God Is Never Done with Us

This is what I preached on the second word for a 7 Last Words Service at Clarks United Methodist Church. Eight United Methodist Churches (with 7 pastors) came together to remember the crucifixion: Cokesbury Memorial, Presbury, Union, Salem, New Beginnings, Union Chapel, Clarks, and New Hope Christian Fellowship UMCs. 

Scripture: Luke 23:32-33,39-43 (NRSV)

Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with Jesus. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.

Photo by Aaron Harrington, 2015

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." 

He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

Sermon:
Let us pray:
Even on the cross, you show yourself to be our patient teacher. In the midst of ridicule and torture, you offer words of hope to another who was in need. In the midst of real human ugliness, you speak of paradise. So even in the midst of the stresses in our own lives, the grief, the fear, may you speak to us again of paradise through the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts, and help us to call out to you in search of your kingdom. Amen.

Last month, some of my friends and clergy colleagues began circulating a petition with the hashtag #kellyonmymind. Kelly Gissendaner, Georgia's only female death row inmate, was scheduled to be executed on March 2. The execution was first postponed because of snow, and then because of cloudy drugs, almost as though some Georgia state officials were just looking for reasons not to execute her. Yet the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles who can actually grant her clemency has no interest in doing so, despite the prayer vigils and demonstrations and phone calls.

You see, Kelly readily admits that the act that put her on death row was heinous. As she has said in a much-quoted clemency petition:

There are no excuses for what I did. I am fully responsible for my role in my husband’s murder. I had become so self-centered and bitter about my life and who I had become, that I lost all judgment. I will never understand how I let myself fall into such evil...

And we know from Georgia's actions in 2011, that even in the face of evidence of a wrong conviction, which Kelly admits hers was not, the state has no qualms about executing people. Troy Davis was executed in spite of pleas for clemency around the world and continued maintenance of his innocence.

Kelly is not innocent. But her story has garnered so much attention because of the repentance at the heart of her story. Kelly has transformed completely, from this self-centered and bitter person to a redeemed and renewed child of God. Testimony after testimony of guards, inmates, and theology students who studied alongside Kelly speak to her transformed life.

So when I imagined the criminal beside Jesus, I imagined Kelly. I imagined the injustice of the Roman death penalty much like the injustice of the death penalty in Georgia. I imagined the wailing of the women following the cross to sound like the wailing of those who have called for life for their friends like Troy and Kelly. And in my imagining I knew that God's justice and mercy are nothing like Georgia's. And nothing like ours.

Now, I do want to point out that nothing in this scripture indicates that the criminal in Luke's gospel repented. We often refer to him as the repentant criminal, but he never asks forgiveness for what he has done. He doesn't express remorse. He doesn't say the sinner's prayer or confess Jesus as his savior. We can assume, given what we know of Rome historically, that the criminal was a political one, a revolutionary, but we do not know for sure. Luke's description of the criminal gives us absolutely nothing in the language of today's traditional understandings of salvation with which to explain what this man did to merit paradise. But what Luke does show us in this encounter between Jesus and the criminal is that God's justice and mercy, God's saving work, are not limited like our understandings of them are.

God is never done with us. God can work with whatever we give, no matter how small. God does not give up on us. When Kelly was coldly planning her husband's murder, God did not give up on her. When her husband was murdered and Kelly planned to get his insurance money, God did not give up on her. When Kelly was sentenced to death by human courts, still God did not give up on her. And finally, she realized that. And she accepted God's love for her.

Now, you might agree with me that God does not give up on us, but you may disagree that the criminal crucified alongside Jesus did nothing to accept Jesus. He might not have confessed Jesus as Lord, but he did reach out. He stood up for Jesus against the derision of the other criminal. He admits his guilt, though he does not go into detail. And then he addresses Jesus. He asks Jesus to remember him. It may not be what we expect, but what Jesus' response shows us is that it is enough. God's saving power is enough.

