FPC Elizabethton Gets Green Award

This was in today's Elizabethton Star. I am proud as punch of my people who have been green long before being green was cool.

First Presbyterian Church receives Green Interfaith Network Award

JOHNSON CITY -- First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton has been chosen as recipient of the Eco-Justice Award from the Green Interfaith Network. The GINI Awards honor congregations in the region that demonstrate outstanding projects or programs that support environmental justice, earth care, education and/or community leadership.

First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton was chosen for the Eco-Justice Award for its longstanding commitment to caring for the earth through the Carter County-Dennis Cove Stream Clean-Up events.

This award exists for people and congregations who believe they can move a mountain. First Presbyterian of Elizabethton believes -- through faith -- that they can move mountains, together as a congregation. For over 20 years, the annual Carter County-Dennis Cove Stream Clean-Up is just one of many eco-justice initiatives that they have implemented over the years. First Presbyterian of Elizabethton are champions for all who believe the world can be changed. Led by its Peace-making Committee, First Presbyterian of Elizabethton serves as a shining example of earth friendly practices for faith communities and the region at large.

Accepting the award for the church were Nancy Barrigar and Rebecca Nunley, both longstanding members of the Peace-making Committee.

Others awards presented and the recipients included the Stewardship Award given to First Presbyterian Church of Bristol for its "green" facilities renovation project that included a geothermal heating and cooling system, electrical upgrades and "replacing, caulking and re-glazing over 160 windows throughout the property."

Rev. Gordon Turnbull, senior pastor, and Betsy Galliher, church administrator, accepted the award.

The Spirit Award was given to Munsey Memorial Methodist Church of Johnson City for its "Care for Creation" Sunday services and Wednesday night "Care for Creation" Speakers series.

Accepting the award for Munsey were Brian Taylor, senior pastor, Beth Witt, co-director of outreach, and Aubrey Lee, chairman of church and society committee.

De Cristo Just Misses

The Presbytery of De Cristo voted 62-62 on Amendment A. In this business a tie means NO. This vote, sadly, is a switch in the wrong direction. Last time around De Cristo voted YES 59-48. Three presbyteries that have previously voted YES for equality have switched their vote this time to no. Compare that to 16 presbyteries that have flipped to YES from no.

The reckoning is 80-59 and we need seven more presbyteries to vote YES to make this important change this year. If it doesn't pass, then we do this all again in two years.

It sure would be nice to do it this year, especially since I want to have a party on More Light Sunday. For the sake of the party, please get out the vote in the remaining presbyteries!

Here are the presbyteries yet to vote. Their vote last time is in parentheses followed by what we hope will happen!

We need seven YESes.

4/26
Florida (41-46) Flip
Lehigh (60-46-2) Hold

4/30
Missouri River Valley (50-41-6) Hold
National Capital (222-102-1) Hold

5/1
Foothills (34-99) Miracle Flip

5/3
St. Andrew (30-50) Flip

5/5
Middle Tennessee (95-139-1) Flip
Peaks (74-136) Miracle Flip

5/6
Plains and Peaks (41-60) Flip

5/10
Pacific (100-90-3) Hold
Twin Cities (138-54-10) Hold
Kiskiminetas (34-70) Miracle Flip
New Harmony (20-99) Miracle Flip
Prospect Hill (12-63) Miracle Flip
San Gabriel (79-136) Miracle Flip

5/14
Boise (25-34) Flip

5/17
Des Moines (52-37) Hold
Charlotte (133-124) Hold
New York City (76-25) Hold
West Jersey (88-80) Hold
Shenango (4-101) Miracle Flip

5/19
Homestead (37-40-3) Flip
Sheppards and Lapsley (77-75) Hold
Los Ranchos (35-143) Miracle Flip

5/24
Missouri Union (31-48) Flip
Western New York (66-48) Hold

5/26
Peace River (62-83-1) Flip

6/12
Providence (39-48-4) Flip

Unknown Date (and likely no)
Dakota (no voice)
Hanmi (1-30)
Midwest Hanmi (?)
San Juan (no voice)
Suroeste (0-41)
Western Kentucky (17-42)

Empire Strikes Back: A Sermon

Empire Strikes Back: Peace Through Victory
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee

April 17, 2011
Palm/Passion Sunday

Gospel of Jesus 21:1-12

Led by one of Jesus’ disciples, the police show up at the place Jesus and the rest of his followers were gathered. Because Jesus had often gone to the place, Jesus’ followers knew the place too. And the police seized Jesus and held him fast. And the disciples all deserted Jesus and ran away.

