Saints not Martyrs Please! 

This is a Follow-up Article by New Ways Ministry to yesterday’s very important article on homeless gay youth.

From Bob Shine and the blog Bondings 2.0:

As a Pastor and individual serving the homeless and the LGBT community all of my life, I find the high figures on homeless LGBT youth shocking and tragic. I thank Bob Shine of New Ways Ministry- Bondings 2.0 Blog for bringing this to our attention. Please join me in prayer for loving Christ-like outreach to all homeless people, especially young people and LGBT teenagers who are facing the aftermath of rejection for the persons they were born to be. I am moved by the examples here and remember such rejections in my own life as I struggled to find and name myself and my orientation along the LGB spectrum in my thirties. For the young who cannot support themselves homelessness is part of the tragedy. Young brother and sister, my prayers are with you.

Rev. Dr. Judy Lee, RCWP

Co_Pastor Good Shepherd Inclusive Catholic Community, Fort Myers, Fl

All may be saints but we pray there are no martyrs among our youth!

Below is Bob Shine’s Article from Bondings 2.0 Blog New Ways Ministry

New post on Bondings 2.0

Homeless LGBT Youth Need Your Support This #SpiritDay by Bob Shine In a month from now, October 16th, millions of people nationwide will don purple clothing and take to social media in what has become an annual display of love and support for LGBT youth called #SpiritDay. In past years’, Bondings 2.0 has marked this event by highlighting the bullying of LGBT youth and Catholic responses  to this problem. Today, we highlight the tremendous problem of LGBT youth homelessness, suicide, and related pastoral concerns in the hopes you will add your voice to #SpiritDay on October 16th. Tomorrow, Bondings 2.0 will look at the other side of this problem–how religious social service providers are impacting LGBT youth experiencing homelessness.  #SpiritDay is sponsored by GLAAD, and you can find out how you and your company, school, church, organization can participate by clicking here. Rolling Stone magazine took up LGBT youth homelessness in their September 11th issue, mixing hard data with anecdotes from four LGBT youth to tell this tragic story. To set the scene, the article cites Center for American Progress numbers that between 320,000 and 400,000 LGBT youth experience homelessness in the United States and this is approximately 40 percent of the homeless youth population overall. The causes of LGBT youth homelessness are varied. The average coming out age has dropped to 16, when most youth are still dependent on their parents, and more youth may be coming out following legal victories for LGBT equality. Research also shows that almost 40 percent of LGBT youth experiencing homelessness are on the streets because of family rejection, primarily rooted in religious concerns.The Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State published data showing a distinct correlation between highly religious parents and the rejection of their LGBT children in comparison to those parents considered less religious. Two of the four youth who shared their stories in the Rolling Stone article came from families identifying as Catholic. Jackie was raised in Idaho amid an upper-middle class family. She succeeded academically and socially, pushed on by traditionally Catholic parents. It took until college for Jackie to realize she was gay, coming out sophomore year over the phone to her mother. The article reports: “So while Jackie hoped for the best, she knew the call she was making had the potential to not end well. ‘You can’t hate me after I say this,’ she pleaded when, alarmed to be receiving a call in the middle of the night, her mom picked up the phone. ” ‘Oh, my God, you’re pregnant’ was her mom’s first response, before running through a litany of parental fears. ‘Are you in jail? Did you get expelled? Are you in trouble? What happened? What did you do?’ Suddenly her mom’s silence matched Jackie’s own. ‘Oh, my God,’ she murmured in disbelief. ‘Are you gay?’ ‘Yeah,’ Jackie forced herself to say.” Her mother hung up after using a slur against Jackie and questioning what she, as a mother, had done “for God to have given us a [gay] as a child.” Jackie’s parents cut her off financially, kicked her out of their house, and broke contact with their daughter. They mentioned later that Jackie, who experienced homelessness while still pursuing her college education, could get their financial support if she enrolled in “ex-gay therapy.” Of this, Jackie says: ” ‘I wanted to be their kid, but I couldn’t change. Everyone I’d ever known my whole life cut ties with me. But this was who I am.’ “ James was a raised in the Midwest, in a highly religious town where there was a church “on every street corner.” His mother, once Catholic, experimented with evangelically-oriented Christian traditions before returning to her original church. James, who had heard his mother rail against homosexuality, started quietly dating a co-worker. He was forced to come out after his mother found a picture of him with his boyfriend on James’ phone. Upon graduating high school, he was kicked out and, after a month of hitchhiking, ended up in Atlanta at a shelter for LGBT youth, called Lost-n-Found Youth. One additional note is that LGBT youth who are kicked out experience higher rates of violence, sexual assault, HIV/AIDS, and prostitution than averages for youth experiencing homelessness. These can lead or exacerbate existing substance abuse and mental health issues, and in too many cases lead to suicide. Jesuit Jason Welle questions the acts of Catholic parents and family members who would reject an LGBT child or sibling, commenting on its inconsistency with teachings of Jesus. He writes at The Jesuit Post: “And this kind of rejection is shameful and heartbreaking because, really, our faith tradition should teach us that rejecting our children is a rejection of the promises we make in Baptism, namely that when a Catholic parent has their child baptized, the priest or deacon instructs them to teach their child to keep God’s commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbor, and then asks pointedly, ‘Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?’ “The thing is, before you bring a child into the world no one asks you if you know what you’re getting into. But when a Catholic parent baptizes that child, they must respond directly to this question first. It leaves me crying out: what part of throwing a gay or lesbian child out of the home shows our love of God and neighbor?” Beyond the family, there is still the matter of the Catholic community. San Francisco social worker Kelley Cutler wrote a blog post at Patheos with questions for this fall’s Synod of Bishops tackling marriage and family life. Cutler asks the right questions, I think, for the church at large presently faced with all of the above: “How can the Church follow Christ’s example? What do queer people want and need to feel welcomed and supported in the Church where they may find him? How can the Church support queer people already in the pews, let alone the many on the street? What do they hope for from the Church, and how is the Church failing those hopes, thus contributing to a sense of hopelessness?” Cutler points out that community and a sense of belonging, as well as spiritual care are essential components in helping marginalized communities — and what the church can offer to LGBT youth. She concludes: “It takes a genuine connection to make the vulnerable feel truly safe, and truly seen…if we truly want to outreach to queer people, we need to do more, starting with real dialogue. Without being defensive, we need to see queer people through Jesus’ eyes, understand why they feel like outcasts, and then ask what we as a community can do to bring them home. “If we listen, we will hear that we all share the same desires: for connection; for community; for hope; for love; for a place where we may safely graze.” Making public your support as a Catholic or person of faith for LGBT youth this #SpiritDay will let them know there is a supportive community out there. New Ways Ministry is joining with other faith-based and LGBT groups to co-sponsor #SpiritDay with GLAAD. We hope you will join us and help us spread the word! For more information, click here. Tomorrow, Bondings 2.0 will follow-up this post by looking at the impact faith-based social service providers have had in confronting LGBT youth homelessness. –Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry Bob Shine | September 18, 2014 at 1:00 am | Tags: Catholic, Family Acceptance Project, Gay, GLAAD, homeless, lesbian, LGBT, Youth | Categories: Schools & Youth,Spirituality & Pastoral Ministry | URL: http://wp.me/p21uEP-2si