So when we start to forget that God's saving power is enough, whether because we have given up on ourselves or whether because we have promoted ourselves as gatekeepers for who can and cannot be admitted into Paradise, Jesus reminds us from the cross "how deep the Father's love is for us." "How vast beyond measure," it is. As Kelly writes, "I have learned first-hand that no one, not even me, is beyond redemption through God’s grace and mercy. I have learned to place my hope in the God I now know, the God whose plans and promises are made known to me in the whole story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus."

Here we find ourselves on Good Friday, men hanging from crosses, the fear clinging around them as though it was fog. It was an evil place, soaked in the blood of so many. But even there, no one was was beyond redemption. Even there God's saving power was enough. "Jesus, remember me," one criminal said, finding it more difficult to speak as he was painfully, slowly robbed of his breath. And Jesus replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be wth me in Paradise." You, even you, will be with me. For God is never done with us. 


References Read in preparation for the sermon:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/series/the-seven-last-words-of-christ-reflections-for-holy-week/
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/march-web-only/let-kelly-gissendaner-live.html
http://umonfire.blogspot.com/2011/09/theyre-trying-to-kill-my-friend.html
http://candler.emory.edu/news/releases/2015/03/candler-holds-vigil-for-kelly-gissendaner.html

Seeing God within the Khaki Uniforms of Incarcerated Women

Crossposted at OnFire.

This semester I was to be taking my second PREP course at Drew Theological School. PREP stants for Partnership in Religion and Education in Prisons. It is a class taken, for women, at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, the only women's prison in New Jersey, in which half of the students are "outside" students from Drew and half of the students are "inside" students, inmates at the prison. I had hoped to write more about the class I took last year, Race, Ethics, and Women's Lives with Dr. Traci West. What follows is a reflection on my experience last year in observance of Black History Month and in honor of the the class I was supposed to take this semester, Our Earth/Land is God's (Property, Nation, Environment) with Dr. Otto Maduro, which has been canceled due to Dr. Maduro's health. I pray for blessings on him and those women at Edna Mahan who I will miss this semester.

These are my first impressions from my first day at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility:

beautiful women. So welcoming and warm. Dark, sure, but in a khaki kind of way. Ok, so that may not make sense: I just mean I was expecting dim lighting and heavy gates and stuff, not a minimum security, mundane-looking sort of education building, and these khaki uniforms. Dark in a sterile, beige kind of way.

A woman at the gate saying, "Sharing isn't caring here," reminding one of the women not to share her skittles. My fear that I had forgotten to wear a bra without underwire that they would make me leave in the car during class.

And then sitting in this room, going around the circle, getting to know one another. Just feeling so overwhelmed with the feeling of awe of these women, and pain that I would be leaving to go outside and they wouldn't. They told us how they do work but usually don't get paid more than eighty some cents a day, and they have to pay for shampoo, and even good quality pads and tampons (they are given pads, but they are so bad that instead of Always, they call them Nevers). And then going to sit down next to one of the women and seeing pictures of her children. Oh God.

This kind of random journal entry is the one I keep coming back to when I try to articulate my experience taking a class in Edna Mahan Correctional Facility. The words are scattered, but the entry is followed by a list of names I cannot include here for confidentiality. And those names make me remember the faces of those women, the sound of their voices, their jokes, the taste of the juice boxes and off-brand cookies (the kinds your find in senior centers, hospitals, and food banks)they would share with the "outside" students.

One week, we talked about breast cancer and heard a story from an inside woman about her friend. In Edna Mahan, there is a maximum side and a minimum side secuirty to the prison. Our class was in minimum security, but each woman serves almost half her sentence, no matter what she has been convicted of, in max. This particular woman had already served her time in max, but heard one of her friends had cancer. She cried when she told us. She wondered if anyone was taking care of her friend, and revealed a plan to do something bad so she would get sent back to max. Her mother begged her not to, she said, but you could hear the desperation in her voice, the pain. The helplessness.

We talked about intimate partner violence and heard story after story from inside and outside women about violence they had faced. And then the woman sitting next to me spoke up. She was the first woman in New Jersey to use the battered woman's defense in court, having killed her partner when he threatened her son. She must have been pregnant at the time of her trial, given the age of her daughter and the amount of time she had been imprisoned. And again, there was pain, helplessness, violent frustration in her voice. But there was also survival there, too: the firece strength of being alive.