They brought Jesus before the high priest.

The ranking priests bound Jesus and turned him over to Pilate, the Roman governor. Then Pilate had Jesus flogged and turned him over to be crucified.

And the Roman soldiers bring him to the place Golgotha (which means “Place of the skull”). And the soldiers crucify him.

Now some women were observing this from a distance, among whom were Mary of Magdala, and Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses, and Salome. These women had regularly followed and assisted him when he was in Galilee, along with many other women who had come up to Jerusalem in his company.

Then Jesus breathed his last.

Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar, The Gospel of Jesus (Santa Rosa: Polebridge Press, 1999), p. 83, 84. Mark 14:43, 50, 53; 15:1, 15, 22, 24, 37, 40-41; Matthew 26:47, 50, 56-57; 27:1-2, 26, 33, 35, 50, 55-56; Luke 22:47, 54; 23:1, 33, 46, 49; John 18:1-2, 12-13, 28; 19:1, 16-18, 25, 30.

This is probably the most we can know about the death of Jesus.

The passion story in the Gospel of Mark is the first written narrative. The gospels attributed to Matthew and Luke followed Mark and elaborated. The gospel attributed to John is of a different variety but also likely is aware of Mark and takes on his own direction based on theological concerns.

The first narrative, Mark’s, wasn’t composed until at least four decades after Jesus’ death and is the product of scriptural and theological imagination. If you read Psalm 22 you will find details that Mark borrowed to construct the narrative.

The psalm begins,

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

These are the same words Jesus is supposed to have uttered from the cross. One might think that he knew the psalm and quoted it. Possibly. But then from Psalm 22:

All who see me mock at me;
they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;
‘Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—
let him rescue the one in whom he delights!’

Compare to Mark 15:29

Those passing by kept taunting him, wagging their heads, and saying, “Ha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross.”

That is an obvious case of the author borrowing and creating. Or this one from Psalm 22:

they divide my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.

Compare to 15:24:

“…and they divide up his garments, casting lots to see who would get what.”

Mark, borrowing from the Psalms and from other scriptures created a narrative of the trial and the crucifixion. There is no likelihood that there even was a trial. The passion accounts in the gospels that we hear in church and that we watch on film and that preachers relish in recounting from the pulpits are fictions. Stories. These events didn’t happen. The theological explanation is based upon pure imagination.

I think it is important to admit that. I think it is important to say it publicly from a pulpit. Think of the weight of needless guilt that has been heaped upon people because these fictions were taken at face value. The legacy of taking these fictions literally has been:

1. A theology of blood atonement. It goes like this: You are bad. In fact, you were born bad. Bad and sinful. That’s you. You deserve the punishment Jesus received because you are so bad. Jesus suffered and died because of you, for your sins. Even if you weren’t born yet when Jesus died, it doesn’t matter. You are still bad. And if you don’t believe all of this hocus pocus and repent, down the chute to hell for you. See how loving God is?
2. The claim that the Jews “crucified our Lord”. Subsequently, we have had a 2000 year history of anti-semitism and violence against the Jewish people.
   

It is important that we tell the truth about history.

