,

but let us also consider in our hearts the how.

How we can love as Jesus calls us to love.

I, for one, will reach out to our local police today, just to let them know our prayers as with them in their time of mourning,

and check-in with my colleagues of color,

and I guess, just try to listen, right?

To ask God for the courage to connect with people whose experience of life is not like my own,

so that I can continue to ask that how question.

How will you love your neighbor as yourself?

A+A

The invasion of Iraq / the 4th of July / Patriots and Protestors

The British released their report about the invasion of Iraq, and Tony Blair is defiant about his choice to invade. For that matter, the partisan divide here in America feels to me like we're back in 2003.
So, I thought I'd let 19 year old Chris speak, just so I can remember where we were 13 years ago:

"It seems we have lost. I’ve seen America’s government deciding to be an invader for the first time in history and, after initial doubts, the American people supported it. I’ve seen those of us who marched against war relegated to “focus groups.” Like a scene out of the Third Reich, people who would seem to be sane individuals, burn Dixie Chicks’ CDs in the streets; “Freedom fries” reign supreme. 
At the presentation of our flag at the 4th of July fireworks display here in Cheyenne Wyoming, my hometown, the presenter mentioned that there are too many Americans who, “don’t respect the flag.” He separated the sheep from the goats, the patriots from the protesters.  
To say the least, this marcher for peace felt down in the dumps. Then something happened to strengthen my resolve. The fireworks display began with a reading of the names and ages of each American soldier killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. With each name read, a single white firework was shot into the air, rose up through the solemn night sky, began to descend back down, and fizzled out. Robert M. Rodriguez ptttwp, a white light, a falling star, then darkness again. It was as if we were sending our national heroes up into heaven. 
As I sat there between my parents, my father looking a little bored, my mother’s eyes glistening with tears, I got to thinking about those names of soldiers, so many about my age (19). Each firework retort was also the retort of an Iraqi rifle, a miss-lobbed grenade, the crash of a helicopter. Bam Frederick E. Pokorney Jr dead. It was the light of Lori Ann Piestewa’s life, acceding through existence, then fizzling out, descending to the dead. 
This is why I marched. I didn’t march for the United Nations. I didn’t march for a certain political ideology. I marched for peace. I marched for the life of Brendon C. Reiss. 
The patriots holler and shout at the explosions while Toby Keith sings about putting “a boot in your ass” The protesters realize “an eye for an eye makes the world go blind,” and anger against anger makes a graveyard. The patriots smile and cheer about the troops we sent off to die. The protester sit somber, eyes glistening, knowing America chose this war, America chose to be the aggressor, America chose to let those soldiers die.
Don’t be embarrassed that you strove for peace. Don’t be embarrassed that you want to know about the legitimacy of the documents used to justify our war. Don’t be embarrassed that you want to know where the weapons of mass destruction are. Don’t be embarrassed; our cause is just, our motives virtuous, our actions commendable. 
We protesters may not wrap ourselves in the American flag, but rest assured we did not protest as traitors to our country, but as a people standing against needless death."

Shame on you Republicans!

Sermon: The Self-Binding God

        In light of the recent beheading of 21 Coptic Christians and the rumors of organ harvesting coming out of the region controlled by Daesh, commonly called ISIS here in the states.

         In light of the attacks on cartoonists and Jews now in two different countries, France and Denmark.

         In light of Daesh burning a Jordanian pilot alive.

         In light of the thousands slaughtered in Iraq and Syria.

         In light of the attempted Genocide of the Yazidi.

         In light of the beheading of Journalists and other foreigners.

         In light of the kidnapping of the two Bishops from Aleppo, now nearly 2 years ago.

          In light of all that, it’s worth considering again how these kind of things can be done in the name of God.

         Let us pray.

         When I first was reading the Bible on my own as a young kid, before I was firmly connected with a Church community or tradition, at night when I was supposed to be asleep, I would just randomly open up the Bible and read—this is how I rebelled against my parents as a 8 year old.

         Often times I ran into cool stories, Jesus getting the best of some Religious stick in the mud, or I ran into a cool proverbs that really made me think—it was great fun…

but sometimes I ran into some totally creepy stuff—The Book of Revelation, rules about menstrual blood, descriptions of situations when it is advisable to stone a person to death

—and the one that gave me nightmares for a good long time, was about the practice of Haram, the act of sacred destruction. When you conquer a village, take everything in it, both things and people, and put them to the flame.

Now, I would have read right past it, except it goes on and gives an example of when a soldier took some things and didn’t utterly destroy them. God gets mad at the people until the soldier is punished by joining the objects in the flames.

         And, if we get past the cute children’s story version of events we have about Noah—you know all those children’s arks with cute little Giraffes and Elephants and smiling Noah and family

—if you get past all that, the flood story is another one of those stories that could give a kid nightmares.

         Angels are boinking humans, humans are killing one another left, right, and center, so God flushes the whole experiment down the toilet.