There is so much emotion that comes up for me when I try to write about this experience, which is why it has taken me almost a year to write about it, and even now I would not, not yet, but I want to be a part of this conversation on the prison system in the USA. The church does not talk about it enough, despite the fact that so many of our communities, particularly poor communities, immigrant communities, and communities of color, are torn apart by it. One in three black men will be incarcerated. Prisons are built based on the number of third grade-age boys of color in particular communities. We live in a country in which bankers can steal people's homes from them with impunity but people can get life in prison for nonviolent drug crimes (see this Democracy Now! interview focusing on a new documentary about the so-called war on drugs). And these women who I sat next to in class, these beautiful people...

At the beginning of January, The United Methodist Board of Pensions and Health Benefits announced it would divest from "companies that derive more than 10 percent of revenue from the management and operation of prison facilities" (which OnFire and UM Kairos Response's Emily McNeill touched on in an important blog post here). This is an important start to the conversation around the prison industrial complex, but it falls short. We need a critical United Methodist voice for prison abolition, for alternatives to caging women like those I met in class in whose faces I saw Christ as they shared their orange juice boxes and cookies as though they were serving communion.

So, the first step in raising this voice is educating yourselves and your faith communities. For more information on the Prison Industrial Complex, start at Critical Resistance, "a national grassroots organizion committed to ending society's use of prisons and policing as an answer to social problems." And important books to start with are Angela Davis' classic Are Prisons Obsolete? and Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

In the Breaking of the Bread

So I know last month I said was my last sermon at Bernardsville United Methodist Church in New Jersey, where I have been preaching once a month as part of my supervised ministry, but I was lucky enough to preach another Sunday. I give thanks for the wonderful people at that church for loving me and welcoming me. They gave me a going away gift and were just so affirming! And I thank Rev. Dr. Tanya Linn Bennett, my supervisor, for inviting me to be a part of this church community this last semester. It has really been a healing and empowering experience for me.

Now, this is one of those weeks where there are a million things to preach about in response to current events. And the text for this week is such a rich text that you can preach on so many different aspects of it. And today is Mother's Day. So this week when I began preparing the sermon, all these things were rolling around in my mind, which certainly affected how I read a text. So if it seems strange to you that when I first read this passage from Luke I thought of the ways our Christian family comes together, just bear with me and let's see where it goes.

Scripture: Luke 24: 13-35 1 from the Inclusive Bible Translation

That same day, two of the disciples were making their way to a village called Emmaus--- which was about seven miles from Jerusalem--- and discussing all that had happened as they went.

While they were discussing these things, Jesus approached and began to walk along with them, though they were kept from recognizing Jesus, who asked them, "What are you discussing as you go on your way?"

They stopped and looked sad. One of them, Cleopas by name, asked him, "Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who doesn't know the things that have happened these last few days?"

Jesus said to them, "What things?"

They said, "Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet powerful in word and deed in the eyes of God and all the people--- how our chief priests and leaders delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. We were hoping that he was the One who would set Israel free. Besides all this, today--- the third day since these things happened--- some women of our group have just brought us some astonishing news. They were at the tomb before dawn and didn't find the body; they returned and informed us that they had seen a vision of angels who declared that Jesus was alive. Some of our number went to the tomb and found it just as the women said, but they didn't find Jesus."

Then Jesus said to them, "What little sense you have! How slow you are to believe all that the prophets have announced! Didn't the Messiah have to undergo all this to enter into glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus interpreted for them every passage of scripture which referred to the Messiah. By now they were near the village they were going to, and Jesus appeared to be going further. But they said eagerly, "Stay with us. It's nearly evening--- the day is practically over." So the savior went in and stayed with them.

After sitting down with them to eat, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, then broke the bread and began to distribute it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus, who immediately vanished from their sight.

Then they said to one another, "Weren't our hearts burning inside us as this one talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?" Then they got up immediately and returned to Jerusalem, where they found the Eleven and the rest of the company assembled. They were greeted with, "Christ has risen! It's true! Jesus has appeared to Simon!" Then the travelers recounted what had happened on the road, and how they had come to know Jesus in the breaking of the bread.