We know historically that the Roman Empire crucified troublemakers or perceived troublemakers by the hundreds. It was a spectacle of imperial power. It was state sanctioned torture. They would be crucified by the entrance to the city so all the passersby would see and know who is in charge. It is plausible that Jesus was one of these unfortunates. We don’t really know the reason Jesus was executed. He could have been the leader of a movement that upset authorities. It appears that Jesus was critical of the local religious and political authorities. They could have handed him over for revenge. He could have been perceived to be a leader of a revolutionary movement against Rome. Or he may have just been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The author of Mark and subsequent gospel authors writing many decades after the death of Jesus and after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple shift the blame from Rome to the Jewish leaders, eventually to all Jews. They know who they don’t want to offend if they want the Roman Empire to leave them alone. As the movements that eventually become Judaism and Christianity separate the early Christians distance themselves from Judaism and reflect this separation by the way they tell their story.

Two books I think are good on this topic. The Acts of Jesus: What Did Jesus Really Do? by the Jesus Seminar will show the method and result of how biblical scholars and scholars of Christian origins approach these texts. James Carroll’s Constantine’s Sword offers our 2000 history of the relationship between Christians and Jews and the dark, violent legacy these fictional narratives have had on real people.

We don’t have to tell the story in the same harmful way.

Founder of the Jesus Seminar, the late Robert Funk, was refreshingly candid and blunt in his assessment of the state of religion. In his book, Honest to Jesus, he outlined 21 theses for the radical reformation of the church. This is thesis number 7:

The plot early Christians invented for a divine redeemer figure is as archaic as the mythology in which it is framed. A Jesus who drops down out of heaven, performs some magical act that frees human beings from the power of sin, rises from the dead, and returns to heaven is simply no longer credible. The notion that he will return at the end of time and sit in cosmic judgment is equally incredible. We must find a new plot for a more credible Jesus.

I also particularly like thesis number 9:

The doctrine of the atonement—the claim that God killed his own son in order to satisfy his thirst for satisfaction—is subrational and subethical. This monstrous doctrine is the stepchild of a primitive sacrificial system in which the gods had to be appeased by offering them some special gift, such as a child or an animal.

Robert Funk. He attended Johnson Bible College in Knoxville. He came to the school on scholarship. He was by far the brightest student. After about a year or so he was asked to leave. He was told that he didn’t fit in to the ethos of the school. He was asking too many questions that they weren’t interested in pursuing. The great thing about Bob Funk is that he never stopped asking those questions.

What do we do with Jesus? What is this story about? How do we read and participate in Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter in such a way that does not inflict spiritual violence on ourselves or others? How do we do it in a way that doesn’t insult our minds or crush our spirits? How do we read it responsibly? How do we read it in such a way that it leads to compassion, justice, equality, and hope?

One way to read the story of Jesus and his execution is to read it between the lines. We need to read it with awareness of the default reality of Empire. It is an Empire that crushes and executes and that sees itself as beneficent, as part of the divine order. God Bless Empire. We bring peace through victory.

That is the setting, that is the default, the everyday reality in which the Jesus stories appear. These stories of Jesus are about a movement that is much larger than Jesus. It is not about an individual whether the son of God on one hand or a clever poet on the other. Whether dying for sins or leading a rebel movement, it isn’t about him. He stands for something larger than himself.

The movement for dignity, compassion, justice, freedom, decency, bread and roses, is always there. It is mostly hidden. It is mostly underground. It is not in the news. It is carried out by thousands of people whose names are lost forever. We only know of them by glimpses, through stories of individuals like Jesus who as a literary symbol stand for them.

He wasn’t the only one executed by an empire, then or now.

Even more importantly, he wasn’t the only one who was active in bringing about awareness and hope. Attributed to him are parables and aphorisms about the kingdom of God. He wasn’t the only one with that dream. He is simply the tip of an iceberg, the crest of a wave, a cipher, a finger pointing to the moon.

A question we could be asking is, why did Rome execute so many people? Of what were they afraid? How do we capitalize on that fear? How do we resist it? I am asking these questions in the present tense because this Jesus story isn’t just about an event in history. These are questions for then and now. We are not gathered here on Sunday because we have objective, scientific dis-interest in some historical event. We are here because we are participants in life, in a movement for healing, wholeness, peace, goodness, joy, transformation—the kingdom of God.

Apparently, since we are still gathered in a Christian church, the Jesus story still has power. It still resonates as a resource for struggle and transformation.

