HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It’s good news week

Someone’s dropped a bomb somewhere

Contaminating atmosphere

And blackening the sky

It’s good news week

Someone’s found a way to give

The rotting dead a will to live

Go on and never die.

 

Have you heard the news?

What did it say?

Who’s won that race?

What’s the weather like today?

 

It’s good news week…

(Songwriter: Jonathan King © Jonjo Music Co Ltd, sung by: Hedgehoppers Anonymous 1965)

Buck, you guys, might say, “man”, but I’m a mouse, and so I claim the sobriquet of the male dominant nominative ejaculation of mice. So, I say, Buck, I had a heck of a time finding this first song on the internet. All my life, I had thought the name of the group was Head Choppers Anonymous. Now I discover it is Hedgehoppers Anonymous.

Somehow the good news sounded better to me when it was Head Choppers, but then, that might have more to say about my twisted sense of humor. What’s a hedge hopper anyways?

Each year the Church begins the Advent season with an apocalyptic reading telling us that the world is about to end. There will be various cataclysmic events after which the world will self-destruct: “Heaven and earth will all pass away, but [Jesus’] words will not pass away.”

The question of the day is: What are Jesus’ words that will not pass away?

Amid the sun being darkened, and the moon not giving off its light, when the stars are falling from the skies, when the powers and the heaven are being shaken, when the son of man comes in glory with his angels, what are the words that will not pass away? Are they words of judgment? Are they words of love? Are they words of death and dying or of life?

Look to the fig tree. Find its tender branches and budding leaves leading to a growing season. Nature telegraphs the future much like holding onto the elbow of someone leading a blind person anticipates the direction the leader is turning (or so I’ve been told). Personally, I find tails to be quite reliable.

The lesson of the fig tree teaches us to be observant. Take note of the world. Engage in the world. Participating in those pregnant moments that portend the places of lifegiving constancy is possible even when polluting sacrilege seduces the world to cry out in despair. “Good news week” will not be satirical.

Especially in these days of climate change, the Ukrainian fight for its national individuation, the expulsion of the Armenian Christians from their homeland in Nagnoro-Karabakh, Israel and the devastations witnessed there and in Gaza, and the little mentioned war in Sudan, these apocalyptic words in Mark 13:24-37 loom large. Is this the beginning of the birth pangs of doom? Is the world about to end?

When we witness the migration to the borders of our country of large numbers of people who seek a better life away from oppressive social conditions where they live and who then face inadequate means to welcome them and to provide a place for them, or even the willingness to recognize them as human beings out of fear of losing national white privilege, is this a sign of the end of all things?

When the wealthiest percentage of the world gets immeasurably wealthier and the poor find ever deepening poverty, as the middle class shrinks in the disparity between the wealthiest and the poorest…When political partisanship polarizes social intercourse to the extent that polite conversation is no longer possible…When families no longer associate with one another because of political allegiances…Is that the death knell of social order and American democracy?

When the number of countries who are able to create atomic weaponry continues to grow and the push of a button could initiate a nuclear holocaust…When religious intolerance and other mechanisms create clearer boundaries between us and them and further dehumanize them…Is that the line of demarcation that marks the end of the world?

How much devastation is necessary for us to witness before pundits can pronounce with certainty the long-anticipated demise of God’s purpose for the world?

What are the words of Jesus that will not pass away?

For the words we long to hear, we must first look further in the book of Mark. The time of the sun darkening and the moon not giving off light, when the stars are falling from the heavens, these are known in the time of the crucifixion. These words of paralyzing, cosmological, multiverse collapse do not portend a prophetic Pompeii-esque Pele pyre of permanent purge and world disappearing, but the on covering, revealing hope of something new. These events point to the words of next week, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God.”

In modern parlance, apocalypse speaks of world-ending destruction, but, in biblical parlance, apocalypse is the uncovering, the unveiling, the revelation of God’s work in the world. This is why the last book of the Bible is Revelation, not Revelations. Each revelation reveals God’s continued involvement in history and God’s work of saving God’s people through a process of reconciled relationship. The apocalypse of John, or the unveiling of God’s purpose for the world that John reports, ends with a new Jerusalem with the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.

