Lent: Sacrifice

There's a municipally owned cemetery a few blocks from where I live that includes this memorial. Everyone whose name is engraved in this block represented the city during the Civil War.

It doesn't appear any of them died, but all of them made sacrifices: years of their lives, sleepless nights, memories of warfare that would haunt them forever, possibly even lost limbs. They did this in a war to keep the South from seceding over slavery, that eventually became a war to end legal slavery in the United States,

Those are both good causes, but I love the second more. As good as it is to have a unified nation, it's better to have one that is unified and committed to the welfare and freedom of all its people.


Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Present

I like cooking.

The hours before mealtime are spent all over the place, pondering things that I have done, second-guessing myself and wondering if I could have done them better, and remonstrating myself for not having done the job right the first time.

Or I spent my time in the future. Can I make this trip, take care of this project, work on this goal, and fix that problem? If i screw it up,how many people will die?

Sometimes I feel like I live on the Enterprise on a mission where they have to slingshot around the sun perpetually around the sun. Everything is so focused on saving the past to rescue the future, there's no time for now.

But then I start to cook. There's an oven to preheat, ad food to prep. In a few minutes the oven is driving out the chill of the kitchen, and soon after that the air is filled with the sizzle of the pan and the slow simmer of chicken. There's a heady aroma that fills the senses, and gradually time narrows and comes into focus.

There's no future, there's just now. Later on there'll be time to worry about writing projects, reading assignments and important tasks. Right now, there's a pot that's starting to boil over, and I need to turn the burner down.

There's no past either, there's just now. In a few hours I can ponder the lessons there are to learn from the mistakes I made today, yesterday, last week and over the past 48 years, but right now there's a chicken baking under a rosemary seasoning that I need to baste, and there's a vegetarian alternative I need to find. I can't change the past, but I can keep the chicken from drying out.

This must be why God meets his people in the desert so much. In the cities you can worry what the queen will do if she finds you, and in the Promised Land you can dream about how you'll leverage your abundance to get the advantage over your neighbors. Not in the desert.

In the desert, we're free to plan the future and to learn from the past, but we don't have time to live there. In the desert we need enough water for today, and enough food. Right now is the present, and the present is all we need.


Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Chosen

Lent: Good

Last night before I went to bed, I saw the news that a gunman in Christchurch, New Zealand, had shot up a mosque and killed or injured about 50 people during a worship service.

Domestically the same sort of nationalist extremism is loose here in America, and often fanned by our president. In Europe and elsewhere, the damage it's doing to the social contract could take decades to repair.

The wall to the city is broken, and the barbarians are pouring in.

What good is in this?

I'm reminded of events that happened in Billings, Mont., in December 1993, when a group of Neo-Nazis started throwing bricks through the windows where Jewish homeowners displayed their menorahs. The community banded together, and Gentile residents showed solidarity with their Jewish neighbors by placing menorahs in their own windows.

The message was clear, if costly: We're in this together. An attack on one of us is an attack on us all.

It's that same solidarity that the Dutch resistance showed during the Nazi occupation during World War II, as they hid their Jewish neighbors from the Nazis and smuggled them to freedom and safety. It's the same commitment to justice that Sunni Muslims in Egypt showed when they stood in solidarity with Coptic Christians to protect their houses of worship and services after terrorists struck on Palm Sunday in 2017.

It's that spirit that we must show now in the face of white nationalism and white supremacy, especially when it comes dressed in the outward clothing of Christianity. "Beware those who appear to be sheep but inwardly are ravenous wolves," Jesus told his followers. The words ring as true today as they ever did.

People of conscience and goodwill stand together in the face of hatred. Take a moment to let a Muslim neighbor know that you are horrified by the attack in Christchurch, and offer your support. When someone calls Islam a religion of hate or denigrates Muslims, speak up, shut them down, and tell them to go to hell.

When we see someone targeted for hate and it's not our fight, but we stand with them and make it ours, that's not just good, it's the very work of God.

Stand tall, stand together and we can repair the breach.


Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Weigh

What's your favorite creepy Bible story?

Is it the zombie uprising in Matthew 27? The seance in Endor where a ghost appears, frightens the medium and tells Saul he's going to die tomorrow morning? For me there's no contest; I love the story of Belshezzar's banquet.

For those who don't know the story:

Belshezzar was the king of Babylon, which at the time was the mightiest empire in the ancient world. The book of Daniel doesn't say much about Belshezzar, but it gives us the picture of a king who was impressed with himself and therefor given to self-indulgence.

During a feast, Belshezzar decided to impress his guests by bringing out the fine china, which in this case happened to be gold plates and cups that had been taken from the Temple in Jerusalem, and proposed a toast to the gods that made him so impressive.

When he had done this a hand appeared in the air and wrote four words on the wall: MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN.

The prophet Daniel was nearby and he translated the message, which had been written in Aramaic, and explained to the king what it all meant: "God has measured the days of you kingdom and brought it to an end. You have been weighed and found wanting. Your kingdom is to be taken from you, and given to the Medes and the Persians."

The Bible notes that that very night Darius the Mede entered Babylon, took the crown from Belshezzar and had him executed.

Like all good creepy stories, this one has a growing sense of foreboding to it. The party is going great, but a feeling of dread arises as the hand appears and draws tight as Daniel explains what it means. Belshezzar rewards Daniel for telling him what it means, but you get the sense it's because he doesn't know what else to do. He and all his revelers can feel the noose around their necks, and by the time the scaffolding drops out from beneath them it all has the sense of finality that comes with supernatural retribution.

A few things I enjoy about this story, beyond its night-around-the-campfire appeal.

One, there's a promise here that the wicked will not prosper forever. Sooner or later, they overstep themselves and ruin overtakes them.

Two, that's still no cause for celebration. Daniel took no joy in giving Belshezzar the warning he did. "Why do you look for the Day of the Lord?" another prophet asks in his own book. "That will be a day of terror, not of rejoicing." It doesn't take a genius to see that if Babylon falls, a lot of people are going to die and many others are going to suffer.

Three, there's some serious self-knowledge going on here. Daniel was pulled into the feast to advise the king because he had a reputation. He had served the previous king, and had been an official in the government of Babylon for most of his life. Whatever policies Babylon had kept, whatever it had done to maintain power, it's safe to say he bore some responsibility for forming and enforcing them, which meant he also carried some of the guilt.

Weigh, but weigh wisely and weigh generously. One day we all get measured.


Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Accomplish

For as long as I can remember, I've been a writer, driven by a need to tell stories.

The earliest story I can remember writing was an assignment in second grade. It was a science-fiction story, written in the second person, about someone who time-traveled back to a blizzard in Massachusetts the winter of 1620 and met a pilgrim in the woods.