When we love someone deeply we remember all we can about their lives including the manner of their dying and parting from us. We remember most of all how they loved us in big and little ways and what they taught us. As we mature we attribute meaning to many of the things they did and said and this gives meaning to our own lives.  I was raised by my mother and my Grandmother and we lived together in a small frame house in Brooklyn, New York with my two Uncles. We were also surrounded by a host of other family members from near and far in my youngest years. My Grandmother was the head of this clan and a leader in her church and in the community. Her vibrant faith, accepting love and joy drew people to her. She was my best friend and my anchor and I loved her very much. She always said that she wanted to live until I was married. She was 65 when I was born and almost 85 when she died. I was married for four months when she died.

I was not ready for her death but if it had been gentle it would have been easier. She died of a cancer that had metastasized and her suffering unhinged all who loved her. Her faith held strong but pain management in those days was totally inadequate. My faith in God was strong like hers, but I did not know how God could let one of God’s most faithful suffer and die like this. After almost two months of awful suffering in Kings County Hospital, hooked up to IV’s and not visibly responsive to my evening visit, she finally got to go home to God in the early morning hours. I wondered what took God so long. I was numb and could not cry until my friend Barbara’s Grandmother, Hattie Ballard, a beautiful African- American woman of faith, took me in her arms and said “She’s at home with God, I’ll be your Grandma now”.

Even as I write this so many years later tears well up. And that is the same way I feel about Jesus and remembering his execution. It is my love for him that makes me remember the giving of himself throughout his life and in the Last Supper, his terrible suffering on the cross and the unbelievable miracle of his resurrection. In Aramaic the word “believe” carries connotations of love not abstract belief. In love I remember it all.

I do not seek to wipe out the hard parts and have a Pollyanna faith built on a flimsy superficial notion of love. Real love remembers all of it and does not simply delete the suffering at the end.  But his death should not loom so large that we forget all he did and taught-all he was in all of his humanity and all of his Godness.

It is not that his death overshadows his life and his resurrection for me. I remember everything I can about my Grandmother and I remember all that Jesus did and taught and what I can comprehend about what and who he was-the Christ he is. It is that, as hard as it is, I did learn from my Grandmother’s hard death. I learned about suffering. I learned it early and I have learned much more of it in my life than may be “a fair share”. But I also learned there is no fair share-only that God is with us through the suffering and sometimes a Grandma Ballard will step forward and will help ease the pain. And I learned that life comes after death, for the deceased and also for those who mourn and live on. Let us not be afraid of remembering and embracing the cross.

This is what Pope Francis said about the centrality of the cross in our faith. “When we journey without the cross,when we build without the cross,when we profess Christ without the cross,we are not disciples of the Lord,we are worldly….My wish is that all of us will have the courage to walk in the presence of the Lord,with the Lord’s cross….” Pope Francis

On September 14, 2014 we will celebrate the feast day of the Holy Cross.  The following is from the writings of Frederick Beuchner in  FrederickBeuchnersBlog.com.

“Here is this week’s reading from the gospel of John:  John 3:13-17

“…. just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

“The following excerpt was originally published in The Faces of Jesus and later in Listening to Your Life.

“God so loved the world,” John writes, “that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” That is to say that God so loved the world that he gave his only son even to this obscene horror; so loved the world that in some ultimately indescribable way and at some ultimately immeasurable cost he gave the world himself. Out of this terrible death, John says, came eternal life not just in the sense of resurrection to life after death but in the sense of life so precious even this side of death that to live it is to stand with one foot already in eternity. To participate in the sacrificial life and death of Jesus Christ is to live already in his kingdom. This is the essence of the Christian message, the heart of the Good News, and it is why the cross has become the chief Christian symbol. A cross of all things – a guillotine, a gallows – but the cross at the same time as the crossroads of eternity and time, as the place where such a mighty heart was broken that the healing power of God himself could flow through it into a sick and broken world. It was for this reason that of all the possible words they could have used to describe the day of his death, the word they settled on was “good.”Good Friday.”

No, I don’t understand all of what happened on the Cross or how time and eternity met, but I understand that Jesus asked his Abba God to “forgive them, for they know not what they do”. In relationship with Jesus, the Christ, I know his love and I know the life that it gives, now, and forever. I know it within and for myself and I see it every day in the lives of those around me who have suffered the ravages of poverty and illness. I know that the Cross and Resurrection are two parts of one action and that they form the centerpiece of Christianity. A centerpiece centers us,draws us in, but all else that Jesus did and taught about love and justice, peace and inclusion and forgiveness completes the picture. In a way it is our love for Christ and following Christ, our functions as part of the body of Christ,that is completing the picture of God’s kingdom or kin-dom on earth that includes everyone. And it is all about the power of Love/love.

