Putting Up with an Uneven Score

I felt I was being cheated, and then the service manager mocked me. 

I had taken my car in because the check engine light was on; it was running fine when I took it in.  I agreed to pay $65 for a diagnostic test.  After two hours they told me they could not find a problem and would bring the car out, and I could leave.  Subsequently they told me that the car would not start.  To make a long story short, I paid them to fix something that was not broken when I brought it in.  The manager laughed when I suggested I should not have to pay to repair something they did.  I turned the other cheek, paid, and left.  I needed to get back to my son’s birthday party, and I was in a period of my life when I was working on not being reactive to those around me.

I was not, however, in a forgiving mood.  William Bausch wrote that forgiveness is putting up with an uneven score.  None of us like the way an uneven score feels.

This car repair experience came to mind as I listened to story after story of forgiveness and reconciliation on the part of people who had gone through the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.  Perpetrators and victims personally connected to one another through this tragedy, as in one person killed members of the other person’s family, were finding reconciliation and forgiveness, demonstrating true affection for one another. 

Many of them had lived together as neighbors their whole lives before the killing. Now they were rebuilding the community that had been destroyed in 100 days of killing where a million people perished.

As I listened to these stories, I asked myself “who do I need to forgive?”  The surly service manager came to mind.  That was the best I could do.  Really, that was it.

Stories of genocide abound; they are nothing new.  What is stunning about Rwanda is not the tragedy of genocide but the healing and wholeness that is being sown in the aftermath of tragedy.  Healing is the real story in Rwanda.

I am beginning my sabbatical by traveling again to Rwanda to go attend their International School of Reconciliation where I will learn the process they use to bring wholeness and fraternity where formerly there was only loss and pain.  I want to understand how they harness the power of the Spirit to do what seems impossible.

I have seen evidence of this transformation in people’s lives, but still it is a mystery to me how this can be fostered in human hearts.  I want to learn it for myself, so that I might more readily forgive others; and I want to learn lead others in the way of reconciliation.

Paul writes in Colossians 3:13 that if we have a claim against someone else, we should forgive them as the Lord has forgiven us.  Paul is saying that God puts up with an uneven score when it comes to us, and we should do the same with those around us. 

I know, at least for me, this does not come naturally. Earlier in the chapter 3 Paul writes about putting on “the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator [v. 10].”  I want to learn how believers in Rwanda are putting on this new self and putting to death what belongs to our earthly nature (v. 5).

It is all a work of the Spirit.  I am going to Rwanda to learn how, by the power of the Spirit, live happily with an uneven score.

Jim Kelsey

Executive Minister—American Baptist Churches of New York State

The Poverty of Segregation

It was the second week of my tenure as pastor.  She was a well-spoken, well educated, polished  woman of color in her 70’s. She sat down in the chair in front of my desk and said: “Dr. Kelsey, we know you; but you do not know us.  You think you do, but you do not.  But that is alright; we’ll teach you.”

 

She went on to share that African Americans are bicultural.  They understand and know how to make their way through white culture.  They have to, she said.  To get their kids educated, their illness treated, and to earn a living they have to know how to function in white American culture.  She shared there is also a distinctive stream of African America culture in our country that I likely knew little about, being mono-cultural.

She was right, and they did teach me some things.

I learned about Jazz and spirituals and the poetry of Langston Hughes.  I learned what “good hair” and “passing” mean.  I was tutored in the role people of color have played in science and medicine, inventing things, and writing literature.  I learned about the place of people of color in world and American history.  I learned how cooking skills brought from Africa shaped southern cooking and then how this influence spread throughout the country.  I heard stories of the Great Migration, narratives as central to the character of our country as the stories of Lewis and Clark.

I witnessed how the challenges and indignities of being a minority in America fostered in them a strength and wisdom and resilience that was painfully beautiful.  I saw the price they paid for this depth of character.

Yeah, they gently and persistently taught me some things.

As we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we should not see it as a day of victory.  We should see it as an encouraging landmark on the continuing road to justice in our country.  We still live in a segregated society and still live lives, to a great degree, apart from one another.

Our segregated society breeds financial poverty among people of color.  It also breeds cultural and spiritual poverty among all of us.  Our journey to wholeness is far from over.

“The time is always right to do what is right,” Oberlin College Commencement Speech 2965, MLK Jr.

Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister-American Baptist Churches of New York State

 

Who Knew First

Anyone who has been even casually involved in a church knows that who knows something first is important. The week after I announced my departure from my first church, the main pastime was speculating as to who knew what and when did they know it.