It was pretty bad stuff, and came complete with sound effects; but that didn't stop it from ending up on my grandmother's refrigerator. Also shared: an essay I'd written about the candlelight service at church on Christmas Eve.

I'd like to think the quality of my writing has improved since then -- by seventh grade I was writing "Moby Dick" fanfic that invariably involved the great whale trashing the middle school I attended while it fought off Ahab and his crew -- but that need to write has never gone away.

I have hobbies and fixations, I love my children and my wife, and I'm driven by the deep mysteries of life, but writing is what ties it all together. All around me is a world in pain. Writing is how I describe the injuries and how to set the bones. This is a divine spark planted in me before I was even born. Writing is not something I do; it's who I am. When I don't write, I begin to die.

You have this calling too.

Stop and think about the dream that animates you, the way that you know can help mend this broken world. It’s your personal mission or quest, the thing that you long to work at, the task that leaves you satisfied and fulfilled while you work at it. Maybe you're one of the fortunates with a career you find deeply fulfilling, or maybe you celebrate the quiet sacrament of cooking food to sow peace over a shared meal.

Whatever it is, it’s the sort of thing you need to do, but somehow it's not happening. The world is broken, and you know a way to fix part it, but somehow you keep not getting around to it, not like you'd like to.

A friend of mine from Georgia just announced this morning that she had sold a piece of speculative fiction to a magazine. I’m excited for her. This is her first step toward realizing a larger dream, of becoming a successful, published author.

It also was a needed reminder about all the half-begun stories littering my hard drive, and the notebooks I have crammed with ideas for characters, story scenes, three-act plays, essays, verse, polemics and God knows what else.

Out in my yard is a branch that fell from a tree back in January. Today I went outside and found the branch beginning to bud. It’s already dead, but that branch is so determined to accomplish its purpose, that even death won’t stop it.

What’s your reason?

Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Dazzling

Down in Alabama, a judge just ruled that a man can sue his ex-girlfriend because she didn't ask for his permission to get an abortion two years ago. In Ethiopia, 157 people died when their plane crashed; while in Washington, D.C., our government is captive to a vulgarian who spews hatred and lies every time he opens his mouth or goes on Twitter.

Sometimes it feels like we really are living in Plato's cave,and the vague and misshapen shadows are all we have to look at for knowledge or entertainment, which increasingly are becoming hard to separate.

But there is comfort. What Plato's cave-dwellers could arrive at only by the application of cold philosophy, we can see for ourselves.

Look up at the sky, and see the golden fire of the sun. Listen to the hooves of the horses of Helios as they beat their way steadily across the heavens from East to West. Let the sun's rays warm your face and listen as the earth and all the flowers that slumber within it begin to stir as the light falls.

We can discover beauty reflected in a mud puddle, but why settle for that? Lift your face to the sky and be dazzled.


Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Prayer

About 12 years ago I was deep in prayer when I realized there was nobody listening.

Sometimes prayer is a transcendental experience so intense that you can reach out and touch the face of God like a child will touch his father's while he's being held. This time I became aware of a vast, black pit beneath me. I was leaning backward over it, and I was about to fall into the void. No one was going to catch me, because there was no one there.

It was at once terrifying and revelatory. I stopped the prayer then, and went on with my day, but just as I have never forgotten those moments of communion that I've felt, I've never forgotten that moment either.

Prayer is probably the quintessential act of faith. Are we communing with the Transcendent,or are we talking to an imaginary friend as part of an elaborate game of pretend?

C.S. Lewis once wrote "I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God. It changes me.”' Is this a profound statement about the purpose of prayer, or is he just describing what happens as an adult processes profound and unexpected grief?

Does it make a difference?

Perhaps God would prefer prayers offered in rock-solid certainty that he is there, that he hears, and that he answers according to his wisdom and his love. My faith is rooted, but it remains faith and not certainty.

That will have to be enough.


Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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The unremarkable man in the desert

It wasn't so bad in the desert, once you got used to it.

There was water to drink, food to eat and even places to stay, if you knew where to look; and after years of working  with his father and uncles to rebuild Sephoris since the death of the Edomite king, the unremarkable man had overheard enough from travelers and troublemakers that he had a few ideas. The oases served year-round, and there were other places where the spring rains fell into the deep ravines that time and God had carved into the land. If you checked the deeper canyons, you were sure to find pools and streams still there even in the driest times..

Food was scarcer, but that was fine. It was easier to fast when there was nothing to eat. After a few days, he didn't even feel hungry anymore, though his jaws still felt restless at mealtime  for want of something to chew.

When the unremarkable man wanted companionship or conversation there was an Essene settlement that he could visit, and when he wanted to be alone, there were caves around the desert where one eventually could sleep if not deeply then at least adequately. On those nights the unremarkable man would light a fire with whatever fuel he had, and then keep it alive both for warmth and for safety from the eyes that gathered and watched from the darkness.

The desert was what speakers of Greek called a chora, a vast expanse between two places, a fancy way of saying that it was the middle of nowhere and no one lived there. Now as anyone can tell you who has lived in the middle of nowhere, the problem with living near no one is that as long as you stay there no one will talk to you, and if you stay there long enough, eventually you start to listen.

The unremarkable man knew better than to get into those conversations, but as the days pressed on, it became harder and harder to ignore the whispers. It was disconcerting at times, but the unremarkable man knew that the prophet Elijah had gone into the desert once and had heard a whisper that he had recognized at once as the quiet voice of God. These voices sounded nothing like his.

“You'll have to do better than that,” he said to no one in particular one afternoon, and at the sound of his own voice the other voices faded away.

It was about four in the afternoon when he heard another, unfamiliar voice nearing his cave. It belonged to no one he recognized, and it was humming a song in a mix of Greek and Latin. Curiosity spurred the unremarkable man forward and as he stepped out from the cave he found himself looking at an older man in a thin robe as he was walking past.

“Hello father,” the unremarkable man called, “you are headed the wrong way!"

The older man started, and turned back to face him. “I am a traveler with nothing of value on me, no money or weapons,” he said. “All I have are some dried dates, and if you are planning to rob me, I will save you the trouble and give them to you now without a fight.”

The unremarkable man laughed.

“I'm no brigand, father,” he said. “I'm just a hermit living here for the time being, and as I'm fasting, I thank you for your offer of dates but must decline with respect. But I repeat: you are going the wrong way.”

“I see,” said the old man. “And how do you know I am going the wrong way, when you do not know which way I am going?”

“Because you are going that way,” the unremarkable man said, and pointed. “In another mile or two, that way ends abruptly, with a cliff on every side. But by the time you discover that and turn around, it will be growing dark and you will be unable to reach any destination until well past sunset.”