         It must be stated that the first 12 chapters of Genesis are written as pre-history—essentially, “you’ve heard all these explanations of the world from other peoples, here’s a faithful reading of them, in light of the God we know.”

So, for example, “you’ve heard it said the god Marduke created earth by tearing apart a chaos dragon, well I say to you God isn’t a fighting God, God creates simply with his words.”

Likewise, as in today’s reading, “You’ve heard it said in the Epic of Gilgemesh, and elsewhere, that the gods were grumpy because humans are loud, so they tried to drown us all, and it was only because a human seduced a goddess that humans survived, but I say to you, the wickedness of humans brought about a just response, yet God was merciful and started again with a new covenant, a new relationship, with humans and the earth—God doesn’t give up on us.”

         So, when you read vast swaths of scripture it’s worth noting what they’re being written in response to… None the less, it’s gruesome, “all flesh cut off,” the deadly bow of God.

         And as you all know there are plenty of times when the faithful have not put down the bow.

         Because I believe it might be a useful analogy to help us understand what’s currently going on in the Middle East, I would like us to think back for a few moments to the period during, and immediately after, Luther’s Reformation.

         Before Luther, Jan Hus was burnt at the stake for offering his parishioners both bread and wine at communion.

         If Luther hadn’t been taken into hiding after his famous declaration at his trial, “Here, I stand, I can do no other, God help me. Amen,” that would have been his fate as well. Some early Lutherans were in fact killed in just such a fashion.

         John Calvin, the founder of Presbyterianism, burnt Michael Servetus alive for not believing in the Trinity or in child baptism.

         Lutherans carried out the persecution of Mennonites.

         In general, Christians of all sorts took up the Sacred Bow against one another,

The Faithful were used by secular governments to further national ends,

and likewise, the religious used secular governments to further their religious ends.

         From 1555, when the Peace of Augsburg claimed to settle the question of religious persecution, until 1648 at the Peace of Westphalia, almost 100 years—inter-religious war depopulated Germany, and killed, by some estimates, 12 million Europeans.

All in the name of God.

         For that matter, it wasn’t for another 200 years that, at the 1^st Vatican Council in 1870, the Pope gave up his claim to secular power.

        

         Now this is just me talking, but it seems like one of the big questions for “The West” and all those governing authorities in our country, since the Iranian Revolution in ‘79, or perhaps the Lockerbie Bombing ‘88, or maybe the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, is this:

         “How do you navigate, and/or contain, the Islamic equivalent of the European Wars of Religion, in an Era of Globalization, Mass Immigration, the Internet, and Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

         Obviously I do not have a set of answers for you all, it’s way above my pay grade…

This is why we pray for those who govern nations, especially our own; they have an unenviable job.

         All of these acts of violence and destruction in the name of God, ought to be Anathema—denounced, condemned, and cursed.

         Because God puts down the bow. God binds God’s-self with a vow, that never again will God destroy the world, never again will God take up that bow.

Think of that, God limiting God’s self!

         This is the true story of the faith, it is the hope always on the lips of those who preach the Gospel

—that God favors mercy over justice. God limit’s God’s self, for our sake.

         During the season of Lent we’ll see this again and again in the readings from the Hebrew Scriptures. God will say:

“Okay, I renewed all of creation after the flood… and that didn’t work for you all, so I’ll work through Abraham and his family.”

“Okay, you guys screwed that up too… I’ll lay down 10 basic rules for you all.”

“Okay, you’re still complaining in the wilderness… I’ll create a batch of miracles to save you from yourselves.”

“Okay, this still isn’t working… I’ll jam my covenant into your hearts, so you can’t find it to break it.”

And even then, it continues, until God sends Jesus, his son, who continually forgives us.

Even then, we kill him.

And even then, God provides for us, taking the death of Jesus as payment for all of our sins!

         And surely that would be enough, but God continues this trajectory of mercy over justice, as we read in that weird bit in 1^st Peter.

         Christ descends to hell, preaching even to the Spirits bound in chains there! Jesus ripping apart hell itself! That’s the power of the Word of God.

         Think of it. If God tries to convert Djinns and Demons in the depths of hell, surely we can pray for the redemption of Daesh.

         In fact, a good place to start, might be to remind them, and us, of Noah’s words, as recorded in the Quran, the 71^st chapter: “Ask forgiveness of your LORD. Indeed, He is ever a Perpetual Forgiver.”

        

         Yes, there is much violence done in the name of God.

Violence committed because God’s mercy is being ignored.

Yet truly, for the faithful, this is an impossible thing they do—to ignore God’s mercy,

Because God’s merciful acts are the linchpin of the entire story of Scripture.

God, merciful to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jeremiah.

God’s mercy shown in total, in Jesus’ righteous actions and words.

Jesus’ death, the ultimate act of self-limiting on God’s part.

Jesus’ descent to the dead to Harrow Hell and pull from the pit a people imprisoned.

And of course, that amazing act of God we prepare for, this Lenten season

—the Resurrection, which is God’s ultimate promise of mercy to us. Amen.