Jesus’ words for us are “Do not be afraid.” Amid the horrifying works of the world Jesus comes and says, “Peace be with you.” Amid the greed of the world and the need to hold onto stuff, Jesus says, “after living up to the commandments, sell all that you have and give it to the poor.” Let go of the stuff; trust in the Love of God.

Know, really know, that that the power of death that engenders fear and trepidation, war and the rumors of war, hate and discrimination, isolation and dehumanization of others, and the fear of the changing unknown, that Christ has destroyed death and walks with you whether or not you know his presence, like the constancy of the life cycle of the fig tree, the constancy that promises new life. Whether you observe the changes of the fig tree, the fig tree continues to do what it does.

It is said that Martin Luther, when asked what he would do if he learned that the world were going to end tomorrow, said that he would plant a tree. Maybe he meant a fig tree. Maybe he meant the Revelation tree of healing. Maybe he referenced the tree from which we all receive life—the cross.

We may not know the day nor the hour when the Son of Man will return, but the fig tree teaches us the constancy of living that continues to produce the sweet fruit of sustenance and delight. Yes, learn the lesson of the fig tree, and know, when the events of fear and destruction surround you, “[Jesus] is near [you], at the very gates [of your borders, your communities, your yards, your homes, your hearts]. In a world where bombs are dropping everywhere, contaminating atmosphere and blackening the skies, where the rotting dead continue to determine the will of nations for revenge, Jesus is the one who teaches us to “live in love and Christ loved us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5).

It’s good news week. The catastrophes of the world may continue to surround and frighten, but Jesus has conquered death so that we no longer need to fear death. “Do not be afraid.” Live! Christ is with you!

Your pal, 

Nicodemus

Editor, Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse

IMPAIRED PEDAGOGY PRESENTS A PECULIAR AND PARADOXICAL PARADISE PARADIGM PREDICAMENT

We finally come to the end of the liturgical year. This Sunday we read of the great judgment of the nations in Matthew 25:31-46. This parable is not about personal predestination. “You,” in “prepared for you from the foundations of the world,” is a collective plural and refers to the nations or tribes (but not necessarily nation-states as we know them today). This judgment scene could include everything from the entire Roman empire to the people of Judah and everything in between.

For years I thought of this parable depicting a vision of the world that is truly segregated—with the righteous in one circle and the accursed in another. It was precise. It was predictable. It was pristine. It was perfect. It was preposterous.

Recently, I have been considering Peter’s (not the disciple) work on reading Scripture from a blind perspective, mostly unpublished, much of it still on the drawing board, or as he says, “aspirationally plotted”. I have begun to “see” the perils of presumptive, previous postures of piety and ableist certainty when considering parables like this one. In an ableist world, this parable can be a childish, “Look at what we have done (or not done), Mom”, but, from the perspective of the marginalized, this parable presents a world where life depends on the “kindness of others” without independent agency or healthy individuation.

Matthew includes The Son of Man coming with all his angels to take the throne, the place of judgment. With all the nations gathered before him, he separates them like an emperor determining loyal vassals, like a shepherd separating sheep from goats, like a cat separating voles from field mice. And then, with words that echo the sentiment of last week’s “Enter into the joy of your master”, Matthew tells of the sheep receiving the inheritance that is theirs from the foundation of the world—for I was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick and in prison, and you fed me, gave me drink, welcomed me, clothed me, visited and came to me.

When the query comes, “When did we do this?”, Jesus’ response is, “Whenever you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”

Don’t you feel good, about now? Don’t you feel good in the membership of your collective congregation? Don’t you feel good knowing that your contribution to Lutheran World Hunger is feeding and caring for people you don’t even know?  Don’t you feel good about the quilts and health care kits your congregation, synod, and the church at large send to the corners of the world through Lutheran World Relief? (The flat earth concept of the world which still has corners when we know that the world is a globe and therefore round is a conversation for another time.) Don’t you feel like you belong to the righteous, and aren’t you ready to receive your inheritance?