Sermon: In the Breaking of the Bread

Let us pray:
Patient Teacher, you come again to us this week,
walking along the road with us though we don't recognize you.
May you walk alongside us now, as we explore this scripture together this morning. Amen.

Two people are walking along the road together. The text calls them disciples, so I at least think the text is referring to one of the twelve until we hear the name Cleopas. Hmmm. Peter, Thomas, a couple of Judases then a couple of Jameses, John, Andrew, Philip, Matthew, Simon, and my personal favorite because it is the least common name Bartholomew. No Cleopas in there. So Cleopas is one of the many who, like the women who are mentioned but so rarely named, are there following Jesus alongside the Twelve Disciples. And so is his companion, of whom we have even less information. All we know of these characters then is that they are followers of Jesus.

So our next question is where is it that they are going? Emmaus, the text tells us. A village seven miles from Jerusalem. We don't know much at all about the village itself, even today. And we do not know why they are going. Is that where these two disciples are from? We just don't know. So we have to imagine. I thought maybe they running from all the despair turned confusion in Jerusalem. But why would they run away from the other disciples? Of course, it is always unfair to read too much into the text. We have no idea why they were leaving Jerusalem. But in approaching this text on Mother's Day, I couldn't help but see these disciples leaving Jerusalem as them leaving the other disciples, leaving their family. As we have seen throughout the Gospels, Jesus calls the disciples to leave families and not look back. In the Gospel of Luke, we read,

To another [Jesus] said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."2

These are harsh words we think today, but they illustrate for us that this estrangement between family and home would force the disciples to make a family of their own choosing, a family out of those who followed Jesus.

Now this was a dysfunctional family, to say the least. Simon Peter was impulsive, and I always pictured him as an attention seeker and loud. The twelve disciples argued amongst themselves--- even over who was the greatest.3 This collection of people ranged from fishermen, to the formerly possessed, to tax collectors, to wives of politicians--- it was quite a motley crew. And perhaps the moment in which the family was most dysfunctional, as is the case for so many of our families, was the moment in which they needed each other most: death, the crucifixion of Jesus. But many were in hiding. Many were still silent. Many were in denial.

And so perhaps Cleopas and his companion left Jerusalem because Jesus was dead, and so there was nothing left holding them to the other disciples. Yes, they had heard rumors that Jesus was alive, but the last thing they say to this stranger on the road about what had happened to Jesus in Jerusalem was, "but they didn't find Jesus." The body was gone, yes, but they didn't find Jesus. So maybe, Cleopas and the other disciple are leaving this confusion, leaving the dysfunctionality, to try and move on with their lives. Maybe they were going to go back to their old lives, trying to return everything to normal, the way it was before they met Jesus.

If that is the case, Jesus is not so interested in letting everything return to normal. And so he walks with them along the road. He questions them, draws out of them their story of all that has happened. And he shares his own interpretations of the scripture to shed light on what has happened. Then, he turns to go, but he is stopped.

Stay with us.

They have not yet recognized Jesus as their teacher. But they do recognize something familiar within this strange companion, something that makes them reach out to him, to bring him into their home, to invite him to supper. To make him family. Because that is what they are doing here. Hospitality was an important aspect of Near East culture at that time, but taking the concept of hospitality and expanding it to cover not just family and community members but the lowest of the low was something Jesus had taught them. And here they were inviting a complete stranger in with them to eat. I see echoes here of Jesus' teachings, like this one for Matthew: Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.4

Maybe that family thing really did stick with them. And maybe Jesus' presence there on the road that day was a mothering presence, one to help the disciples remember that they have had a glimpse of the kingdom, a glimpse of how to live together as a family, and so they cannot go back to life as it used to be.