We rank ourselves by where we stand in the hierarchy of information.  The earlier we know, the more important we feel.  And, of course, nothing boosts our self-esteem like having something shared in confidence before anybody else knows.

 When shepherds in the field receive the first public announcement of the birth of the Son of the most High God, it upsets the customary hierarchy of information (Luke 2:8-20).  Mary and Elizabeth and, presumably, Joseph were the first to know; but they were family.

The angels bring “good news of great joy" to these workers in the field.  Shepherds likely did not get a lot of joy-giving good news.  No one dreamed of growing up to be a shepherd.  It was a job you took because you could not get a better job doing anything else.  They were poor, and their lives were harsh.  People stereotyped them as dishonest; they were not permitted to testify in court.

So why are shepherds, people at the bottom of the social order, the first to hear the news that Jesus is born?

We would expect the rich and powerful to get this news first—people like the Wise Men or the governor.  We would expect the announcement to be made to the Chief Priest in the Temple maybe.  Why do shepherds receive the news first?

Remember what Mary sings after the angel announces that she will be the mother of the savior:

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
    but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
    but has sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:51-53)

Mary sees that the coming of Jesus will turn things upside down.  People who were discounted, ignored, and exploited, will be raised up.  The hungry will be fed, and the rich will go away empty. What Mary sings about begins with these shepherds.

These lowly shepherds are privileged by receiving the Good News before the rich and powerful find out. God notices the people who usually go unnoticed.

The angels say to the shepherds:  “You will find this baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”  Manger is a nice word for a feeding trough where animals eat.  Jesus is born into the humble surroundings of poverty and is visited first by people who know that tough world well.

Not long after this, his family must escape to Egypt because of danger in his homeland. Jesus begins his life as a refugee fleeing danger.  In Jesus, God identifies—from the very beginning—with the foreigner, the stranger, the castaway.  God stands side by side with those who are unwanted and unwelcome. This is what Mary is singing about.

The angels announce “peace on earth;” and Mary sings about God repairing what is broken in our world.  But when we look around at our world, much of our world is still quite broken.  Recently, the International Criminal Court heard the case against Burma for its violence against the Rohingya people, this violence being just one of the daily outrages that fill the news.

So where is this peace and new world the angels and Mary announce? 

Something began in the first coming of Jesus, and someday God will finish it off.  Until then we live in the middle, between what has begun and what is not yet finished.  Karl Barth wrote it is this great and final hope that gives life to the small daily hopes that carry us through our days. Here and there, now and then this work God began in Jesus breaks through. Sometimes we must look hard to see it among the debris of what we have made of God’s creation.

The shepherds return to their fields “glorifying and praising God.”  Their lives are not very different.  They still spend cold nights in the fields, eat bad food, and get no respect.  They still live with smelly sheep and wear worn out shoes. Yet they glorify and praise God anyway.

Their world has not changed much, but they have.  They know that God notices people like them; they got the good news first after all.  For the shepherds of the world, this is a good omen. 

For the rest us, we could take a clue from the Wise Men, those kings from the east.  They do not get there first; but when they do, they recognize this child for who he really is and have the good sense to worship him.

Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister--American Baptist Churches of New York State

Dangerous People

 

Charlotte Delbo and another of the 230, in prison in France before deportation. Credit Courtesy of the Archives Departmentales du Val-deMarne, Pierre Labate, Roger Hommet and L'Association Memoire-Vivre

In the early 1940’s in Nazi occupied Paris, the Parisian police were collaborating with the Germans to round and arrest French citizens who were resisting the occupation.  Many of those arrested were placed in a prison named La Santé, in the 14th arrondisement.  La Santé was known as châteaux de la mort lente, castles of slow death.  There was “little food, no heating, and condensation trickled down the walls.  Fleas and lice were epidemic.  The chance of release was nonexistent [Caroline Moorehead, A Train in Winter—An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France, pg.105].”  Those imprisoned there were called the “dangerous element.”

Danielle, one of the imprisoned 230 women, wrote to her parents: “We sang every night.  If walking past those filthy walls, you heard singing, it was us. By ‘us’ I mean the dangerous element [pg. 107].”  Through their singing in such desperate conditions, these women showed just how dangerous they really were.  Without guns or clubs, in their resistance these determined women evidenced a power that is only available to those with the conviction they are serving some cause larger than their own lives. 