The story of the execution of Jesus is the story of Rachel Corrie. Rachel would have been 31 this past week. But she died at the age of 23 standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer when it razed a Palestinian home. It didn’t stop for her. It rolled over her and crushed her to death. She was standing for justice. Empire crushed her. The struggle continues.

The story of the execution of Jesus is the story of Matthew Sheppard. Twelve years ago, a young college student was beaten, tortured, and tied to a barbed wire fence in Wyoming because he was gay. It is the story of fear, homophobia, bullying and ignorance preached in pulpits and too often ignored by those with the authority to stop it. The struggle continues.

The story of the execution of Jesus is the story the indigenous people of the Amazon. For three decades Texaco operated 300 oil wells in Ecuador horribly polluting the land and destroying the lives and culture of the people who inhabit the rain forest. These stories are covered over, rationalized, dismissed. Empire needs to keep happily motoring. The struggle continues.

The story of the execution of Jesus is larger than the human story. It is the story of the largest extinction of species in 65 million years, right before our eyes as our climate changes, our rivers and streams are filled with toxins, and our mountains are destroyed for the prize beneath them. Empire can’t stop itself. The struggle continues.

“Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing.”

And yet…everywhere you look, you see resistance. Everywhere you look you see signs of green things growing from the stump of Empire’s destruction. It won’t be the same, but it will be something. Amidst all the craziness in the world now, there is sanity. There are pockets of decency and hope. Empire killed Jesus. But it didn’t defeat him. That is Easter. Next week. The struggle continues.

Kunstler and Peak Oil

You may have noticed that gasoline prices have gone up again. Many reasons are offered except the one we are less inclined to hear even though it is likely the true reason.




The rate of global oil extraction has peaked.

It is Peak Oil.






Earthlings have been extracting and consuming about 85 million barrels per day for the past six years or so. That is likely all we are going to get. We are not going to increase that rate of extraction no matter the demand. We are not running out of oil. It is not the size of the tank but the spigot. We cannot get cheap, sweet crude out of the ground as fast as we need it. That is what collapses economies.

The Nation Magazine has been running a series of videos on Peak Oil. The series is called Peak Oil and a Changing Planet.

I started posting these in January then lost track of them. I will catch you up with the ones I have already posted and post the new ones as your midnight movie.

• Noam Chomskey and others: Introduction to the Series
• Richard Heinberg: The Global Limitations: How Peak Oil Threatens Economic Growth
• Nicole Foss: We Need Freedom of Action to Confront Peak Oil
  

And tonight, we feature James Howard Kunstler, who blogs at Clusterfuck Nation.

He is the author of The Long Emergency and two well-written novels about our post-peak future, World Made By Hand and The Witch of Hebron.

Your midnight movie is Peak Oil and Our Financial Decline:

In this fourth video in the series “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, author, blogger and social critic James Howard Kunstler opens up on two circumstances he sees running neck and neck “that are going to put us out of business as an advanced industrial civilization”—the “fiasco” in banking, money and finance and the unfolding “energy predicament.” He explains that the crises are really all about "capital" and that we need to look at how wealth has been accumulated and deployed for productive purposes.

Kunstler suggests that “cheap abundant energy” has facilitated ever-increasing industrialization for centuries. But now that society is in a period of self-destructive capital accumulation, he expects debt to increase as abundance in energy drops. The tremendous amount of accumulated debt, “a by-product of cheap abundant energy,” will mean that in the future governments will be less able to make investments in socially-beneficial programs.

He also criticizes the US environmental movement for shying away from the problem of energy. The movement is unable to talk about walkable neighborhoods, smaller cities or investing in rail or water transit, an “intellectual failure of the culture to have a coherent conversation from people who ought to be leading” such a conversation.

Get your popcorn.

Day of Silence Observation at ETSU

My heart is with students all over the nation today observing the Day of Silence.

On the National Day of Silence hundreds of thousands of students nationwide take a vow of silence to bring attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in their schools.