There are some who make the Cross the whole picture. As in the Mel Gibson film The Passion they center only on the suffering. They ignore all that Jesus was, taught, did and wants us to do. They even minimize the Resurrection! At the end of the film the Resurrection was pictured in one frame, in a small box on the screen. They got the proportions all wrong. The Resurrection is even bigger than the death as new and forever life flows from it-from the life of Christ to the Cross and through the Resurrection. The early church would have never lived and spread far and wide if something huge like the Resurrection had not happened.

As feminist social ethicist Beverly W. Harrison said crucifixions are going to happen. From Jesus, to many of the saints, to M.L.King, Jr, to Oscar Romero and beyond. “Radical love is a dangerous and serious business….There is no way around crucifixions given the power of evil in the world. But….the aim of love is not to perpetuate crucifixions but to bring an end to them.’’ Indeed, she continues, “we are not called to practice the virtue of sacrifice but to lovingly pass on the power of radical love.” Harrison is right, “there is no way around crucifixions given the evil in the world” and there is no way around the existence and pain of sin, social sin, mass killings, rape and genocide, corporate and individual greed and other individual sins that may also be horrendous. The presence of evil does not negate the wonderful presence of beauty and love in our world and in the cosmos and in our very lives, but only makes it sweeter. Yet a theology without addressing evil and sin is at best the weakest skim milk of theology. In embracing radical love, we need more substantial understanding.

There are some who see Christ’s death as a cultic sacrifice, even as lambs and other animals were sacrificed before him. But it is clear in the Scriptures that God did not desire animal sacrifice, let alone its human counterpart. Even in the story of Abraham and Isaac, there was no human sacrifice. The prophet Samuel says (I Sam 15:22) “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord”? The prophet Hosea says (6:6) God desires mercy and acknowledgement not sacrifice. In Psalm 51(16-17) we learn that God does not desire or need living sacrifices, but thanksgiving, praise, and a spirit in need of wholeness.  So Christ did not die for “atonement” but simply for love-God’s radical love for us and for all of God’s creation.

Some of today’s theologians, including some feminist theologians like Schussler-Fiorenza(1994: Jesus Miriam’s Child…) and black feminist theologian Delores Williams(S-F,1994:103) are wary of identification with a suffering Christ especially for women in general and black women in particular who should not tolerate the self- sacrifice replete with suffering that is often expected. Yet, Williams allows that most black women do believe in redemption through Jesus suffering on the cross (SF,1994,273). She does not think one should accept suffering for any reason “including the reason Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had: that suffering might serve to transform the social situation”. I am with Dr. King on this. As I recall the Civil Rights era it is clear that a lot of courageous suffering came before life-giving change (including Dr. King’s) and it was not “for nothing”-it gave birth to change. The suffering was like the pain of childbirth. Womanist theologians Grant,Terrell and Mitchem also disagree with Williams’ conclusions and see Jesus as co-sufferer (Mitchem, Introducing womanist Theology,2002:113). Terrell says” The idea of Jesus’ suffering invites those who live in oppression to identify with God’s love—the extent to which God goes to bring us back from alienation and human estrangement (Mitchem, 2002, 117). For these and for a range of Latin-American and Asian feminist theologians Jesus is seen as the Liberator Christ who calls us to be active participants in our own liberation. Ritchie,an Argentinian theologian quotes Sobrino “Any theo-logy must hold that Jesus is God. Liberation Christology emphasizes that we only know what God is from a point of departure in Jesus.” In the midst of historical and political conflict Jesus is “the Savior who incarnates God’s plan to liberate humanity….” (Ritchie in Tamez,Through Her Eyes ,1989). Tamez says: “The God of life, our Creator and Liberator, who through God’s Son Jesus Christ-incarnated in history, died and rose again to give us abundant life-lead us in the quest to recreate history and culture so that God’s kingdom may be visible on earth” (1989:13).

Korean feminist theologian Chung Hyun Kyung says “Jesus takes sides with the silenced Asian women in his solidarity with oppressed people.” Hong Kong theologian Kwok Pui-Lan says “We see Jesus as the God who takes human form and suffers and weeps with us.” ( In Schussler-Fiorenza, 1994: 103). For further discussion on this and its relation to the poor and homeless everywhere please see my book about building church with the poor (Lee, 2010, Come By Here: Church with the Poor especially pp. 70-78.)

And, finally consider these words of the theologian and author of Raising Abel James Alison:

“… In the context of discussing the revelation of God as Love, using John 3:16 as a prime example, Alison poses the story of Genesis 22 as a story that can be demythologized by John 3:16:

Now, this “giving his only Son” is not an idea pulled out of a hat. It is, itself, the demythologization of a story from the Old Testament: the story of Abraham who was prepared to give up his only (legitimate) son to God, by sacrificing him. But look at what has happened meanwhile: in the first story God is a god who demands sacrifices from humans, including the one sacrifice which really mattered, even though, in the story as we have it in Genesis 22, God himself organizes a substitute for the sacrifice. In any case, we still have a capricious deity. What we see in the New Testament, completely in line with the change in the perception of God that I’ve been setting out, is that it is not humans who offer a sacrifice to God (by, for instance, killing a blasphemous transgressor), but God who offers a sacrifice to humans. The whole self-giving of Jesus becomes possible because Jesus is obedient to God, giving himself in the midst of violent humans who demand blood, so as finally to unmask and annul the system of murderous mendacity which the world is.

Once more, if you think I’m making this up, everything which I have been saying is beautifully and exactly resumed in the first epistle of John. There we see what the message is, the nucleus of the Gospel:

This then is the message which we have heard of him [i.e., Jesus], and declare unto you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

That is: what Jesus came to announce was a message about God, and God’s being entirely without violence, darkness, duplicity, ambivalence or ambiguity. This message is then unpacked by the author in the following verses, and then he gives us the famous summing up of where this process of the changing perception of God has led to:

…for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:8-10)

Here we have the element of the discovery of the absolutely vivacious and effervescent nature of God leading to the realization that behind the death of Jesus there was no violent God, but a loving God who was planning a way to get us out of our violent and sinful life. Not a human sacrifice to God, but God’s sacrifice to humans”. (pp. 45-46) ( Bold emphasis mine).