“I see.” The older man looked where he had been going, as if he could see so far down the road and was evaluating the truth of what he had been told. “Well, it seems you have saved me a wretched evening of wasted travel and an even more wretched night of sleeping in the open. What would you recommend I do, young hermit?”

The unremarkable man laughed again, enjoying the company, and waved the older man to his cave.

“Come rest your feet a while, father. I won't break my fast with you, but come break yours with me, and I will gladly share a cup of cold water with a guest for a conversation, if you consent.”

And so he did. Soon the two were seated in the mouth of the cave. The old man had unwrapped a cloth that contained a half-dozen dates. After he had offered to share them and his host had declined, the old man had given thanks and eaten them one after another, drinking from the cup that the unremarkable man offered.

“I confess you surprised me, my young friend,” he said once he had finished his meal. “You appeared so suddenly and caught me by surprise when you spoke, I thought at first you must be one of the spirits that inhabits this place.”

“No, father,” the younger man said. “I'm no spirit,” and as if to prove it he took a mouthful of water himself.

“I can see that,” the old man said. “But the loneliness of these places draws them. You can feel them sometimes in the air. Azazel takes the scapegoat offerings we send from our towns, and there are others out here that are far worse than he. It's not a safe place, and not just because of the robbers. What brings you to be a hermit in the desert?”

“I'm looking for answers,” said the unremarkable man, “and I'm determined to get them. What brings you out here?”

The old man smiled and stretched out his arms expansively. “I go wandering about the earth, here and there,” he said. “I've been to Egypt and I've been to Rome, and today I had hoped my feet would carry me to Jericho, but it seems they have led me here instead.” He fell silent and gazed at his host. Already the desert fast was showing its toll on him His hair was wind-blown and crusted with dirt, and the days of want had begun to show on the burnt and tightening skin of his cheeks and arms.

“It must be something important that draws a man as young as you out into a place like this, where unclean spirits dwell,” the old man said at last. “A man doesn't do that just to decide whether to follow his father's footsteps or even whom to marry, but only for the deepest reasons of all. He does that when he's questioning everything.”

There was a long silence. “Do you believe in the messiah?” the unremarkable man asked at last.

“I know what the rabbis teach about the messiah,” the old man said cautiously. “That he'll come from the eternal line of David, and that he will lead Israel into war like a new Maccabee. When he finishes we will be free, and all nations will know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

The old man's eyes flicked from the sandals on the feet of the unremarkble man to the dust and dirt on his forehead, and then flicked to his large working man's hands.

“And you think you might be he,” he said. “You hardly look like the warrior type.”

So the unremarkable man began, falteringly at first but with growing confidence as he spoke, telling the old man the peculiar stories he had overheard his parents whispering to each other when they thought he was still asleep. He spoke of the stirrings of eternity that he felt in his heart to mend the world, while the old man sat like a stone, unanswering and serious. At last the unremarkable man described the words he thought he had heard in the thunder the day of his baptism, when the dove had flown from the tree by the Jordan and landed, its wings still flapping, on his shoulder.

“I thought at first you might be a spirit here to drive me mad,” the old man said at last. “Now I see that you are but a man yourself, and one I have arrived too late to help. The spirits of this place have driven you mad.”

The unremarkable man nodded, and closed his eyes as if he had expected such a response. “That's why I'm here,” he said quietly. “All my life I've wondered who I am, and what my purpose is. What did that voice mean, 'my son?' If I am God's son, what does he expect of me?”

“We're all the sons of God,” the old man said, and he recited the old scrolls. “'The sons of God were called before him, and Satan also was with them.' 'Go and tell Pharaoh, Israel is my one and only son.'”

“But what --”

“I can't tell you that, young hermit. I don't know.” The old man stood, and folded his cloth, and returned it to the bag that he kept beneath his robe. “I'll be back this way in a couple weeks. I'll make sure I drop in to see how you are doing.”

With that he stood and stepped out of the cave into the gathering darkness. The unremarkable man stood and followed, and found the pathway barren. No one else was visible as far as the eye could see.

All around the air began to buzz with a thousand whispers.



Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Test

As I write this, my daughter is taking the SAT. As tests go, this is the big one. It affects which schools sh can get into, which in turn affects the type of jobs she can get, which affects her earning potential, which affects where she can live and how much she can earn, and so on down the road. There’s no pressure, but she's been preparing like nobody’s business for the past several weeks.

The tests that matter don't measure what you know as much as they reveal what's inside, what sort of character you have. Do you give up at the first challenge, or do you persevere to the end? Do you admit to limits and ask for advice, or do you double down on ignorance? Do you advance by working with others to build consensus, or do you bully your way forward run roughshod over anyone who disagrees with you?

And when the point of decision comes, do you make a deal with the devil and sacrifice your principles for a temporary gain, or do you take a hit and continue to stand tall?

Not all tests feel as big as the SAT, but I've seen over the years that the way we handle the small tests reveals a lot about how we'll handle the big ones.


Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Given

There's a car I see around town when I’m out and about, with a bumper sticker that declares “You will meet God.” I don't like it.

Maybe I'm projecting my own tone onto it, but that bumper sticker sounds ominous and threatening. It's like God is in charge of standards and he's cracking his knuckles with delight at the job to come. He's been keeping tally of everything I do during the day, and he's just itching to open a can of whoop-ass on me, put me in my place and get me to toe the line, or zing! He's going to throw me into the sun.

Every minute that I don't get thrown into the sun is a gift of mercy given to me in place of what I really deserve.

Here's the thing. If that's your view of God, you're missing the big picture. God is not the headmaster of the school who fires a teacher for coming to school pregnant before she gets married. He's not the one to tell a trans teen “There are only two genders.” And he sure as heck isn't about talking tough and insulting everyone he disagrees with.

God is the guy in charge of standards, but the standards he enforces are the ones that provide sanctuary from those who want to push people out and drive hem away. When you meet God, you're the broken one who's been chased out of home, hounded by the authorities and left at the end of your rope while powerful men chase you, hurling insults and calling for your blood.

When you meet God, he's the one who stands in all his terrible fury, wraps you in his arms, and in that disturbingly calm voice, asks the authorities, the politicians and the good clean moral people who have been hounding you, “Is there a problem?”

Every minute that we live, just like every dollar that we have, is given to us to provide and to be that sanctuary to those who need it.


Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Temptation

I am fortunate to have a few people in my life who know me inside-out, from head to toe, and from front to back, yet who still call me a friend.

Such people are the proof that God loves us. These are people who know my brightest impulses and my darkest ones as well. They’ve seen me at my best and at my worst, and who have been through harrowing ordeals at my side, or with me at theirs. When there's a problem, we know whom to call for advice given with our best interests at heart.