Tonight if you are near our mountain you are invited to speak out on ETSU's campus from 7 - 8:30 p.m. The event will be on the lawn at the Physical Activity Building (bldg. #330) .

Here is the Facebook invite.

Thanks to Northeast Tennessee Pride for putting it together.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Gay Parking

Thanks to Michele for this!

My Heart Flips for San Francisco!

Add another presbytery to the FLIP list!

Congratulations to the presbytery San Francisco who voted in favor of amendment A Tuesday, 198-143-1. Strange to call San Francisco a flip, but last time around they voted against equality 167-177-4.

They have been redeemed.



Give San Francisco a FLIPPER!





Also, the presbytery of Northern Kansas continued its support of equality and approved "A" today, 69-20. Nicely done.

The reckoning is 80-58.

That means we need only seven more YESes to make a significant step in healing the church.

• We have had 16 positive flips.
• We have had 2 negative switches.
• So that means 14 net flips.
• 35 presbyteries are yet to vote.
• 12 of those had voted YES last time.
• We are in good shape.
• But there is a lot of work to do.
  

For more details check the vote charts:
MLP
CovNet
McCrosky
Kattie

I am still holding on to my projection that the 87th YES will be cast on May 17th. I have been channeling the ghost of Harvey Milk and he has told me that one of three presbyteries, Des Moines, New York, or Charlotte, whichever presbytery votes second on that day, will cast the 87th ballot.

You read it here first. If wrong, you will kindly forget it.

De Cristo (59-48 last time) votes on Saturday.

Peeps for Justice

Here is a fine letter to the editor in today's Elizabethton Star. Thanks, Lori!!

Editor:

I'm really proud to live in Tennessee. Folks here are smart, resourceful and have great work ethic. We're hard working, respectable people who can make something out of nothing. However, I'm having a hard time seeing anything respectable about this bill, HB0600/SB0632, that some folks in Nashville are trying to push on us. It opens up the door for workplace discrimination, which doesn't seem very Christlike. That's not to mention the fact that it would take away power from our local government and put it right in the hands of larger government.

I was proud of Rep. Kent Williams for opposing this bill but after catching a little flack he flip flopped on us. The bottom line is this bill sets a bad precedent and could potentially cost us jobs, tourism money, and drive more of our talented young people to go elsewhere. We have several great colleges in our area and yet so many of our young people don't choose to stay here. All I know is, I can't in good conscience vote for anyone who votes for HB0600/SB0632. It's a bad bill and it doesn't square with my East Tennessee values.

Lori Pickett-Jones
Johnson City

If you want more information on this bill of ignorance, please go here and sign the petition to urge your legislators to oppose.

Celebration Without Apology

When we get to 87 I am going to celebrate.

Let there be no doubt. I am happy that the PC(USA) is on the verge of changing its harmful, discriminatory, bad, mean, ignorant and abusive policy. I have been an advocate for change in this denomination since I first entered seminary 22 years ago joining a struggle--a battle--a fight--for equality and dignity that started long before I was conceived.

Oh yes, I am going to celebrate.

I am aware of the advice from other advocates for change that some of us should be less competitive or less obviously joyful about the change that is coming. We are reminded that there aren't winners and losers. We are all one in Jesus and so forth. We need to be gracious to those who are saddened about this change. We want to extend the arms of welcome to them. We shouldn't be like the "secular" world in terms of how it handles politics. We should be more Jesus like, I guess.

As if putting a Christian halo around our stench makes us smell nice. Life is struggle. It is no different within "the church" or without. The only difference is that within the church we pretend to be something we are not. That is called hypocrisy. "Let's be passive aggressive for Jesus."

This is a battle. This is a struggle. This is a fight. There are opposing sides. There are winners. There are losers.

Having been on the losing side for the past 22 years, I am happy to be on the winning side for a change. I am happy that our denomination won't officially suspect and condemn gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, and unmarried heterosexuals as being "sinners". It is long past time that the church got this right. And yes, there is a right and wrong.