Let us thank God for the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Let us gather around the Table together in love and remember.

This is Rvda. Marina Teresa Sanchez Mejia,RCWP celebrating the Eucharist with some of the faithful in Cali,Colombia

Like Christ, LIVE , now and forever!

Rev.Dr.Judy Lee,RCWP

Co-Pastor Good Shepherd Inclusive Catholic Community of Fort Myers, Florida

We thank Francis De Bernardo of the blog Bondings2.0  (NewWaysMinistry) for this hopeful good news!

St. Vincent de Paul Society Gives Grant to LGBT Center Despite Bishop’s Challenge

Here we present Rev. Chava’s reflections on her migrant ministry and also a reflection on Saint Mychal Judge by Don Pachuta a friend of Woman Priest Eileen Di Franco of Philadelphia and also from thejesusinlove.blogspot.com.  In both reflections we can feel the love in the midst of sorrow and the worst things that can happen. How beautiful are these preachers and their people. 

Rev Chava’s Reflection On Noticing the Joy

Oscar Romero Inclusive Catholic Church
Bulletin for Sunday, September 7, 2014
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear friends,

There have been so many times that there has been hard news to write about
in this bulletin: people picked up by immigration, deportations, the I-9
audit that cost everyone in our little migrant church their jobs two years
ago – and bed bugs and cockroaches and long working hours and exhaustion.
It’s important to share those stories because our friends are hidden from
mainstream North America. I’ve met people who didn’t even know there was an
immigration problem in our area. But as difficult as all those things are,
and as necessary as it is to share them, it is also important to notice the
joy.

This past weekend held some very real joy, as we celebrated the wedding of
two folks from our community. The happiest memory for me is of the bride
and groom’s 15-month-old son toddling up the aisle and into his Papi’s
arms. He was the only member of the wedding party who didn’t know he was in
it! …and he provided some entertainment (or competition) during the homily.
After the ceremony, a neighbor invited the wedding party to take photos in
her garden across the street. I thought that was so kind. The one
disappointment in the day was the noticeable dearth of Mexicans, because
the groom’s co-workers all had to work. The bride actually drove out to the
fields to get the best man, a couple hours before the ceremony. In spite of
that, there was lots and lots of joy. Best wishes in your life together,
Constantino and Cassandra!

On Thursday I finally got our projector working with both picture and
sound, and to celebrate the first week of school, plus having a pretty
thoroughly exhausted pastor, and a very small group at church due to
illness and extra long work hours, we decided to have a movie night instead
of Mass. Brenda from St Joe’s was with us for the first time, but the kids
she had come to teach weren’t there. She had, however, made some wonderful
chili to share, so we ate and watched “Harry Potter” – until the two older
kids that were there said they needed to stop watching and go do their
homework. It was getting late anyway, so I gave them the video to watch at
home, we found containers so everyone could take home some chili, and that
was our night. I found I missed the joy of celebrating Mass together, but
was delighted and impressed by the kids’ devotion to their schoolwork.

Another source of joy this week was learning that the book “Border Patrol
Nation” is being used as a textbook at the Divinity School this fall. The
author, Todd Miller, will be doing a speaking  tour of upstate NY in
November. He will be at St John Fisher the evening of November 4 (6:15) and
at ROCLA (which meets at DUPC) at 7 pm on November 5. I recommend his book
highly and hope you can make it to one or both of his talks.

Love to all
Chava

Oscar Romero Church
An Inclusive Community of Liberation, Justice and Joy
Worshiping in the Catholic Tradition
Mass: Sundays, 11 am
St Joseph’s House of Hospitality, 402 South Ave, Rochester NY 14620
A member community of the Federation of Christian Ministries

Saint Michael Judge by Don Pachuta

Gay saint of 9/11: Mychal Judge

 

“Holy Passion Bearer Mychal Judge and St. Francis of Assisi”
By Father William Hart McNichols

A gay priest is considered a saint by many since his heroic death in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.

Father Mychal Judge (1933-2001), chaplain to New York City firefighters, responded quickly when Muslim extremists flew hijacked planes into the twin towers. He rushed with firefighters into the north tower right after the first plane hit. Refusing to be evacuated, he prayed and administered sacraments as debris crashed outside. He saw dozens of bodies hit the plaza outside as people jumped to their deaths. His final prayer, repeated over and over, was “Jesus, please end this right now! God, please end this!”

While he was praying, Father Mychal was struck and killed in a storm of flying steel and concrete that exploded when the south tower collapsed. He was the first officially recorded fatality of the 9/11 attack. Father Mychal was designated as Victim 0001 because his was the first body recovered at the scene. More than 2,500 people from many nationalities and walks of life were killed. Thousands more escaped the buildings safely.

After Father Mychal’s death, some of his friends revealed that he considered himself a gay man. He had a homosexual orientation, but by all accounts he remained faithful to his vow of celibacy as a Roman Catholic priest of the Franciscan order.

The charismatic, elderly priest was a long-term member of Dignity, the oldest and largest national lay movement of LGBT Catholics and their allies. Father Mychal voiced disagreement with the Vatican’s condemnation of homosexuality, and found ways to welcome Dignity’s AIDS ministry despite a ban by church leaders. He defied a church boycott of the first gay-inclusive St. Patrick’s Day parade in Queens, showing up in his habit and granting news media interviews.

Many people, both inside and outside the GLBT community, call Father Mychal a saint. He has not been canonized by his own Roman Catholic Church, but some feel that he has already become a saint by popular acclamation, and the Orthodox-Catholic Church of America did declare officially declare him a saint. For more info on Father Mychal, visit  his Wikipedia entry or the Saint Mychal Judge Blog.