Singing in the face of abuse is a power that comes to those whose lives serve a more enduring cause than their own personal concerns and wellbeing.  It does, indeed, indicate they are dangerous.

These women were not, of course, the first determined people to sing in prison. 

Paul and Silas seemed to be a threat to the economy in Philippi, so they are beaten and thrown in jail (Acts 16).  They are praying and singing hymns in the night in their jail cell when an earthquake sets all the prisoners free. They do not flee.  The next day when the magistrates wish to send Paul and Silas away quietly, they demand a public acknowledgement of their unjust treatment; and they get it.

Paul and Silas were, indeed, dangerous to the status quo. Persecuting them had no chance of silencing them.  They had found something grander and more compelling than their own wellbeing.

People serving a larger cause are dangerous; they are hard to silence.  When we are gripped by something grander than our own security and comfort, like those women in La Santé and Paul and Silas, we become powerful. There is little to be gained by telling people like that to go home and be quiet.

Jim Kelsey

Executive Minister-American Baptist Churches of New York State

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering and Anticipating

She sat in the pew absorbing the peace of the place before people started filing in for the worship service.  I saw her there and went back to speak to her.  I commented that she had seen a lot of change over the decades.  She was in her late 70’s and had been attending the church for nearly 60 years.

She smiled and said, yes; she had seen a lot of change.  She commented that she sometimes missed some things from the past.  I asked her what she missed.

She reminisced about how the ushers used to wear morning coats; she always like that.  She talked about the limousines idling along the street.  The deacons used to take the waiting chauffeurs hot coffee in the winter.  This was a glimpse into another world for her.

She quickly assured me that she still loved the church.  She said all the changes that had been made were good and necessary.

In her youth the church had been quite large and counted some wealthy, celebrated members among its ranks.  The long-term pastor was well know within the city and throughout the denomination and broader Baptist family.  The old imposing Romanesque sanctuary, which burned in 1972, was a landmark in that part of the city.  Now the congregation worshipped in the original sanctuary, more modest but quite adequate for our needs.

As the neighborhood began to become racially integrated in the early 60’s, so did the congregation.  By my arrival, the church was predominately African American.

She concluded her reminiscing with a smile of contentment and reiterated that she still loved the church; it was just the way it should be, she said.

Michael K. Girlinghouse (Embracing God’s Future without Forgetting the Past—A Conversation about Loss, Grief, and Nostalgia in Congregational Life) draws a distinction between yearning and nostalgia. Girlinghouse defines yearning as “obsessive rumination and a fixation on the past that paralyzes the mourner and makes it difficult to think about the future” (p. 104).  Congregations can yearn for a particular time in the past, a beloved pastor or program.  Pastors can also yearn for a previous church or period of ministry that was rewarding and life giving.  Yearning congregations and ministers try to recreate what they once had.  Often what they are yearning for is the web of relationships and people who filled their lives in that period.  This exercise is sometimes based on fantasies that have little basis in the past reality.  The congregation is prone to turn inward, disengage from the community, and distance themselves from the denomination (p. 105).

 Nostalgic reflection, on the other hand, “can help us see that while much has been lost, the core of who the congregation is remains” (p. 165).   We come to a deeper appreciation of the strengths of our past, which prepares us for the future. 

Nostalgia can open us up to that great cloud of witnesses the writer of Hebrews describes and help us draw from their example as we contemplate our future (p. 36).  Nostalgic memories can remind us of how our forebears adapted to changed realities and help us develop a sense of continuity with the past.  The most nostalgic memory in every congregation should be the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (p. 143-144).

Nostalgia is not about trying to reestablish or preserve the past.  Rather, is it about learning from and giving thanks for our past, which steels us to embrace the future with courage.  Nostalgia coupled with faith does not dishearten us; it makes us brave and bold.

That woman in my congregation did not want the past back.  She was thankful for it but was game for the next new thing God was going to do in us and through us.

I led worship that day heartened by the memory of all God had done in that place and anticipating the next thing God was going to do among us.

Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister—American Baptist Churches of New York State

I Am Getting Afraid

I am not afraid of the words of the violent, but of the silence of the honest.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

I am afraid for my family.  I am afraid for my community. I am afraid for my country.

Several weeks on a Sunday night my wife and I were eating our dinner at the Chinese buffet in our community.  I heard a commotion over by the cash register.  At first I thought it was an overly excited softball team after a big win.  Then I heard “do any of you have jobs,” followed by “you’re all probably on welfare.”  The increasingly loud voice shouted: “Go back where you came from.”  Some racial slurs, the most offensive kind, filled the air.