• It is wrong to exclude people based on prejudice.
• It is wrong to deny people privileges and rights.
• It is wrong to use spiritual violence against people.
• It is wrong to use sacred texts as weapons.
• It is wrong to lie about people.
  

These wrong behaviors have been used by the opposition consistently throughout this struggle. I know this is a fight when I talk to students on campus or hear the stories of people in our PFLAG group. I hear the stories of harassment and bullying, excommunication from faith communities, rejection from family members because of what has been preached in church.

Oh yes, this is a fight.

And it will not end when the PC(USA) reaches its 87th vote. There is no guarantee yet that we are even getting to 87 this year. The steepest part of the climb is yet to come. I am not worried about reconciliation with the opposition at least until we get there. In the meantime, let's get out the vote.

And pardon me if I don't shed a tear for those who

• say the church is apostate,
• threaten to leave,
• threaten to form alternate synods,
• threaten to withhold money,
• threaten to take the church to court for property,
• [insert behavior here],
  

because of this change that is coming.

Barbara Wheeler and John Wilkinson will shed tears for you. In the latest edition (April 18) of Presbyterian Outlook, the two have written an article entitled, "Please Don't Go."

In the cacophony of voices, we hope that those who are distressed by the change will hear a clear message from Presbyterians like us who helped to bring it about. The message is this: PLEASE DON'T GO. Don't separate from us, either by leaving the PC(USA) or by withdrawing into a cul-de-sac inside it. We want and need to share a denomination with you.

It is interesting that Barbara Wheeler in particular says of this change that she "helped bring it about". She was the one who advocated for No Action which is NO the last time we voted on equality.

Whatever. Unlike those authors I will not grovel or plead with those who are unhappy with equality. I will treat you like an adult. If you want to go, feel free. If you want to stay, feel free.

Do know this:

• If you stay, I will not enable your prejudice by rearranging deck chairs so you can find some way to reap the benefits of affiliation with the denomination while at the same time seeking power to exclude.
• If you stay and you continue to use spiritual violence against my people I will fight you at every turn.
• If you stay, I will never for the sake of "unity" with you throw LGBTQ people under the bus.
  

For my LGBTQ friends and allies who are excited about the change that is coming:

A little spark of justice is on its way, my friends. You don't have to be one bit apologetic for celebrating its arrival.

Trouble and Transformation: A Sermon

Trouble and Transformation
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee

April 10, 2011
Gospel of Jesus 20:1-11

They come to Jerusalem. And he went into the temple and began chasing the vendors and shoppers out of the temple area, and he turned the bankers’ tables upside down, along with the chairs of the pigeon merchants. Then he started teaching and would say to them:

“Don’t the scriptures say, “My house is to be regarded as a house of prayer for all peoples’?—but you have turned it into ‘a hideout for crooks’!”

They showed Jesus a gold coin and said to him,
“The Roman emperor’s people demand taxes from us.”

He said to them,
“Give the emperor what belongs to the emperor,
and give God what belongs to God.”

In Jerusalem, by the Sheep Gate, there is a pool, called Bethzatha in Hebrew. It has five colonnades, among which numerous invalids were usually lying around—blind, lame, paralyzed. One man had been crippled for thirty-eight years. Jesus observed him lying there and realized he had been there a long time.

“Do you want to get well?” he asks him.

The crippled man replied,
“Sir, I don’t have anyone to put me in the pool when the water is agitated; while I’m trying to get in someone else beats me to it.”

Get up, pick up your mat and start walking around,”
Jesus tells him. And at once the man recovered; he picked up his mat and began walking.

Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar, The Gospel of Jesus (Santa Rosa: Polebridge Press, 1999), p. 51, 53. Mark 11:15, 17; 12:13-17; Matthew 21:12-13; 19:45-46; 22:15-22; Luke 20:21; EgerG 3:1-6; John 2:14-15; 5:2-3, 5-9; Thomas 100:1-3

Some people are comfortable with the word spiritual. Some people are comfortable talking about God. Others are not. I am not sure but I wonder if the difference between those who can speak of God and to God easily vs. those who cannot is akin to personality differences. Some people are introverts others are extroverts. Some people are spiritual, others are not.