There's someone else who knows me that well but his advice is treacherous. His name is Temptation.

The problem is that Temptation is a confidence artist. He knows how to promise everything you want for nothing down, and when you agree you quickly realize that you've paid too much for something you don't need as badly as you thought you wanted it.

Follow his advice, and you can have what you want right now: popularity, sex, money, peace and quiet to read a good book, power, influence, the praise of others, security, and things you've wanted for years. It's like a shortcut in the race. You'll get to the finish line quicker, but without your integrity.

But there's a trick we can learn when it comes to Temptation. The pauper is tempted to steal silverware; the rich woman never is. Once you figure out why he makes you the offers that he does, you begin to realize what really matters to you and you begin to understand who you really are.


Copyright © 2019 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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The Unremarkable Man at the River

The sun was high above the ground, and the air was filled with the buzz of the crowd when the unremarkable man walked into the river.

He'd walked a long way to get here, over rocks and hills, past sheep and goats, and among both countrymen and foreigners. He was tired from the walking, but even since he'd heard there was a prophet down by the river, the unremarkable man had felt his soul stir within him, compelling him to go see this strange man who wore clothing made from camel's hair.

Everyone in the crowd had a reason to see the prophet. The world was ending, and some of them just wanted to know how to survive. Others were desperate and wanted nothing more than shelter from a life that left them battered and ashamed of what they did to survive, and some were just curious.

For Jesus, visiting the Jordan River was the first leg on a journey of self-discovery.

Ever since he was little, he'd felt out of place in his hometown. It wasn't just the time he'd spent in Egypt with his parents, and it wasn't just the scandal around his birth that people had whispered about behind his back when they thought he and his parents weren't listening. This was something else.

All his childhood and even into his adulthood he'd been just like the other children in Nazareth ad yet not like them.

Sometimes he'd felt it keenly, like the year they had gone on the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem to visit Herod’s temple, and Jesus had decided to stay behind when everyone else had gone home. (His parents rarely mentioned it in the years afterward, but too many times he'd felt his mother's eyes on him and he knew she was thinking of that trip.)

Other times the difference was harder to identify but still felt as keenly as if he had swallowed a coal. His heart would ache with a distress he couldn't understand, or he would see things with such clarity he couldn't understand why everyone else was confused. And through it all was woven a longing he couldn't express and a loneliness even his younger siblings couldn't always lift.

But then the prophet had arrived in the desert, and Jesus knew without anyone telling him that his time had arrived. He'd handed the carpentry shop over to his brothers, and set out for the prophet and the river.

The water was cool when he stepped in, and it cleaned the dirt and dust from his feet as it swirled past. Another step, and it was up past his ankles, and then it was up to his calves and his clothes were getting soaked.

What happened next, people disagree about. Some said that when the prophet baptized the unremarkable man, a rumble of thunder rolled across the sky. They pulled their children from the water and looked for a safe place to be when the storm hit. Others looked around, decided nothing was amiss, and shrugged their shoulders.

Others looked at the unremarkable man with curiosity in their eyes and wonder on their faces, as he climbed up the river bank, water streaming from his clothes and hair, and then strode off into the desert. In the thunder, he had heard a voice and he had to know what it had meant.

For the next forty days, he would fast and he would empty himself. The experience would harrow him like no other, but the odyssey he was undertaking would reveal himself to himself like nothing else ever had.

And when he returned, the people who heard him would know he was speaking with the very voice of God.



Copyright © 20189 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Advent: Promise

Advent is a time when we remember the promises of God, which we do by retelling the Christmas story. 

This is the story of a God who promised to fulfill humanity's ancient longing to restore harmony to the world and to restore all that had been disordered.

It began with the birth of a child so unimportant that the only people who noticed were his parents, and a group of ruffians. When the child's parents took him to the Temple to dedicate him eight days later, amid the hustle and bustle and the jostling of the crowds only two other people are said to have noticed anything unusual: an old man, and an old woman, who each had been waiting their entire lives to see this child born.
 

The gospel of Luke tells us that Simeon and the prophetess Anna declared that the infant would do great things, that he would honor the weak and the downtrodden and bring ruin to the mighty.
 

This is what the people expected the messiah to do, after all. As he ushered in the Apocalypse, he would free prisoners, give the outcast a place of honor at the feast, and bring to an end the haughty and the powerful.
 

That Jesus was born is a sign that God is committed to honoring the promise he made to us in the myth-time, to overthrow oppression, to reveal money for the lie it is, to confound the wise and to leave the mighty confounded in their places. That's why the leaders of the day killed him.
 

The Resurrection is a further promise that it doesn't end there. If death has no power, neither do the dictator and thugs who tell us to trust them as they harass refugees at the border, who threaten their critics, or who oppress people of color on a daily basis.
 

You can't silence Truth when it won't stay dead.
 

"Stories are a promise," someone once said. "They are a promise that the ending is worth waiting for."

The Great Longing

You know, all I really want in life — all I think any of us really wants — is that sense of connection with somebody else, the idea that we belong to something bigger than ourselves.

I remember sitting at the altar by myself for hours, desperately wanting to feel that connection with God the way others at church seemed to, but it would never happen.

To this day, my biggest struggle is an unmet hunger for that connection, with God, with friends, even with my partner.

With that comes the tension of "Do I stay and give it more time?" or "Is it time to cut my losses and go?"

Forty-eight years old and I still struggle with this.

I’m not after forgiveness. I want fulfillment, and I want to belong. I want to be celebrated as I am, as God created me. What hope does your gospel offer?

Copyright © 2018 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Natural

What could be more natural than a flower? Pollinated by bees, blossoming on a bush, growing in good New Jersey soil.

The Rose of Sharon comes from India, eight thousand miles from where it grows in my back yard. This bush is one of dozens that mark the boundary between my yard and my neighbor's, all planted a foot apart in rows with scarcely 10 inches between them. Is there anything about this arrangement that can be said to be natural?

Surely the bees are natural. Drawn by nectar, they buzz from one flower to another, spreading pollen so that the flowers will yield the next season's generation of seeds. 

Alas, the honeybees that pollinate the flower, like the worms that build the soil the roots anchor the bush in, don't belong on this continent either. Apiarists brought the bees and gardeners brought the earthworms because they felt the native species didn't do the job as well.

There's nothing natural about any of this. If this were natural, you'd be looking at an oak hickory forest that would spread inland and up and down the coast for hundreds of miles. Over the past four hundred years, we've felled the forest, introduced invasive new species that drove the natives out, and forced the land to support a vast monoculture grassland.

This isn't natural. It's an environmental jigsaw put together by blind idiots.