But what about the underlying conditions that created the needs in the first place? Why are these people “left out in the cold”, metaphorically speaking? What about all of those we do not reach? What about the thousands of children and adults, even in this country, who will go to bed hungry tonight?

This may be the propitious moment to confront the times, citizens of the U.S., for the nation has a social contract with its people—all people have the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This social contract has proven, however, to pander to the prosperous and the privileged. This nation continues to inadequately meet the needs of its people—when it does not feed and provide potable drinking water; when it does not welcome people who are fleeing for their lives; when, because of color, prejudicial practices for procuring loans persist.

What about a social system that leaves more than 80% of people living with a disability unemployed? What about the thousands of buildings that continue to exclude people who use wheelchairs or otherwise require non-present escalators or elevators to get from one floor to another? What about our justice system that continues to incarcerate a higher per centage of minority people with longer sentences than white people? What about practices which prevent people from adequate and timely health care? How then, without equality and equity, are they welcomed into the benefits of that social contract? This list could go on and on, but maybe this is enough for now.

This parable challenges the principal policies of every ethnic and cultural center of the world. It encourages them, and nations too, to take credit for how well they have cared for the poor and marginalized and tempts them to call themselves righteous. Satisfied, they rejoice that they have avoided the accursed behaviors that condemn and would require them to do better.

This parable of divine judgment does not include compassion and forgiveness. We do not hear the echoes of Isaiah 43, “’You have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me with your iniquities. I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.’…But now thus says the Lord, ‘He who created you, O Jacob (this is not a designation of the person, but of all the people who descended from Jacob), he who formed you, O Israel (again, not just the pseudonym of Jacob nor is it just the northern kingdom, but all who wrestle with God), do not fear, for I have redeemed [all of] you, I have called [all of] you by name; you are mine!’”

Nor does it describe the hope from Ezekiel 37 with the prophesying to the dry bones drawn together with sinews and flesh and skin and breath, describing the joining of the nations of Judah and Israel with one ruler and the promise to “save them from all the apostacies into which they have fallen” and to “cleanse them”, and that “they shall be my people and I will be their God.” In fact, this parable in Matthew is the antithesis of John 3:17, “Indeed, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Sheila, Matthew, and Dennis Linn published a book, “Good Goats: Healing Our Image of God”, thirty years ago, with this parable at its heart. Considering the challenges of whether people are the preferred sheep or the accursed goats, and the work the Church has either and both done and left undone, one Sister said, “So, what you are telling us is that we are good goats” (not Greatest of All Times), or maybe as an extension, ba-a-ad sheep.

The Linns help us “see” the world as it is and wonder, “where is the cord of oak that waits for the eternal purgatorial fires of punishment because there will always be people who are not fed, given drink, welcomed, clothed, or visited. “All is lost!” because all are lost—poor little sheep who have lost our way. (I thank God I am a mouse.)

Uh-oh, we are all part of the national, cultural, or ethnic group in which we reside. Now that I have really pondered the paradoxical complexities of this parable, I must admit that my cozy nook, mouse house no longer feels so righteous.

This Christ the King Sunday, let us “see” the place of judgment sited somewhere other than this implausible courtroom of division. Let us look to the cross and God’s darkness where God creates opportunities of hope and forgiveness amid sinful human darkness, in the night in which he was betrayed. Let us look to the cross and bear witness to the king that conquers the power of death that all might live.

Throw up your hands in despair, crying “Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.”, and then depend on God’s mercy, love, and forgiveness (grace). And for Christ’s sake, continue to do the work that can be done to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the strangers God sends, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned. But do this knowing that you do this work because you are saved, not in order to be saved or to ensure thar you are saved. God has already saved you, and, because God continues to make covenants of forgiveness with all people (Baptism and Eucharist), you are able to see God’s likeness in all of those around you.