The above icon by Father William Hart McNichols shows Father Mychal with St. Francis of Assisi as the World Trade Center burns behind them. They hold out a veil to gather and help people who cry out in times of violence and terror. In the text accompanying the icon, Father McNichols describes Father Mychal as a Passion Bearer who “takes on the on-coming violence rather than returning it… choosing solidarity with the unprotected…..”

We thank God for Rev. Chava and for Fr. Mychal Judge for they are the pioneer priests of a new day of justice for all and truly “walk in Jesus’ shoes.  May God help us all to walk in those shoes. Pastor Judy Lee  

                                                                                                                                       Some of our Good Shepherd Leaders

Our Judeo- Christian heritage teaches us another way to be in an increasingly secular, self-centered world where day after day we wonder at the tragedies taking place on every level of life.  Locally, still another young teen is accused of killing his mother. We weep for our children and our world as we recall that just a few weeks ago in the same town a thirteen year old killed a homeless man.  On the world scene wars and terrorist actions from beheadings to outright slaughter and genocide fills our hearts with outrage and sadness.  Our times right now often bear comparison to the violence described in the Holy Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity.   Yet the Law and the prophets and the teachings and life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, show us another way.

Our Lectionary readings for this Sunday have one common theme: we are responsible for one another.  The priest and prophet Ezekiel ministered to his fellow exiles from 593 to perhaps 563 BCE. His very hard job was to keep them faithful to the Law and to loving God throughout the despair of their exile and even as they made the transition to freedom and their own homeland. He held to the Law and to the integrity of the individual and the responsibility of each one toward God and toward one another. While we focus on Ezekiel 33 today, in Ezekiel 18 the prophet enumerates the laws that must be observed and the consequences for those who do not observe them. Beyond indulging in forms of pagan idolatry, the laws are social laws that make God’s people responsible for their neighbors’ basic needs(verses 1-13)- not defiling a neighbor’s wife, not oppressing anyone, restoring the debtor his pledge, no robbery, giving bread and clothing to the poor and hungry, and so on. This responsibility also includes a father raising his sons to follow these laws, and if the sons are violent toward others, shedding blood, the father remains responsible. Following these laws brings righteousness and life, not doing so brings death-both metaphoric and actual.  Yet, if the wicked, who have chosen death turn away from their sins and keep God’s statutes, “they shall surely live”. The converse is also true for the righteous who turn away from God-death follows. But, Ezekiel concludes: “….get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live.”(EZ 18:32).   

This sets the stage for Ezekiel 33: 7-9, our first reading. Here God is telling Ezekiel that it is his job to give the people warning so that they can turn back to God and live. If he gives up on this unpleasant job of correcting others, their sins are upon his head. If they have been instructed and still break the Laws of loving God and being responsible for their neighbors, that is their own fault. In Ez 33:11, the sentiments of Ez 18:32 are again repeated. God loves God’s people and wants Ezekiel to help them turn back to God and live. In essence, not only priests and prophets have that responsibility but we are all Ezekiel-we can act lovingly and with justice and we can help one another to act lovingly toward God and toward one another.  If we don’t it is on us!  That is the essence of tzedakah and the intersection of tzedakah  and chesed with tikun olam.  EEK, you may say, now she’s speaking in a foreign language! Yes, this is Hebrew and these are the living concepts from the Hebrew Scriptures and midrash/commentary that the prophet Ezekiel and Rabbis Paul and Jesus not only knew intimately but lived, taught and wanted others to live. Tzedakah is not just charity or philanthropy but enacting righteousness and justice as well as charitable aid on behalf of the poor. Chesed is even more comprehensive and includes all acts of loving kindness extended toward every one, poor or rich, friend or enemy.  These acts of justice and kindness, or ethical mitzvot, are not optional but obligatory in Orthodox Judaism. Tikun Olam is the concept that “humanity is responsible to perfect-to heal, repair and transform the world along with G-d.” It is our responsibility to take on social action for justice as well as philanthropy and genuine caring, to exercise our communal social responsibility especially in the absence of a strong welfare state.**

(**Online:  Jonathan Sacks Orthodoxy’s Responsibility to Perfect G-d’s World; wikipedia Tikun Olam;  Journal of Yeshiva University,-Jewish Social Work Forum, Eric Levine “The Ethical-Ritual In Judaism: A Review of Sources on Torah Study and Social Action,(pp. 44-50, Vol 26,Spring 1990). I am also indebted to my teacher of Jewish Social Philosophy at Yeshiva University, Wurzweiler School of Social Work Doctoral Program, Rabbi and Professor Irving Levitz,and to Rev. Becky Robbins-Penniman for mentioning Tikun Olam in her last Sunday’s sermon..)

 Our church community enacts love and justice by seeking out and serving the homeless and poorest among us, and by reaching out to families and young people with the teachings of the Scriptures and the love of God and Christ. Both co-pastors are now in their seventh decades. There are times when this call is just too much for us. I am the grumbler and I grumble-“how can I do this now, oh God?” Sometimes we may be short tempered with one another and even with the people if the day is heavy and long with need after need. But we are continuing because we must.  On Sundays there is a meal and fellowship time after the Mass and after that I teach Sunday school along with one or two others. Sometimes we are so tired by the time Sunday school time comes along that we just want to call it off for the day. But we don’t because we feel that the only way to prevent the kinds of horrors we discussed in the first paragraph where young teens are killing parents and elders and, indeed, one another in our community is to spend time with our young people, loving them, listening to them, and teaching them. And, yes, I am very plain and clear in the sermons I give as to what right relationship with God and others looks like. The people, especially the teens know what I mean when I say “don’t call yourself a Christian if you are packing heat (carrying a gun or weapon) or carrying a beef (a need for vengeance)”. What we do will not change the world or violence on a mass scale but it does make a difference with those we can reach. We are praying for more to join us in this work with the homeless and with the young because for us it is not an option but an obligation in living the Gospel.  It is important to us that our church stand as a beacon of love. People say they can feel the love when they enter the door, and that is so good.