And yet for all the damage we've done to Eden, it's still a place of beauty and routine miracles. Plants still run on sunlight, they still grow and build new branches out of thin air. They still keep the earth from washing away when it rains, and provide shelter and food for animals of all shapes and sizes.

The direction of history tells us that Eden is gone and we won't be returning. But with a little planning, a little wisdom. and a lot of grace, we can look forward to a bright future that reflects all the changes we've made, not as bugs in the system but as part of a deliberate design.

And in the final analysis, what ending would be more natural than that?

When a sacrament is just lunch

Eat some bread and drink some wine during church, and it's a sacrament we call Communion.

Outside church, it's lunch.

During church, we can have all sorts of rules on how to celebrate the sacrament correctly. Does it have to be consecrated by a priest? What kind of bread do we use? Is it actually wine, or is Welch's grape juice acceptable? What about some other brand?

No one complains that Maurice is defiling the sacrament if he goes to the deli and orders the wrong bread, adds some pastrami, or gets apple juice instead of wine.

Same bread, same wine. One's a sacrament, the other isn't.

If the deli owner refused to sell Maurice lunch because he was disrespecting the deli owner's religious beliefs about Communion, no one would take the deli owner seriously.

Just saying.


Copyright © 2018 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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President Trump, the Religious Right, and my Jesus

My Jesus cares about justice. There is no evidence that Trump or his supporters do.

My Jesus healed the sick. Trump has made cuts to healthcare, while his supporters approved.

My Jesus welcomes refugees. Trump turns them away while his supporters nod their approval.

My Jesus said "Blessed are the poor" and "Woe to the rich," and warned about the dangers of wealth. Trump is a billionaire who passed tax cuts for the wealthy, cut social aid to the poor while his supporters applauded.

My Jesus welcomes people of every tribe, nation and language. Trump wants to build a wall, block entire countries and set strict quotas on immigration. His supporters are all on board with this.

My Jesus warned against people who harm children. Trump's administration tears them from their mothers at the border, loses track of them, and defunds groups that provide prenatal care. From his supporters on the Religious Right? Crickets.

The first-century followers of my Jesus understood something about the holiness of sexual commitment in marriage. Trump brags about grabbing married women "by the pussy" and covers up a string of affairs. The Religious Right "gives him a mulligan." Ralph Reed even says character doesn't matter.

My Jesus talked theology with a Samaritan and commended the faith of a pagan. Trump slanders Islam,and his Religious Right supporters cheer him on.

My Jesus warned us against men like Trump. The Religious Right tells us he's the dream president for Christians.

What's the matter here? Which god do you serve?

‘Cause I’ve got to say, for all the news you make about your faith, it doesn’t look much like my Jesus.


Copyright © 2018 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Exiles in their own land

The Bible notes that when the walls of Jerusalem fell, the people who were carried into exile in Babylon were the nobles and the ruler of the people.

And yet the Babylonian captivity was something that affected the entire nation.

The Bible never really tells us the story of the people who remained. There’s a postlude in Jeremiah for the exiles who fled to Egypt and convinced him to go with them and of course there are the books like Daniel and Esther that tell the story of the captives in Babylon. For its part the Ezra scroll tells the story of how Ezra and Nehemiah led the descendants of the captives back. There are even psalms about how the exiles felt when in captivity (“Down by the rivers of Babylon, we wept as we remembered Zion”) and when they returned. (“We were like men who dreamed”) but about the people who remained in the land, nothing.

They never stopped being Jewish. They never stopped being people of the covenant; but, the writers of the Bible being who they were, they also never mattered much when it came time to write the history.

What was it like to have your identity, your entire way of life, upended and negated by the Exile, and yet have everything stay pretty much the same? Every day you went to the river to wash the clothes, watch your sheep, make your deals. Probably every Shabbat you went to the same high place your ancestors had gone to since before the Temple was built, excepting those brief periods of reform by kings like Hezekiah and Josiah, when they tore the high places down.

But the city was gone. The Temple was gone. Did you notice? Probably. the king was gone too, and now people ruled you who worshiped Astarte or Marduk or one of the other, more fashionable weather and fertility gods (though not Baal. He was kind of passe these days). Without the Temple priesthood around, the proo-Judaism of the day was more folk religion than anything else, centered around an unseen god talked about in stories that were passed down like beloved heirlooms.

Then one day the captives returned. What was it like when suddenly you were told that these strangers who didn’t even speak Hebrew were your superiors? All because their grandfathers had lived in Jerusalem and yours had tended sheep in Beit Shelem or Shechen, or Hebron or some place else.

Did your identity matter? How maddening must it have been to be pushed aside and subordinated to complete strangers, to be shoved to the margins because they mattered and you didn’t, simply because that’s the way status works

Being common is a form of exile in itself.

Good Friday in America today

It was, of course, an injustice.

Police found Stephon Clark in the back yard of his grandmother's house after he reportedly had climbed over the fence to get there. They were looking for someone who had been breaking car windows on the street, and when they caught up with Clark they ordered him to show his hands. An officer shouted “He has a gun!” and Clark was struck with a hail of bullets.

He was holding a cellphone. There was no gun.

According to an autopsy, Clark was shot 8 times from behind or from the side. Police have yet to provide any evidence that Clark was the window-breaking vandal they were looking for.

Fatal incidents of police violence have been a matter of routine horror in the news for years, compounded by our rush to assure ourselves that, while unfortunate, there's really nothing we can do about it. It's just part of the cost of having a safe society.  Sometimes people get killed, but it's their fault anyway, because they didn't follow orders, because they acted aggressively, or because police felt threatened. And besides he had a rap sheet.

That reaction should chill the very marrow in our bones. I can think of no reaction further from the heart of Christ and the heart of the Good Friday story that we celebrated in our churches today.

Even those outside the Christian faith know the Good Friday story. Jesus Christ, an innocent man, was arrested under cover of night. Denied the due process of law, he was deprived of his basic human rights, brutally tortured and finally executed.

Preachers often play up the story of Jesus' trials and execution for the moral affront that they were. To convict, all the priests needed was for two witnesses to agree on a charge. The gospels note that they couldn't even manage that. For his part, Pilate, the Roman governor, couldn't find any basis for a charge. Neither could Herod.

So why was he executed? The chief priest was afraid that Jesus was disturbing the peace and getting people riled up. Pilate wanted to maintain order. Herod just didn't care.

Christianity used to be a religion of the powerless, but after 1,700 years of holding the reins of imperial power, we've become far too comfortable with the way those reins feel here in the West. We treat the execution of Jesus as though it's an aberration, a once-in-history occasion when the justice system failed in its duty and killed an innocent man. The effect is that we treat the Crucifixion as a one-time failure, an especially heinous act of evil. We always stress the innocence of Jesus to stress how shockingly unjust his death was.