In this way you can understand God’s perfection in the vulnerability of the human condition with all of its abilities and disabilities, with all the body shapes and colors and gender identities people come in. As God is one, you see God who makes all people one—one with God and one with one another.

This parable falsely presents a world that promotes and promulgates an image of judgment that casts unfortunates into eternal punishment of purging fire, because, if that judgment is from the foundation of the world and has no possibility of penitential pardon and perceived possible hope, then the crucifixion and empty tomb cannot give any promise of hope for the world and humanity. The world and humanity cannot pray, prostrate, or repent enough to turn back what “has been prepared from the foundations of the world.” Only Christ the King has that power, and all people continue to prevail on Christ’s perpetual power of pardon. The crucifixion and the empty tomb open the way to a prepared place of wonder and joy in the presence of the true king.

Thank God, the apocalyptic judgment scene of this parable presented on this Christ the King Sunday is not the final statement for the world or our lives. Instead, it is an opportunity to balance vv. 40 and 45—As you have done/not done it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you have done it/not done it to me.

Keep the faith; and keep working for justice and peace in word and deed.

Your pal,

Nicodemus

Editor, Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse

PATRON PROMOTES WEALTHY WHILE PRONOUNCING PENALTIES AND DEEPER POVERTY FOR THE POOR

Have you thought about how you hear things? For instance, when I am in the house comfortably ensconced in my perfected cozy nook, and the lawn mowers start, I listen to the hum of the motor and sometimes let it lull me to sleep. BUT, if I am out in the yard or perambulating through the prairie, maybe penetrating the perimeter of a hay field and hear that hum of a mower, I get very nervous and hide in the nearest hole or plaster myself in the nearest hedgerow against a fence post. It may be the same sound, but where I am determines how I hear it.

This week’s reading from Matthew 25:14-30 has that difference contained in it. Today we might say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and mean it as praise. We might say “Come into the joy of your master,” and use it as a welcome to worship. (This phrase has really been used at some congregations Peter [not the disciple] has attended.)  At this end of time these platitudes may sound affirming or maybe just innocuous, but, when Matthew is recounting these words, they were as scary as hearing the mower in the middle of a hay field.

You know that the Church has experienced perilous persecutions in various time periods. When Matthew is writing his Gospel account, Rome was conducting one of those periods of persecution. Christians were being sent to the coliseum, tortured, and killed for being purveyors of Jesus’ words to the people. Rome, however, provided people the possibility to preclude being sent to the coliseum or undergoing other torture and death. They were given the opportunity to recant their faith and return to pagan practices of proclaiming the emperor as god. When a person recanted, they heard the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master.” Can you hear the difference?

This week we hear of events which preceded a man’s journey. He entrusted his property into the paws of honored dependents. He gave one dependent $3,000,000; to another he gave $1,300,000; and to a third he gave $630,000. (These figures are all approximate and subject to change depending on inflationary trends.) The patron was gone a long, but indeterminate, period of time. In due course, he returned pressuring them to make an accounting.

The stage is set. The protagonists are poised for prodigious revelation. The question looms, “What is faithful living?” In the context of the world, making money, showing profits, kissing up to power appear to be faithful plays. Thus, they proffer in effect, “Sir, you entrusted me with more money than I ever imagined possible, and I doubled it for you. To accomplish this, I surrendered my ethics; I extorted funds and property from the people; and I gambled it on stock market futures, all for the privilege of being one of your preferred people.” The second makes the same statement.

As a reward, they hear those words of praise, “Well done, my sycophantic pup. Penetrate the joy of your master.” (O.K. I have taken some poetic privilege with the protagonists’ parlance, but it is for a point.) This is the world where the rich and entitled get richer and more entitled while the poor have what little dignity they have stripped away, and their poverty only gets abjectly deeper.