And that is what Paul means in Romans 13:8-10 where he says “Owe no debt to anyone-except the debt that binds us to love one another”. He sums up the Law and says “Love your neighbor as yourself” Love never does any wrongs to anyone-hence love is the fulfillment of the Law”. Like Jesus, he is boiling all 613 Jewish laws down into the essential two: love God, love your neighbor (everyone else)-and that is our obligation as Christians even as it is the obligation laid down in the Hebrew Scriptures. On Sunday we are going to sing the very old hymn “Blessed Be the Tie That Binds”-our hearts in Christian love…. We share each other’s woes, Our mutual burdens bear, And often for each other flows the sympathetic tear”.  Yes, the tie binds, we are bound together in love. And we are bound in  love to our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters who share Father Abraham. Jews, Christians and Muslims have scriptural obligations to enact love and justice in common. In Fort Myers there has been a wonderful Tri-Faith Dialogue. Rev. Walter Fohs of Lamb of God Lutheran-Episcopal Church led in that Dialogue for Christians. He faced much opposition as he strongly paved the way in this for several years. Now that he has moved West I am not sure what has happened to the group. But it must continue as a vehicle of Interfaith understanding and unity in the midst of world-wide conflicts in “the name of God” who does not want that even one life should be lost. 

Conflicts abound on every scale. Of course, sometimes these conflicts are within the church as well. Perhaps these are the hardest ones. In the Gospel, in Matthew 18:15-20 we are taught how to handle conflicts within the community of believers. This teaching comes right after Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep where we are to go out after the one who is lost because God is not willing that any of the little ones, which can also mean new believers, or just plain “unimportant/little folks” are lost. To God not one should perish. (Sounds like the God of Ezekiel here as well).

Now Jesus is on the theme of social responsibility. Once again here he is steeped in the Law and knows that the Law has much harder remedies for sins against one another. (See for example Deuteronomy 25:1-take the offender to the judge and give him 40 lashes-not more, but enough. And, Deut 17: 8-13- if the court can’t decide take the offender to the priest and follow his decision-if contempt is shown toward the priest death follows). Jesus asks that the problem be talked out “between the two of you”. That is a lot better than 40 lashes and a lot less hierarchical! Then he says if she or he listens you have won a loved one back. Wow-the binding together in love is not broken. But, he cautions, quoting Deuteronomy 19:15 do this in the presence of two or three witnesses. Finally if the problem remains, refer the matter to the whole church. If that doesn’t work see the offender as one who is outside of the group because we have the power to forgive one another’s debts and to hold one another accountable. But this is not a light thing, for it is forgiving the debt that makes us even worthy to pray and be granted our prayers. (In Aramaic, in the context here ,to be ‘in agreement’ means to be worthy!).  So when we are able to forgive sins against one another, we can pray and God is in our midst.

(Below are some of our teens and Juniors.)

What a wonderful teaching this is in the context of Judaic law and language. It does what Jesus often does, takes the Law one step further. This is certainly one of the several cases where I think it is very high-minded of the members of the Jesus Seminar to say “definitively” that Jesus did not say these words. I challenge us to remember that there is great difference among scholars including progressive scholars about what Jesus actually said. Timothy Luke Johnson and Gary Wills, for example seriously question the presumptions and assumptions that the members of the Jesus Seminar act on in voting for what Jesus may or may not have said. Certainly there were conflicts in Jesus’ community of believers-even the disciples fought about who would sit on Jesus’ right and left hands-who was closest to Jesus. Peter was teased and called kepas, or brick-head, stupid. And the problems between Peter and Mary of Magdala or Peter and James probably did not start only after his death. Jesus, the Christ, who lived Love, was also a Palestinian Jewish Rabbi who could indeed have said the words of Matt 18:15-20.  We can all use these suggestions as to how to deal with conflict among believers.

Blessed be the tie that binds us together in love. For love feels less like an obligation or responsibility and more like simply what we want to do. We want to help one another, to challenge injustice and to reach out to those who have not or those who need something from us because of love. We want to forgive one another even the most painful hurts against ourselves and against the innocents of this world, only because of love. Thank God for God’s love for us and for helping us to really love one another. May God continue to bind us together in love.

  Some of our Good Shepherd Board Members                                        

   An Interfaith Group                                                           Pastor Walter Fohs with Pastors Judy L and Judy B

Rev. Dr. Judith Lee, RCWP Co-Pastor Good Shepherd Inclusive Catholic Community, Fort Myers   9/5/14

On Sunday 8/31 after our day and evening in Tampa with Miriam who needed her Pastors and friends, we were able to visit the Church of the Good Shepherd in Dunedin, Florida and once again experience Dean and Rector Becky Robbins Penniman’s wonderful ability to deliver a sermon. As I noted in an earlier blog,Pastor Becky, then an Episcopal Priest and Associate Pastor in the Lamb of God Lutheran-Episcopal Church  was my local priest mentor when I studied to be a Roman Catholic Woman Priest in 2007 and 2008. How blessed I was to reflect, share, experience and learn from this wonderful priest. I share this sermon with you as it is well worth reading, but seeing Pastor Becky curl up like the “pill bugs” she noticed when sweeping her porch, little black hard-backed bugs that curl up into a ball when in trouble, and stretch her arms out like a cross with the vertical lines (her long arms) able to embrace others, dramatized the meanings and was a real and rare treat for us. (I am only deleting the texts of the first two readings here).