This semester I had a kind of road to Emmaus experience. I took a class at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, New Jersey's only women's prison. Drew has a program in which Drew professors will teach classes in the prison, half the class will be "outside" students, and half will be "inside" students, inmates at the prison. This class was called Race, Ethics, and Women's Lives, and we talked about everything from clothing and food to violence, breast cancer, and sexuality. One class was devoted to motherhood. We were asked the question what mothers you? A lot of us were confused by this question at first, but the point was that there are many people and aspects of culture that mother us, that give birth to us, form us, and nourish us. Now mothering is not always a positive thing--- for instance, my professor thought that prison could be a mother, a formative experience whose lessons are not healthy ones.

But this class in the prison mothered me in a healthy way this semester. At the beginning of the year, I felt like I imagine those disciples did. While I never wanted to throw in the towel or anything, I wasn't happy the beginning of the year. I was taking too many classes in the fall, doing supervised ministry, I didn't get to see Aaron, who is my partner, or the rest of my family very much. I was stressed and I just wasn't taking care of myself. Because of this, seminary became not the joyful challenge it was my first year, but rather something I had to get through, something I had to get over. And there were many things like working here this semester that has made the Spring much more happy for me, but this class in the prison was one of the places in particular along the road where I felt like Jesus was walking beside me. Like I was being pushed not to spend so much time studying alone in my room trying to just get this year over with, but being out with family, with friends. Remembering that Jesus calls us now and not after we are finished school. I felt like I was being nudged back to face Jerusalem--- not just to get through the rest of seminary but to really start living that kingdom vision I saw Jesus to be calling me to--- that kingdom vision I saw in class.

The women in the class were Jesus, walking alongside me on the road throughout the semester, showing me great hospitality, even though I was worried we would have little in common. The women in the class, both inside and outside, opened my eyes to seeing God in new places, like within the khaki uniforms of incarcerated women. I felt that driving from Clinton after class every week with the other outside students, we would say to one another, "Weren't our hearts burning inside us as these women talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?" As we heard the stories of these women, as they greeted us with hospitality, sharing their little juice boxes and packets of off-brand Nilla Wafers that had a weird aftertaste, I felt what those disciples must have felt on the journey to Emmaus when Jesus showed up and broke bread with them.

My mom in her Mother's Day sermons sometimes quotes this piece that begins with a verse fro the Gospel of John that she read in a magazine years ago:

"In truth I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. What is hope if not belief in rebirth -- our own and our neighbors? Because we glimpse another kingdom, we live with different expectations. Caught in stormy passages, we are part of a birthing that is beyond our control and our imaginings. We are all in labor. We are all midwives."5

I think this quotation is beautiful and really fits with my understanding of what happened in that prison class for me this semester. It was one of the many moments of renewal and rebirth in my life. Jesus calls us to these moments of rebirth--- of ourselves and our neighbors. Too often, we like those disciples on the road to Emmaus are tired and confused. We might know that Jesus is alive, but maybe we can't find him. Those moments of rebirth are when we see that he is walking along the road with us. And yes, it is often stormy, and always out of our control, but those moments of rebirth remind us that as Christians we have glimpsed another kingdom, another way of living as a family, and we cannot let that vision go. And so we all have to enter into labor, we all have to become midwives to bring in that vision of new living that Jesus has shown us.

As Jesus is teaching Cleopas and the other disciple on that road to Emmaus, they were reborn and reminded that they are midwives. They can't leave the work that needs to be done, no matter how confused or scared they are. And they realize that, even before they realize who Jesus is, that is why they say, "Stay with us," when it looks as though Jesus will go on ahead. They are remembering that work that begins with the hospitality, with making Jesus part of their family by breaking bread with him as he taught them to do.

And it was in the breaking of the bread that their eyes were opened. In this communion moment where we who are many become one body, become one family, dysfunctional as it may seem, called to the work of bringing in the kingdom of God. Cleopas and the other disciple turned right around that night to go share the Good News with their brothers and sisters.

Then the travelers recounted what had happened on the road, and how they had come to know Jesus in the breaking of the bread.

Let us pray,

Help our hearts to be Spirit-filled, O Christ.
Help us to burn with passion for you and for your people throughout the world.
May our passion ignite flames of justice and hope in the midst of hopelessness, pain, and confusion.
May the warmth of our fire be a sign of your mothering presence in the world.
In the name of the Risen Christ, Amen.6