Now, the third person is encountered, and we begin to feel the pinch. Remember when we heard Jesus say, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor and to God the things that are God’s?” Remember when Jesus challenged the Sadducees telling them that they didn’t know what they were talking about, that “[God] is not God of the dead, but of the living?” And don’t forget Jesus’ response to the question of the greatest commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all of your [true self], and with all of your mind. …You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

These previous encounters inform the present situation. They empower the third dependent to speak truth to power—“I  knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow. I refuse to be part of the theft and extortion you encourage. Permit me to present to you your property.” (Again, I have taken poetic privilege to make the point.)

He expresses a different faithfulness, a faithfulness that adheres to Torah with the admonition against making interest, against gaining at the expense of others, a faithfulness of ethical living. In short, he refuses to part with his faith for the service of wealth and prominence. For this pledge, putting God in the position of occupying the most prominent place in his life, he is excoriated and punished; he is pitched out into the place of outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This poignant place of punishment presents a conundrum for us. No one wants to be excommunicated. No one seeks shunning. Once in outer darkness, however, we find it is the very place of God’s creation plan. In the place of weeping, we find God’s blessing. Where there is gnashing of teeth, we hear the cry of oppression and God’s liberating word.

In the midst of Passion Week, in that time between Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (city of peace) and the empty tomb of Easter Sunday, we witness Jesus speaking words of truth while others are plotting to pitch him out, to crucify him, to employ their preference for the worship of power and pain. Jesus stands against this world of plunder, pillage  and power inviting us into a place of potential, promised peace. This peace is not the Pax Romana (peace of Rome) enforced by fear and bloodshed, not the city of peace (Jerusalem) that kills the prophets, but the peace that surpasses all understanding in the kingdom of heaven.

Here, in the perpetual presence of Christ Jesus, the poor in spirit are known as a blessing, those who mourn know laughter, the naked are clothed, the sick and imprisoned are visited, the hungry are fed with the bread of Life, the thirsty partake of the potable potion of pardon and hope-filled promise. (O.K., I know that I am getting a little ahead of myself here, but the danger promoted by pericopes (Bible clippings) is that we forget that each reading (lection) is part of a whole; it is not “an island entire unto itself.”)

As precarious as our lives become, as scary as the outer darkness may be, let me tell you it’s not that bad. I’ve been muddling around in it for my entire life and aside from that inauspicious and problematic incident with the farmer’s wife (more particularly the carving knife she was holding at the time), it’s been pretty good. After all, it has provided the venue for me to pen this epistle to you. For those who are weeping, may you be a consolation. For those who are gnashing their teeth, may you be an advocate for liberation. Like the prairie, the hayfield, and the hedgerow in which I grew up and matured; the outer darkness is the patch from which we will rise, more compassionate, more understanding of our partners in pain, and more passionate in the privilege of promoting God’s salvific plan for our planet.

Your pal,

Nicodemus

Editor, Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse

PARABLE OF PRUDENT MAIDS PRESENTS PERPLEXING PARIDIGM OF PARADISE PARTY

From both the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts, we learn “Be Prepared.” The fifth point of Deism proposed by Lord Herbert of Cherbury espouses “the prospect of a life to come with rewards for virtue and punishments for sin”. These propositions prepare us for understanding the premise of the passage for the week. You will also want to look at Matthew 23:13-24:51 and 1 Cor 1:17-31. Now you are ready to begin ch. 25.

Matthew 25:1-13 presents ten maids, five foolish and five wise, who are waiting for the bridegroom to come to the wedding feast. The bridegroom has been delayed for some unexpressed reason. When he does arrive, the maids light their lamps. The foolish maids now fear that the amount of oil they have is insufficient. They ask to share the extra oil the wise maids have brought. The wise maids spurn them and tell them to go to the dealers to purchase more. When the foolish maids return to the wedding feast, crying “Lord, Lord, open to us,” they are refused entry. The bridegroom offers a stunning rebuke, “I don’t know you.”  Jesus concludes the parable with an admonition to all who hear it, “Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

How perplexing! How preposterous! If the paradigm for paradise presupposes that only the virtuous and prudent will be permitted beyond the Pearly Portico, then what prospect do any have? I mean, how much virtue is enough? With Peter (the disciple), we might ask, “Then who can be saved?”