PILL BUGS & CROSSES
PENTECOST 12 – PROPER 17 – YEAR A
August 31, 2014
Becky Robbins-Penniman
Church of the Good Shepherd, Dunedin, Florida
Collect of the Day:
Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of
your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of
good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Matthew 16:21–28
Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the
hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to
you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you
are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and
take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose
their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their
life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay
everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death
before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Why on earth did you come to church today?
When you think about it, there are lots of reasons not to go.
In some countries, it’s illegal to be a Christian,
and there aren’t any churches.
So folks can’t go.
In some communities, it’s dangerous to be outside your house.
Going to go to church is a major safety risk.
So folks are afraid to go.
In some cultures, it’s weird to go to church.
Going to church means others will think you are a clueless wonder,
which could affect your standing among your peers.
So folks are embarrassed to go.
In some contexts, it’s complicated to go to church.
Going to church means you can’t do other things,
from getting much-needed rest to being with friends
to working a second or third job to support your family.
So folks are too conflicted to go.
In some congregations, it’s the church that’s the problem.
Going to church is boring, or annoying, or depressing.
So folks simply choose not to go.
BUT – You are none of those, because, at least today, you are here.
The implications are enormous:
you are free, you are safe, you are accepted, you have free time,
and, I hope, it means you find Good Shepherd to be an OK place.
But, WHY are you here? To what purpose?
As you ponder that, I’d like turn the question in inside out,
because I think that’s the heart of the Peter was making with Jesus.
In Matthew 16:17, which we heard last week,
Peter says Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,
then Jesus tells Peter he’s the rock of the church.
Today, in Matthew 16: 21, Jesus tells Peter and the others
he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering.
Just 6 short verses after Peter says Jesus is the Son of God,
Peter basically asks Jesus what the heck he thinks he’s doing?
I’ve asked you why on earth you think you came to church today.
Peter wants to be clear about why Jesus thinks he came to earth.
Everyone knows: a Messiah doesn’t come from heaven to earth to suffer!
A Messiah comes from heaven to earth to fix things,
kick some serious tail and git ’r done.
But Jesus tells Peter he’s looking at things from a human angle,
while he, the Son of God, literally has a different mindset.
Jesus’ divine mindset is not to git ’r done, but to free captives,
to show people that no matter who we are, great or ordinary,
we have the almost unbearable freedom to choose
what mindset to use as we approach our lives, the human one or the divine one.
The human one is, it seems, to get things for ourselves and hold on tight,
rolling up like a pill bug to protect ourselves.
The divine one is to focus on God, then throw our arms open wide.
The divine mindset shapes our life like a cross.
Now, I’m hardly the first preacher to point this out, but a cross goes in two directions at once.
The first direction is vertical –
grounded on the earth, it stretches to the infinity of the heavens.
The second direction is horizontal,
and if you paid any attention at all in sophomore geometry class,
you know that a horizontal line is also infinite.
To take up the cross is to practice, as our collect puts it,true religion.
“Religion” does not mean rites and ceremonies and doctrines;
the word “religion” comes from the Latin word “ligare”
which means to bind together, to connect together;
the word “ligament” has the same root as the word “religion.”
To practice true religion is to have the cross shape our lives.
What is left out of a life shaped like a cross?
Who is the person left out of a life shaped like a cross?
Where is the place left out of a life shaped like a cross?
A cross-shaped life connects everything on earth with the will of God,
and the will of God is peace for all people and the earth, Shalom;
the will of God is the healing of the universe, Tikkun Olam. 4
Moses had true religion; he started out as a prince, became a murderer,
then, in exile beyond the wilderness, a humble shepherd.
Shepherds definitely have their feet on the ground.
One day, he lifted his head and noticed the living God in the world.
From a burning bush, God gave Moses a pretty daunting mission,
and at first Moses rolled up like a pill bug.
But God worked with him, encouraged him,
and Moses stretched himself out to both God and his people.
He marched right into Pharaoh’s throne room
and led thousands of slaves out of oppression.
Moses lived a cross-shaped life.
Paul had a true religion: He was a Pharisee grounded in the Torah,
and thought this meant he should kill Christians to honor God.
He heard a voice from the heavens and at first rolled up like a pill bug,
but soon he opened his mind to Jesus.
Paul stretched himself toward God and perfect strangers,
marching all over the Roman Empire to tell people Good News:
God had come to earth as Jesus the Christ,
who conquered evil with divine, agape love, a tireless, rugged love
that does what is best for the other, even if it costs us dearly,
or, as in the case of Jesus and so many others who live cross-shaped lives,
even if it costs them everything.
Paul says the only way to overcome evil is to love like Christ did,
to stretch out and embody goodness, harmony, rejoicing,
inclusion, and hospitality to everyone – even enemies.
Paul practiced what he preached, and lived a cross-shaped life.
Jesus, of course, had the truest religion of all.
The cross is Christ’s commitment to his Father and to us;
the price he was willing to pay to do the Father’s will on earth,
to bring hope and healing to his sisters and brothers,
to assure each of us that we are more than our sins,
and tell us that the only way we would ever find
real peace, real joy, real meaning on this side of the grave
was to make exactly the same kind of commitment.
Most of us, of course, won’t be executed, like Jesus and Paul,
because we choose to practice true religion – but some of us will.
People like James Foley, who was beheaded by ISIL,
was a committed Roman Catholic who talked openly of praying,
and who reached out to the world to expose
the suffering of the Syrian people and the horrors of war1
When he was captured, he didn’t roll up like a pill bug to protect himself,
he kept praying and encouraging other captives,
and even in his last words refused to denigrate his captors.
His was a cross-shaped life.
https://www.facebook.com/FreeJamesFoley?hc_location=timeline; 1
see also http://jamesfoley.rsf.org/5
A life of divine love is not kittens and lollipops and rainbows,
nor is it pie in the sky after you die.
It is not easy, but a cross-shaped life is the only way –
according to Jesus and Paul – to live a life of meaning and purpose.
God will repay us for this work, according to both Paul and Jesus.
Those who live with their minds set on divine things, on shalom and tikkun and grace,
will be repaid by getting their heart’s desire: more of all that. Cool.
God will also repay those who set their minds on human things,
who grabbed whatever they could for themselves,
clutched it close and rolled up like a pill bug,
closing their eyes to the suffering of others.
What will that repayment look like?
A lot of people in the church say that God will repay evil
by heaping hot coals on them, torturing them in fire forever and ever.
But the verse Paul quotes about God’s vengeance is Proverbs 25:21-22, which says
“If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat;
and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink;
for you will heap coals of fire on their heads,
and the Lord will reward you.”
It goes full circle: if you are compassionate to your enemies, this will please God.
Now, if it pleases God when you are compassionate to your enemies,
how does it make any sense for God to turn around and torture them for ever and ever?
Those burning coals are not the coals of hellfire and brimstone,
but the burning face of shame when our ugliness and evil.
are met with grace and beauty and forgiveness.
Setting our minds on divine things changes the world.
Perhaps you’ve heard the story of Corrie ten Boom
a young woman who, with her family, hid Jews in their home
when Germany occupied the Netherlands during WWII.
A Dutch collaborator – someone who cooperated with the Nazis –
ratted them out to the Gestapo, and the family was imprisoned.
Corrie was sent to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp.
She suffered immensely there until she was liberated.
A few years after the war ended, she was approached by one of the camp guards
who had been one of the cruelest. He asked for forgiveness.
Appalled, Corrie prayed that she would be able to. She wrote:
For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands,
the former guard and the former prisoner.
I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.
Later, she ran a shelter for both Holocaust survivors
AND Dutch collaborators, who could not get jobs after the war.
Remember, it was a collaborator who turned her family into the Gestapo.
She watched them, and noted that, among victims of Nazi brutality,
those who were able to forgive were best able to rebuild their lives.
Corrie practiced true religion and lived a cross-shaped life.
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrie_ten_Boom6
Corrie ten Boom is famous, great woman; how about someone ordinary?
How about Tim Lee, a veteran from Texas
who lost both legs to a land mine while was in the Army in Viet Nam.
From the wheelchair he has been in for 37 years, Lee leads other veterans
back to the hills and rice paddies of Southeast Asia
to heal and be healed, to forgive and be forgiven.
Lee is a man connected with God, and he said that
if he found the Viet Cong soldier who set the land mine,
he would tell him he loves him.3
Lee practices true religion and lives a cross-shaped life.
Why on earth do you come to church?
I come because I’ve seen what happens when people set their minds on human things.
We shoot our young men, and our young men,
having learned how things work, shoot others.
We hate first and refuse to hear the cries of the poor.
We swallow the message that we are primarily consumers,
that our value is measured by what’s in our wallets.
We trade our God-given freedom for the captivity of fear.
We roll up like pill bugs.
But here in church, in the presence of the cross, I’ve seen what happens
when people sets their minds on divine things.
I’ve seen you practice true religion, embodying divine love,
sharing your God-given gifts with strangers and even enemies.
I’ve seen you listen carefully to each other,
even though you have very different beliefs and opinions.
I’ve seen you give your last dollar to those with even less.
I’ve seen you banish your fear and burst out of prison.
When I’ve seen you do these things, practicing true religion, living cross-shaped lives,
I know what I’ve actually witnessed, right here and right now,
is the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
And that is why I come to church.
http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=5945 3
See also http://tinyurl.com/Veteran-sReturn – though it’s not a specifically Christian piece. 