I went over to the cash register.  Eight young women of color in Muslim garb were standing there, ranging from maybe 8 years of age to 20 or so.  I asked what was going on.  The older woman told me the woman was calling them n****** and telling them to get out of the country.  She then asked me, looking a bit confused, if the woman doing the shouting realized she was in a Chinese restaurant.

I went out to the sidewalk where the restaurant manager was talking with the disruptive woman and her male companion.  I got my phone out in case I needed to call the police; she was quite agitated.  She woman looked at me and asked if I were calling the police.  I replied not yet, that I was there to provide safe passage for any of the young women who wished to leave the restaurant.  Finally the woman and her male companion walked to their SUV.  As she got into her vehicle, she shouted to no one in particular for whom she thought people should vote in the upcoming election.

Why did this scare me?  I was not surprised that there are people like her in my community.  There always have been and always will be; this is nothing new.  This is not what scared me.

I was concerned because she felt free, unprovoked by anything more than the color of these young women’s skin and their religious garb, to shout ugly and foulmouthed things at them in a crowded restaurant on a Sunday evening in my community.  She felt she had license to verbally assault strangers young enough to be her daughters and granddaughters in a restaurant without any consequences.  I found that unsettling.

Reflecting upon this, I realized what really scared me:  she was right.  She was free to do this without any consequences.  No one intervened.  Everyone else sat at their tables, enjoying their meal, doing nothing.  For this woman there were no consequences except a request from the manager that they move outside.

That restaurant should have emptied out.  Everyone should have been on the sidewalk forming a corridor of safety for these young and shaken women. 

The foulmouthed woman did not scared me; the passivity of everyone else scared me. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote: “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” That woman had a restaurant full of coconspirators that Sunday evening in August.

William Butler Yeats wrote in “The Second Coming”:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity;” and the centre gives way. Jesus was concerned about what happens when the “best lack all conviction.”

You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven (Matt 5:13-16).

It is time for some salt and light because I am getting truly concerned.

Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister-American Baptist Churches of New York State

Influence not Power

They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes (Mark 1:22). 

This is as much a shot at the scribes as it is an affirmation of Jesus.

What is authority and how is it different from power? 

In my first pastorate I quickly learned the difference.  Apart from the content of my sermons and Bible studies, how I counseled people, and the shape of wedding and funerals, I had little official power in that Baptist church.  I worked from accumulated influence, which was the product of earned authority.

The word used for authority (ἐξουσία) in this Markan passage often indicates the ability to do something to the extent there are no hindrances. Power (δύναμις), on the other hand, is typically used where one has the intrinsic ability to proceed regardless of any hindrances (TDNT, v. 2, pp. 562ff).

In the New Testament, authority can be used to denote the prerogative to make decisions, connoting the freedom to choose.  It is based upon privilege delegated by God; it is given and not grasped.

Jesus at times demonstrated raw power, the intrinsic ability to proceed with or without cooperation.  In the present passage, however, something else is at work.

The listeners in this Markan passage see something in Jesus that is different from what they see in the scribes.  The scribes could only exegete and interpret what had already been given through the prophets.  Jesus, on the other hand, brings to the table something new and creative and not just a rehashing of what the people had always known.

The fresh and unprecedented way Jesus moved among the people and the choices he made lent to his words authority, which resulted in a level of influence the scribes could not attain through formal power and position.

Authority in the early church followed this pattern set by Jesus.  The person in authority led not by force but by a recognition that the leader’s directives were just and honorable.  Authority distinguishes itself from naked power by its ability to produce acceptable answers to questions (Meeks, The First Urban Christians, pp. 122 &137).

The crowd saw authority in Jesus because his answers were simply better than those of the scribes. Authoritarian religious leaders turn to power as the last refuge of those who have run out of compelling, timely answers.

Church leaders, both ordained and lay, are tempted to resort to raw power when they feel they are not going to get their way.  Leaders can feel that they are going to lose something they value, such as position, control, or what is comfortable and familiar.

In this move to power, we violate the example of Jesus and his teachings about leadership:

A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest.  But he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors.  But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves (Luke 22:24-27).

Much of the apparent power I had as a pastor was really influence disguised as power.

Christ’s church is to be led by people who have earned influence through the way they move among people, demonstrating humility and a commitment to serving Jesus.  Church leaders are to be as “one who serves.”

Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister of the American Baptist Churches of New York State