I wonder, if we were to survey his contemporaries, how unusual they found it that Rome would kill an innocent man. I wonder how many peasants, carpenters and bricklayers there were who felt they couldn’t get a fair shake either. I wonder how many people could point to the mountaintop of Jerusalem, to Mount Gerzim in Samaria or to the rolling hills of Galilee and tell the story of family members, neighbors and friends who had been unjustly executed by the state.

It wouldn’t have been hard. After the riots that followed the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE, when rioters burned the city of Sephoris, the Roman legions restored order through the process of decimation. One man in every 10 was pulled out of the crowd, taken outside the city and crucified as a warning against unrest, without benefit of trial.

Good Friday wasn't a once-in-history event for the people whom Jesus lived with and walked among. It happened all the time.

It's the same in America now. Remember the names of those who have been denied justice by the authorities and killed without a trial. Can you even remember them all?

Michael Brown.

Eric Garner.

Walter Scott.

Philando Castile.

Alton Sterling.

Tamir Rice.

Terence Crutcher.

Sandra Bland.

Freddie Gray.

Laquan McDonald.

Unarmed. Shot by police, their murders justified just as the execution of Christ was. They were disturbing the peace. They were resisting arrest. They had a history. There were extenuating circumstances.

We were afraid.

When we in our fear excuse, allow or approve the death of the innocent, we take the reins of Caesar in our hands, give them a familiar grip, and we say to ourselves, “This isn't so bad.” When give approval to their deaths, let us remember the words of Jesus.

“Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.”


Copyright © 2018 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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This is the sermon on guns you probably won't hear

There is a sermon you probably won't hear in church tomorrow, and that's a shame, because it's a sermon that needs to be preached from every pulpit in this nation, from coast to coast, from North to South, from city to city, from the highest mountain to the lowest valley, until we understand and our leaders finally listen.

It's the sermon that says that a society that claims to value life and freedom but brushes off death as casually as it puts on a new coat, is a society that has shaken off all semblance of morality and justice, and values nothing but power. It's the sermon that says that our nation has come unmoored. It's the sermon that says our guns have become an idol, the NRA has become the priesthood of a false religion, and our government has been bought lock, stock and barrel.

It's the sermon that says "In Christ's name, enough."

Seventeen students died at Parkland school in Florida earlier this week. Add those to the 58 murdered at the Las Vegas Strip last October, to the 49 mowed down at the Pulse Night Club, the 20 first- and second-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Remember the 33 college students killed at Virginia Tech in 2007? How about the 15 killed at Columbine High School in 1999? That number seemed so large at the time; now it almost seems like it's barely worth mentioning. There have been so many mass shootings in America that it's almost impossible to remember a time when they weren't routine, when Aurora, Colo. (2012, 12 dead); Jonesboro, Ark. (1998, 5 dead); and Erie, Pa. (1998, 1 dead), would be burned into our psyches forever.

Why do we tolerate this?

A long time ago the Phonecians worshiped a god name Moloch. Moloch wasn't a genteel god who liked to collect baubles, hear a few rhyming prayers and let people go about their business. He was a god of power. His priests promised the people wealth and good crops, military might and protection from their enemies. If you followed Moloch, you didn't have anything to worry about when other people came into your country and tried to take your place, they promised. You didn't need to be afraid of thieves, or home intruders or any threat to your well-being. If you worshiped Moloch, he had your back. All he wanted was your children.

Moloch was a right bastard of a god, but the Phonecians trusted him. There are remnants of their architecture, their literature and their art. The Israelites, when they came to the land, were appalled at what they found, and did their best to eradicate all trace of Moloch and the other gods of his ilk. The ruins we've found indicate that he had a tremendous appetite for the blood of humans, especially children.

The stories that his priests told are the same ones the NRA tells today about guns. There's a lot to be afraid of, but if you have a gun, you'll be safe. There's no need to worry about immigrants, inner-city gangs or even your own elected officials if you're armed enough. The bigger the gun, the better off you are, so why not own the kind of hardware professional troops use in combat zones? And if someone comes to town and massacres a dozen or more children? Well, that's just the price of being free. Anyone who opposes the exaltation of firearms is someone who hates freedom.

The Israelites didn't get rid of Moloch. He just hung around a while and opened shop under a new name with a new priesthood.

Our national religion makes a big deal about guns, and it's managed to convince a number of people that our embrace of gun culture is something that squares well with Christianity.

It does not.

The NRA and its acolytes spread an atmosphere of fear. There are bad people out there, and no one is coming to help you. The only way to stop them is if you are armed yourself. If they are armed, you need to be too. Put guns into every church, into every store, into every school. Fire first, and don't back down. When everyone is afraid and everyone has guns, and everyone is on edge, then we will know peace.

Jesus warns that those who live by violence will die violently, and he tells his disciples to put away weapons of violence. Rater than fearing the alien, the outsider or the stranger, he encourages us to take the risk, welcome them, and befriend them.

This is a message the church needs to shout, and that it needs to live out as loudly as it can. I don't expect to hear it.

This Sunday, most churches are going to offer noting more than an anodyne prayer for the latest victims of the latest horror show. Some will offer even less. There may be a few churches that collect an offering, but that's as far as it will go.

Six years ago, Trayvon Martin was murdered by a vigilante who stalked the teen to the point that he feared for his life and felt the only chance he had was to fight back. (Zimmerman, who was armed, shot Martin and killed him.) Few churches said anything about it that Sunday; my own pastor made a throwaway comment about it in the beginning of the sermon where pastors usually use their bad one-liners as warm-up material, and seemed surprised that anyone responded negatively.

The truth is, we live in times that are marked right now by profound spiritual darkness. Our federal government has embarked on a relentless campaign against immigrants of color, it has placed abusive and racist men in positions of power, and it is led by a man of vulgar appetites with no regard for the truth, nor for justice. The church in America can choose either to embrace this darkness and call it "light"; to focus on "spiritual things" like truth, morality and principles of clean living; or it can call out evil in high places.

The NRA's tireless advocacy to sell more guns is one place we can start. The casual acquiescence of our leaders to the NRA's culture of death is a second.

It's a sermon our country needs to hear. Let's start preaching it.


Copyright © 2018 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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‘What Would Jesus Do?’ and other things Jesus wouldn’t say

Back when I was in college, there was a trend in the church toward pithy sayings that sounded deeper than they really were.

The big daddy of these was “What would Jesus do?” or “WWJD?” It works like this. Post a question with serious moral overtones, like “Should we deport law-abiding people who entered the country without documentation?” or “Is it all right to vote for a vulgar, adulterous conman with no integrity?” Now ask, “What would Jesus do?” and follow accordingly.