Again, like previous parables in Matthew, this parable is problematic, presenting a paradisical outcome that mirrors the world’s specious expectations. Like the others, this parable does not take into account the frailty of the human condition. It rewards the perspicacity of the worldly wise and does not acknowledge the need experienced by the five foolish maids. It does not recognize the penance in the act of repentance, the pence paid for procuring proper proportions of oil to produce proper light for the ceremony of pomp and pageantry. In short, there is no room for understanding the cross nor our need for it.

This cannot be the paradigm for the great kingdom of heaven we envision. Instead, I suggest that the kingdom of heaven is that place where forgiveness abounds and those who act in a way to repair their profligacy are welcomed to a promised place at the banquet smorgasbord.

We are encouraged in this understanding of reconciled paradise through the words of Isaiah, “the people who sit in darkness will see a great light”. Elsewhere Isaiah pronounces that the people of God are to be comforted, that God calls them by name, that they are to be the repairers of the breach. Isaiah speaks of a world that is not only unprepared, but a people who cannot be prepared. He portrays people to be perpetually unworthy, unable to appropriately plan to populate the palatial spans of God’s realm. It is not preparedness and perspicacity that makes the difference, but the gracious welcome of a compassionate bridegroom that makes the wedding feast possible. Only God knows the day and the hour, and the foolish and wise both are only able to stay awake so long before they need refresh themselves in God’s sabbath time of rest.

If preparedness is what is required for entering the banquet hall, then God’s children must be prepared to be loved and forgiven. They need to hear and believe their pastors when they say, in these or similar words, “In the mercy of almighty God, by Christ’s authority, I declare to you the entire forgiveness of all of your sins, in the name of the Father, the Son and the + Holy Spirit.”. Belief in the prospect of a life to come must be based on Christ’s justification not personal or corporate virtue or merit.

Depend on Christ’s wisdom being foolishness to the world and pray that mortal foolishness is precious in God’s sight—red and yellow, black and white, mouse gray, and brown, too.

Your pal,

Nicodemus

Editor, Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse

 

PRETENTIOUSNESS PROMOTES PIETISM DISAPPROVAL AND REPRIMANDS OF PERFIDY

It seems to me that these words in Matthew 23:1-12 are as particularly significant for us today as they were 1900+ years ago. There appear to be any number of people who are demonstrating a propensity for the reprimand, “Do as I say, not as I do.” We hear from pundits, pastors, and politicians that God’s way of democracy and equal rights of all people is part of God’s plan for the world and then witness our rights as voters being more restricted every day. We hear from the pulpits of our churches that God loves us all, that Jesus died for our sins, that grace abounds while witnessing practices that vilify and condemn the lives of God’s children. 

Out of fear, 2SLGBTQIA+ people are disparaged. Books and magazines that might help our young people understand that they are not the spawn of Satan, but God’s children, are banned from the shelves of our libraries. Even while proclaiming the grace of God, many identifying as Christian practice programs of hate and discrimination.

Many politicians speak of living in a world where “all are created with inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, and then inflict Jim Crow-like laws that withhold the means for those who live on the margins from ever sharing in the great American aspiration. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), which includes support of not only Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) but also considers treatment of gender, religious affiliation, native language, and physical and cognitive abilities who consistently fall behind, is so threatening to many in government, that our institutions of learning are denied adequate funding and are held hostage until they drop DEI programming. And because this form of domestic terrorism is part of our legislative process, no one speaks very loudly to oppose it.

It is time to call pastors, politicians, and one another to accountability. And so, it is with my mighty mouse squeak that I, Nicodemus, pontiki Ekklesias, echo these words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew. “Listen to those who sit on seats of authority, but do not do as they do.”