It doesn’t have to be a cause for judgment. One isn’t better than another, just different. At least it seems to me to be the case. Some people have no problem with the miraculous, with the supernatural, with connecting with things unseen. Others are doubtful about such things. Some attribute things that happen in life to God and seek to be more in touch with what God might be doing in their lives or wanting them to do. Others don’t see God in that way at all and come at things from a more mundane, secular, or “worldly” point of view.

I suppose one could view it as a competition and say that folks of the other type need to mature and be like we are, whatever it is we are. At best, different types of folks can enhance the lives of others while learning from them.

One of the reasons I like the four paths of Creation Spirituality is because I think they can have value to folks of both types. One can emphasize the via to God aspect, the spirituality aspect and one can also see these paths as vias or ways to more integrated ways of living. In this second view, one doesn’t need God at all. Serving a congregation that has both types of folks and the entire spectrum in between, a worship leader looks for metaphors that all or at least most can have some connection.

The school of thought called Creation Spirituality seems to be a nice bridge. It is Earth-focused. It is about life here and now. Meaning is not located outside of our existence but within it. We are Earthlings as are bugs, branches, and bonobos. But it is spiritual in that meaning and vitality comes from our engagement with what is present.

We participate in ongoing creation. Creation doesn’t necessarily require a Creator. I have just finished the latest book by Stephen Hawking, The Grand Design. He speaks of multiple universes and spontaneous creation in which there is no need of a divine being to either keep it going or to start it off. But, one could allow for a Creator in Creation Spirituality.

Here I am offering my interpretation. Any one of you could define it very differently. Whether you are secular or spiritual or a combination of the two, you may find the four paths a helpful way to orient your experience.

Principle number five of The Twelve Principles of Creation Spirituality says:

Our inner work can be understood as a four-fold journey involving:
- awe, delight, amazement (known as the Via Positiva)
- uncertainty, darkness, suffering, letting go (Via Negativa)
- birthing, creativity, passion (Via Creativa)
- justice, healing, celebration (Via Transformitiva)
We weave through these paths like a spiral danced, not a ladder climbed.

What I have been doing for over a year now in worship is to celebrate one of those four paths per season. I have found it to be a helpful way of framing our collective worship experience. I have chosen Spring to be the via transformativa or way of justice, healing, celebration. I like to say it is the way of compassionate action.

Not only is Creation Spirituality available for those who are comfortable with God language and to those who are not, it is also available to those from various religious traditions. In other words, Creation Spirituality is not limited to the Christian tradition.

It does fit within the Christian tradition too. I think the historical Jesus fits quite well as a model or focus figure. Not just Jesus, but the movement of which Jesus was a part. That movement included those who were with him and not just those named in the gospels, but those who are unnamed, marginalized, and forgotten by the orthodox tradition.

Bev and I spent the week in Salem, Oregon attending the Spring meeting of the Jesus Seminar. The seminar honored the work of Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza. She teaches at Harvard Divinity School. Her field is early Christian origins. She has not been a part of the Jesus Seminar. She in fact has been somewhat critical of its work. Her criticism of the seminar is that it focused too much on Jesus as an individual making him carry too much weight.

Her historical reconstruction includes a larger movement for justice and equality. She is quite suspicious, for instance, that the early movement consisted of Jesus and twelve male apostles. The Jesus Seminar is suspicious of that as well of course. Yet she says the seminar doesn’t go far enough. Its reconstruction of Jesus is still too focused on Jesus the sage, poet, and hero. She reminds us that there were more people involved. She finds hints within the tradition that show far more diversity than those who wrote the history wanted us to know. She goes outside of it to gather the stories of the forgotten. Schussler-Fiorenza defines history as remembrance of struggle.

When we read stories of Jesus we are not just reading about the Divine Son of God on one hand, nor an historical person who is a hero on the other. We are reading about a much larger movement for equality and justice that includes the stories of women and men, the marginalized, and the abused and the forgotten. We don’t find them in the texts, but they were there. Like specters they haunt the text. They are there now in our current struggles for equality, justice, peace, and healing. It isn’t just about Jesus, but Jesus as a pointer to a movement of human beings celebrating and transforming oppressive powers into the kingdom of God.