Unfortunately, there are limits. “My girlfriend is pregnant!” one might share with a confidant. “What should I do?”

“Well, what would Jesus do?” comes the helpful rejoinder.

Not get her pregnant in the first place, would come the answer. Not much help there.

Other people tried to overapply it on the grounds that every area of life should be surrendered to God. (Waffles or an omelette — which would Jesus order?) Given the earnestness with which such questions were asked, they soon became incredibly fraught ethical and spiritual quandaries and led to people no longer inviting Ted to join them for breakfast.

As bad as those were, I remember one particularly bad time to ask the question. It was on a trip to LaSource, Lagonav, and it involved a disabled man who had withered legs and could not walk.

What would Jesus do? I leave it to the reader to ask that question, determine the answer and then guess how things went from there.


Copyright © 2018 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Advent: Tenderly

Got a call this evening from someone feeling upset, overwhelmed and anxious. We talked for close to 40 minutes, and I hope at the end of the conversation that things were better than they were at the start.

Truth is, we're all broken; and the pain goes down far below the surface, sometimes into caverns where dark things lurk. Maybe it's an injury a friend once dealt us, maybe it's the fear stirred by the toxic air our president is brewing, or maybe it's the trauma of having to hide our true selves. It doesn't matter; the darkness is real, and so is the pain. "The darkness and the light are alike to you,: the psalmist writes. "I am fearfully and wonderfully made.'

Jesus, it should be remembered, never came for respectable people. He came for hookers and thieves, for traitors and sycophants, for the filthy, for the ignorant and for the unemployed, not to give them better manners or to make them acceptable, but to remind them that God was on their side. He knows where the pain is rawest, and he touches us there tenderly.

God willing, let us remember who his people are, and let us follow his example.



Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Advent: Presence

My atheist friends may disagree, but I think it's fair to say that we spend most of our life searching for the Presence of God.

In some ways it's like the hour before lunch. Nothing drives us to food like hunger; to water, like thirst; to friends, like loneliness; to justice, like oppression. It's the very absence of God that makes us want to experience his presence. It's that very moment of need meeting satisfaction that glows with the light of heaven.

The gospels tell us that Christmas is when God saw our need and pitched his tent among us, making our life his and his life with us. We enter the Presence of God not when we cloister ourselves away with other like-minded people, but when we follow his example and shelter the immigrant from deportation, speak up for the woman being sexually harassed, reach out to the lonely with a call and offer of friendship, oppose favoritism for the wealthy, and resist evil in places both high and low.

At that moment, a miracle occurs. In meeting the need of another, we experience the Presence, and so do they.



Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Advent 2017: Open

I've met people (and I'm sure you have too) who claim that by following God, they've been kept from illness, from calamity, from poverty and everything else. Blessed, blessed, blessed, that's the only way they know how to describe themselves. It's like they started sneezing and can't stop,and so they keep getting blessed over and over.

I'm always wary of snake oil faith. I can't speak for other religions, but truth is, Christianity presents a danger in being open to the things of God. Up until the point the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, her life was safe and ordinary. She knew whom she was getting married to, knew where she would live, had a solid reputation, and could comfortably predict what life would bring her.

She could have smacked the angel upside the head with a skillet and told him where to take his announcements, or calmly informed him that he had the wrong address and wanted her next-door neighbor, Bertha.

But she was open, and even if she had the sense not to run down the street excitedly screaming that she was going to have a baby and he would be the messiah; her life still got overturned.

Pregnant before she got married? There goes the reputation.

Joseph insists he's not the father? She'll be lucky to get out of this alive.

In a couple years she'll even be a refugee, running for her life from the king in the middle of the night, hoping they can find someone who will shelter a growing family and not send them away empty-handed.

Being open to the works and wonders of God is a dangerous thing.


Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Regarding the Nashville Statement

I'm going to say something that may shock you. Being gay isn't about sex.

I swear to God.

That's not the impression you would get from the signatories of the Nashville Statement, freshly released by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. The Nashville Statement -- so called because it was written and signed in Nashville -- is an attempt by certain prominent evangelical leaders to draw a line in the sand over the cultural shifts in the United States the past 50 years.

It makes the sort of strident condemnations that we've come to expect from such groups: adultery is bad, polygamy is bad, premarital sex is bad, transgenderism is bad, homosexuality is bad. The whole thing is couched in a series of 14 affirmations and rejections that focus on what the signatories presume is the "clear meaning" of the biblical texts, all focused on the configuration of people's genitals and what they do with them in private.

"Clear meaning" becomes more suspect once we consider cultural and literary context in an attempt to understand what the biblical authors actually were talking about, and how to apply those principles in our society. But that doesn't seem to matter here.

What the Nashville Statement and its signatories miss is that gay people are, well, people, with the same desires and life goals as other people.

Being gay isn't about whom you have sex with, it's about whom you love. Like heterosexuals, gays want to be with someone they love, to spend their lives and grow old together. The little things that matter in a straight relationship -- reading a book or playing a game together, sharing a meal, having a conversation when you come home from a day on the job, sharing what matters to you, making plans together, the touch of a hand, and having someone to hold you when you're upset, scared or lonely -- those are things that matter in a same-sex relationship as well.

Article X is the killer, though. According to this statement, it's not possible to be a Christian and support your best friend's decision to transition from male to female, nor to affirm the happiness another friend has found with her fiancee. Do these things, and you've left the fold. You're an apostate.

This is some serious stuff. It requires a response.

I thought about all the great times I've had with my best friend, who was born David but is now Jennifer. There's the time Chicken Soup for the Soul threatened to sue us. One afternoon at college as she was listenig to "The Acapella Project 2," I opened her door just to say "This is really cheesy" and then shut it just as quickly. I stood at her wedding, and she stood at mine. We've been there for each other through divorce, head injury, three kids apiece, and even an unfortunate escapade with white Christian rap.

I thought about another friend and our late-night conversations over the Internet when she was working and I couldn't sleep. There's been snark, there's been laughter both out of control and out of bounds, a cascade of puns and an exchange of books. She's been there when I've stood on the brink and the void threatened to swallow me; and I've seen the high cost that can be exacted by the attitudes celebrated in this Nashville Statement, when her family discovered she was gay.

Or there's Darren, one of the friendliest and most drama-free people I've ever worked with in the theatre world. I've found him to be a rock: supportive, professional, flexible and a joy to work with as an actor, as a stage manager and as a co-producer.

These are the people the authors of the Nashville Statement say I have to reject in order to go to heaven with them.

But I think of all that I've been through with them, and the kind of people they are, and I find that I must borrow a sentiment from Huck Finn.