As Peter (not the disciple) says, “God does not love God’s people because of who they are, what they wear, who their parents are, or what they do. God loves

God’s people because God made them!” He continues to assure all people, “God loves us because we are God’s! God loves us enough to die for us. God destroys death and rises from the cosmic battle, victorious. Alive IN a relationship of vibrant, living God-love, we are assured that God loves us and will bring us to Godself when our pilgrimage on earth is ended. God has created us in God’s own image. The perfection of God is not some Hellenistic, able-bodied, nonproportional parody of the human form, nor is it limited to some Nordic Aryan blond, blue-eyed, white-skinned body. Each of us reflects God’s image.

“God’s perfection is witnessed in the many faceted perfection of ALL of God’s creation.” It is time to stop lording it over others while protecting the wealthiest among us and those pretentious power prevaricators who populate politics. It is time to begin the work of serving today rather than focusing on condemning those persons of power, pietism, and politics in Matthew so many years ago.

God loves you! Yes, you! Live like you know that you are loved.

That’s all the squeaking roar this mouse has today.

Living in the freedom Christ gives,

Your pal,

Nicodemus

Editor, Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse

A PALMER’S PRAYER FOR ALL SAINT’S DAY, 2023

With palm branch in my hand, I went in the world,

Crying words of hoped for salvation,

“Hosanna, Lord, save us, I am a sinner among sinners

And cannot free myself. Hosanna! Lord, have mercy.”

And the Roman soldiers came, and the power of Rome came down;

And people died and people cried, and the earth shook and broke wide open.”

Wipe away every tear from our eyes and lead us to the waters of life.

And we waited; with bated breath, we waited.

 

With a song of hope in my heart, I went into the world,

Among the people without number, singing praises,

“Amen! Blessings and glory, and wisdom and thanksgiving, and honor and power and might be to God.

And lives, for entertainment, were lost, in coliseums.

And people died and we cried, and we washed our battle robes in the blood of vengeance,

Calling it white, and calling it right, and calling it satisfaction.

Wipe away every tear from our eyes and lead us to the waters of life.

And we waited; with bated breath, we waited.

 

With reforming words in my mouth, I went into the world,

Proclaiming the liberty of God’s undeserved love for the people;

And the people argued, and they fought, and they chose self-determining power.

The lamb was chased from the field and butchered to eat for soldiers

Who sailed to foreign shores, there people to enslave,

To rape and pillage in the power of the cruciform sword.

Wipe away every tear from our eyes and lead us to the waters of life.

And we waited; with bated breath, we waited.

 

With songs of New Jerusalem on my lips, I went into the world,

And became a thief and a murderer, finding ways to see people as less than human;

Here we fought Europe’s wars on their foreign shores

And possessed the lands of the unknowing vanquished,

Declaring our freedom, while buying and selling the freedom of others;

And they died and they cried as we profited from their labors and land.

Wipe away every tear from our eyes and lead us to the waters of life.

And we waited; with bated breath, we waited.

 

With a song of protest and a dream, I went into the world,

Acknowledging my white demagoguery, seeking peace,

Hoping to overcome some day the sins

 of prejudice, hate, and dispossession;

And from the streets, we heard, “They will not replace us.”

Then, with flag and cross, social covenants tottered.

Wipe away every tear from our eyes and lead us to the waters of life.

And we waited; with bated breath, we waited.

 

With a song of lament, I went into the world,

Remembering those who have died in the name of power,

In the lie of empire, fearing and hating what they cannot understand:

That the poor in spirit are a blessing,

That peacemakers engage the kingdom of heaven,

That mourning can lead to laughter in God’s justice.

Wipe away every tear from our eyes and lead us to the waters of life.

And we waited, with bated breath, we waited.

 

With no words for a song, I go into the world,

Hearing the silence of the dead in Ukraine, the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh,

The thousands of Israelis, Palestinians—Christians and Muslims,

And those who will die from gun violence today.

And I’m thinking that maybe waiting is not helpful.

Maybe it is time to do something for Christ’s sake.

Wipe away every tear from our eyes and lead us to the waters of life.

That we might live and act, in word and deed, with you for peace.