We join Rev. Chava Redonnet in affirming all those who labor with little reward for their labors so that we all may live. 

We also affirm the life all around us that keeps pushing forward despite tragedy and death.

On Saturday Pastor Judy Beaumont and I  traveled to Tampa to visit a woman in her late eighties who survived her only daughter over three years ago. Miriam continues to grieve Nancy,a wonderful Christian preacher, teacher,social worker, mother and daughter who died suddenly of advanced diabetes. Nancy and her family became friends with us when she studied Master’s level social work with me at the University of Connecticut starting in 1985. Over the years we became extended family for one another. Miriam is still reeling from the loss of Nancy although she finds the good in life and holds on to it. She is looking forward to the birth of a second great grandchild. Yet, she is praying to get into an Assisted Living residence where she would not have to be alone and have the assistance she needs given her aging and physical illnesses and forgetting. Her days are lonely and she finds it hard to cook or eat alone. But her nights are full of fears. Miriam is bilingual but lapses into her mother tongue Spanish as she tells us about her nights of horrors.  Her low income means a complicated and long wait. We are praying and working to find a speedy respite for this frail but hopeful woman.  

It is significant that the Scriptures for this day include Jesus’ call to bring good tidings to the poor (Luke 4:16-30). As we follow Jesus is this not our call as well? Here is a woman who worked hard her whole life as a sewing factory worker and tailor while a single Mom yet she does not have enough income to easily access the level of care that she needs.  On this Labor Day I recognize her labor and that of all those who barely survive yet work hard. I struggle with how we can find ways to support the changes that would guarantee this woman and those like her an old age that is free of fear and replete with adequate resources and supports.

This is Miriam with Rev. Judy Lee and Rvda. Marina Teresa Sanchez Mejia, who serves the poor in Cali,Colombia

A prayer for this Labor Day is that Jesus’ call to bring glad tidings to the poor throughout the world will be answered by dedicated servants like Rev. Chava Redonnet who serves the migrant workers in New York and Rvda. Sanchez-Mejia who serves the community of Afro-descendents in Colombia and all of the Street Ministers in  Ecclesia Street Ministries who serve the homeless and at risk in the USA including our Good Shepherd Ministries, and all who make efforts in various ways to bring glad tidings to the poor and who stand with them as they seek justice.

Rev. Chava’s Labor Day Reflections

Oscar Romero Inclusive Catholic Church Bulletin for Sunday, August 31, 2014

Dear friends,
Last night as I was driving out to the casita for the Migrant Mass, I took
a shortcut that Librada showed me once. It led through onion fields – all
around, everywhere but on the road itself, were onions, onions, onions.
Those fields were pregnant with onions ready to harvest.

Oscar Romero Church
An Inclusive Community of Liberation, Justice and Joy
Worshiping in the Catholic Tradition
Mass: Sundays, 11 am
St Joseph’s House of Hospitality, 402 South Ave, Rochester NY 14620
A member community of the Federation of Christian Ministries