"All right, I'll go to hell then."



Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Naked before the throne

It's getting late, but there is a murmur of restless expectation in the air. Across the valley, people are gathering to hear the prophet.

They file out of their homes, they leave their businesses unattended, and they abandon the market. As the crowd builds, it flows uphill like a storm breaker on the shore toward the mountain, where the prophet has gone with his students. The water rises, and then it crests at his feet, and the people grow quiet. The prophet is speaking.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit," the prophet says, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

"Poor in spirit." A susurrous like falling leaves ripples through the crowd as the phrase tumbles past Jesus' lips. These are a people who know poverty. The fishers among them may catch a hundred fish in the morning, and be left with only ten to sell by the time the tax collectors have taken their ill-gotten share.

The carpenter or stonemason may work all day, six days a week to provide or his family and his wife may labor all day caring for the children and buying and selling at the market, and still every day is a struggle to survive. Poverty is an old, familiar and unwelcome guest in their lives. He eats their best food, wears through their sandals, and leaves holes in the roof so that the rain gets in. They know poverty.

But poverty of the spirit. Do they know that?

There's Miriam, told at the age of 13 that she would marry a man three times her age and not the boy whom she loved, so that she ran away to the house of her father's sister and caused a scandal that her community still hasn't forgotten. Three years later, she is still not welcome in her father's home and continues to live with her aunt. Yesterday morning she heard that the boy she gave all for has married her worst enemy. Poverty has been eating away at her insides ever since.

Or there's Eliezer, who had studied for years under Rabbi Zecheriah to become a rabbi himself. He had studied Torah for years, memorized the Books of Moses, the psalms and even the scroll of Isaiah, only to be found that he could not become the rabbi he had dreamed of, and would have to become a scribe instead. His spirit is as impoverished as they come.

Then there's old Noach, named for the famed prophet on the Ark. He's a dissolute drunkard who wakes up every morning ashamed of what he has made of his life, and drowns his shame once he has begged enough coins to buy a fresh skin of wine. Poverty of the spirit is all he has left.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The words are more than an invitation to follow, to believe, or to have faith. They are a declaration. The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them, because they know their need for love and restoration, for peace and a new dream to replace the one that failed, and even for forgiveness. The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them because they have lost everything that matters to them, and now they are finding that what matters is taking hold of them.

Miriam may never see her father or mother again. But in her aunt's house and afterward, she may discover a contentment and a level of support that she never knew was possible at her father's house. Eliezer may never become the rabbi he had hoped to be, but he may discover a new dream that will allow him to wonder and discover truths he had never imagined.

And Noah? He may always remain a besotted drunk in the alleyway. But he'll never be turned away or shunned by anyone who loves him.

Knowing spiritual poverty is only the first step. It's the beginning of a journey, yet it's a place that they will return to again and again. We first become aware of our poverty when we become aware of need to follow Christ, whether for forgiveness from sin or just because we realize that he has the answers we're looking for.

Our sense of poverty is renewed later when we encounter teachings that are difficult to come to terms with, even true ones. It deepens once more when we realize the inadequacy of our understanding, and how our faith structure fails to comprehend the world, such as when we see and comprehend the suffering of others.

At some final point, everything collapses before our eyes, and our spiritual poverty is complete. St John of the Cross called this the Long, Dark Night of the Soul. I've heard other people call it being ruined for life. It's the point where there is nothing left, except a voice that says "Follow me" and you have to decide if that's enough.

This is only the first, the least of the Beatitudes, and it is more than I can handle. Kyrie leison. Christ have mercy upon us.



Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Racial reconciliation is not what we need

Here come the renewed calls for an end to racial animus and healing. Oh, how I am tired of them.

A recent motion to condemn the alt-right died in committee at the Southern Baptist Convention. Predictably, following the outrage, the church issued a statement condemning the alt-right and all forms of racism. Because it's important, you know, to remember that it's just as wrong for black people to hate white people as the other way around, and what we need is healing, not this division over race. What we need, church leaders would have us believe, is that there has been a lot of wrong committed on all sides, and we need reconciliation of the races for the healing to begin.

No. No. In Jesus' holy name, no Racial reconciliation is a misnomer, as reconciliation suggests equal fault. We do not need racial reconciliation. What we need is racial repentance, and racial justice.

Blacks in America are not to blame for the state of race relations in this country; whites are. Racial oppression and white supremacy began on this continent before the country was even established. Let's look at the issue honestly and fairly.

It was white Christians who enslaved blacks from the 1600s and for the following two centuries. It was white Christians like George Whitefield who saw blacks as worthy recipients of the gospel but not of their freedom. Likewise it was white Christians who stole the labor, the health and the safety of blacks throughout the South, and who fought a bloody war in defense of their right to own black people.

It was white Christians who replaced slavery with Jim Crow, prison camps and segregation following the Civil War; and when the courts and the federal government finally demanded an end to those things, it was white Christians who fled public schools and closed public resources rather than share them with blacks. These actions even found sanction from the pulpit, where ministers taught that it was God's intent to keep the races separate.

Every bit of progress our nation has made toward racial equality and justice the past 150 years has been fought at every step by white people, often self-identified Christians. Blacks in America today can't even protest a justice system that targets them more regularly, sentences them more harshly and kills them more frequently than it does whites, without being scolded that All Lives Matter.

Statements disavowing the racist history of the past are not enough. For any denomination, for the church as a whole in our country, or for our nation itself to rise above our legacy of racism, we need to own up to what we've done, and we need to correct the fault that we have inherited. It's not reconciliation that's needed. It's repentance.

We can begin by elevating black America: its art, its poetry, its literature, its leaders, its history, and its economy. This is the example we see in the Christian Scriptures. Faced with prejudice against Grecian Jews, the Jerusalem church handed over the welfare programs of the church entirely to those suffering the prejudice. Through humility, the dominant church saw that the minority church was empowered and its widows protected.

Can we follow suit? We should. Can we study church history from the perspective of black America? Can we learn how the enslaved church flourished amid slavery and the abuses of the empowered church?

Can we learn to see the heroism of Nat Turner, and remember the deep moral flaws of white leaders who saw white supremacy and black subjugation as the ordained way of things, or who never gave it a thought? Can we demand black chancellors and presidents at Liberty University and Bob Jones University, and black-majority boards?

Will we throw our moral authority, weakened though it is, behind the efforts to stop honoring the Confederate veterans who defended slavery with their lives, and instead shame them and everyone in the North and South who benefited from slavery?

Will we speak out against the policies and actions of President Trump and Jeff Sessions that threaten the well-being of the African American community?

The Southern Baptist Convention has made steps in the right direction. But what is needed are seven-league boots.

I pray we have the faith to wear them.


Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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