When Jesus is in the temple overturning tables, it isn’t just him. The temple incident was likely a staged action. It was a protest. The protest was not about selling pastries in the sanctuary. It was a protest against the temple’s collaboration with Rome and its lack of compassion for the poor. It had become a hideout for crooks. The money exchange was like laundering money. You rip off the poor then trade it for sacrifices to make you holy before God. In this staged action that featured Jesus, we can imagine that it took a number of people to pull it off. We can imagine this protest didn't just happen once but happened many times in many ways.

It takes a lot of trouble-makers to change history.

When Jesus has the conversation about the coin with the emperor’s image, we can imagine that that is part of a long conversation and struggle about taxation, about Roman imperialism, and about the different ways in which you cope, resist, and often simply starve. The preservation of this story is simply the tip of an iceberg of events and struggles happening underneath. This is a story that is live and happening today all over the world and in our own communities as the impoverished struggle with the powerful. It should lead us to discussions of injustice in our time and what are the risks that we might take naming those injustices and responding to them.

The healing at the pool of Bethzatha could lead us to empty arguments of whether or not supernatural healing occurs or whether or not Jesus was a miracle-worker and so on. I think this story might be preserved for a different purpose. It reminds me of the futility of brokerage systems (38 years waiting at the pool) and the possibility of transformation and healing when people (not just Jesus) people take responsibility for themselves and their sisters and brothers, symbolized by the man courageously picking up his mat and walking.

That story itself becomes a symbol for this kingdom movement.

• In this new movement that did not end with the execution of Jesus, people pick up their mats and walk.
• They find their dignity.
• They discover their voices.
  

It takes a lot of trouble-makers to change history.

Sometimes we need to be troubled as well.

One of our church members saw what I was going to be talking about this week and emailed me. He told me about this song by Susan Werner. He liked it and thought it might fit the sermon. I think it does. It is called “Did Trouble Me.”



"To make me human, to make me whole."

That is the essence of this fourth path.

The via transformativa, or the path of justice, healing, celebration, compassion is a path, like all the paths, for those who are spiritual and for those who are not.

It is a path of engagement. It is a path that has been walked by many throughout history, the vast majority of those names are lost to us forever. We can imagine them, though. We can imagine women and men who work each day growing food, caring for bodies, teaching children, making beds, cooking meals, working in factories, building homes, and comforting the troubled.

It is a path also of troubling the comfortable.

Today we celebrate Self-Development of People. This is a program within the Presbyterian Church (USA) that allows partnerships to develop with low-income community groups. Our offering to the One Great Hour of Sharing that we will receive on Easter will go in part to Self-Development of People.

Here is an example:

In 2007, SDOP formalized a partnership with Development Promotion Group (DPG), a Chennai, India-based non-governmental organization that empowers community-based organizations to develop economic enterprises. Its primary focus is on the most neglected and vulnerable of rural and urban populations, with particular attention to the needs of women and children.

Over the course of this three-year intermediary partnership, 13 self-help groups in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have undertaken successful economic enterprises. Their ventures include a milk cooperative, a cement block business, a supermarket for home products, thatched roof production, charcoal making, and cashew nut processing. These projects have benefited a total of 229 families, as they begin their journey toward economic empowerment, self-sufficiency, and fulfillment of their leadership potential.

It takes a lot of trouble-makers to change history.

We are teaching our youth to be trouble makers. You are invited to participate with them for their work with the Appalachia Service Project. They will be spending a week in Kentucky working on homes, working with people, sharing their lives, experiencing the lives of people who make life choices amidst grinding poverty, and learning what it means to care. You can invest in their work after church today for our lunch and auction to fund their work.

This is the essence of the fourth spiritual path. Finding and making connections to provide hope and dignity to people and Earth.

It is just the kind of trouble we need.

Amen.