I Can Run But I Cannot Hide

It’s awfully quiet here, Lord

In this holy homey place

Just you and me or so it seems

This room do you in some way grace?

The cold outside

It freezes right down to the bone

The orphan and immigrant there abide

Are the seeds of faith there sown?

Here in this house our home

It seems we have it all

Food to eat and clothes to wear

How prepared are we for heaven’s roll call?

The world needs you

We all would surely agree

Love the Lord your God, is that possible

Amidst hatred, racism, and all their debris?

Just one life to live

Is this how this thing works

To leave the world a better place

Blot out meanness which violently lurks?

For is it truly in those stories

That we discover that truth is told

The Man from Nazareth speaks His mind

Love my neighbor as myself isn’t that pretty bold?

Throw the Stone, Lob the Gas

The biblical narrative of the woman caught in the act of adultery has fascinated you and me for years, has it not? After we debate the inclusion or exclusion of this story in the Gospel of John, we settle into it because it is terribly consistent with the Jesus we know in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Therein lies much hope.

Have you ever wondered about the deeper, richer context of this story? If so, you might read Schneider's article which you can find here. I think you'll find it interesting and challenging. 

Against this scene in which stoning was an overt option, I am thinking about lynching as public spectacle and theater. Thousands and thousands would gather to watch as a black person was lynched, charred, and mangled. Maybe public lynchings have been community events for a long time. In my recent publication, you'll find a section about this heinous activity. 

There is the scene of intense opposition. While He is sitting and teaching in the temple courts, the scribes (those who could write, as not all could) and the Pharisees come with a demand in an all too obvious attempt to trap Him. “We’ve caught her in the act of adultery and the Law demands that we stone her. What do you say?” 

The intent is to entrap and to lynch or stone this woman publicly in the community of Jerusalem. Outside the walls, of course.

To this situation of great irony, He pauses, kneels, writes on the ground while they continue to pepper Him with questions.

In the background rests the intense anxiety of the leaders of the day. They had lost control over their ability to self-govern to the power of the Roman government. Apparently, the Sanhedrin and its power had been diminished, much to the chagrin and anger and frustration of the Jewish people. No longer were the Jews able to proscribe lynching as an answer to crimes committed. The Roman government would not stand for it. Some leaders have sold out to the Romans. Others attempt to maintain their own sense of control by living segregated insofar as possible from the powers that be.

If Jesus said, do away with her, He would run against the grain of not only His teachings, but against the Roman government. If he said to let her go, He’d run against the teachings in the Law and the Prophets.  He was trapped. Or was He?

“If anyone of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” One by one they departed until Jesus was alone with the woman. Her accusers had walked away, the oldest to the youngest. “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir.” “Then neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.”

I am pondering current day applications. Some I see. Perhaps you see others. Perhaps there are none. I think there are several.

We are stuck potentially on the horns of a dilemma, obey God or obey the God perpetrated upon us by the religious right and their anointed and appointed one in the White House. That man allegedly has the power to change the laws of the land with regard to any number of things, including immigrants. He has the autocratic power of the tweet and the pen to change things as he wishes, so he and his followers think. If we honor him, we are honoring God; and if we dishonor him, we are dishonoring God. If we deal graciously with the immigrant caravan, we will allow our nation to be plundered by criminals and thieves and the like. If we build that wall, and if we close off the borders, we insulate and protect ourselves against the raging hoards at our borders. And doing so honors God.

Or, obey God as we are told to obey God, or allow or chosen country to be swept away by immigrants who are turning our nation brown or less and less white.

The irony of honoring the Holy One of Israel versus honoring the presidency as it is currently inhabited is too biting to ignore.

Out of a power sense of ambiguity Jesus defused the mob intent upon lynching the woman. And, oh by the way, where was the man who participated in the vile act?

Our current political scene is driven by anxiety, especially in my opinion, those at one end of the political spectrum. MAGA or we shall all lose in the end. MAGA or we shall all be surrounded by brown people.  MAGA or the left will lead us down the slippery slopes to hell.

To ease our anxieties, we place prohibitions and controls on people and institutions. Out of our fear, we catastrophize and demonize the least of these. Yes, those people. The least of these.

Out of what sense of righteousness do we push back on inhumane treatment of people in our day and age? When power and privilege are right in front of our faces, demanding lynchings of various sorts, what do we do for the sake of righteousness? How do we stand with those who are facing the firing squad or the lynching tree or the tear gas or the jails?

Let those who have absolutely no ancestry of immigration in their background throw the first stone at an immigrant. Let those who have pure white blood cast aside the first person of color. Let those who are sinless castigate and rage against the sinners of our time.

Moral authority. Integrity. Standing with a non-anxious presence in the face of existential anxiety.

Hanging Out with Jesus Might Get You in Trouble

Hanging out with Jesus

            Or so that text seemed to say;

Those folks were pretty new to him and him to them

            So they moseyed off by themselves to get more acquainted.

Hanging out around the nets

            Or the tax collection booth or under some tree;

But now they’re hanging out with the Man from Nazareth

            Just wondering how it played out.

How much was Him laying it on the line

            Or telling stories;

How much was a question and answer period

            As they decided whether to continue the journey.

Or, were their minds already made up

            So that this hanging out together business

Was just a deepening of the relationship

            Prepping for what was ahead.

Who knew that the woman at the well was coming

            Who knew that the woman taken in adultery was next

Who knew that the man with leprosy was somewhere down the road

            Who knew that the seas raging was going to be part of the plan.

Did they know how their views of life would change,

            Did they know that what was sacred would get flipped,

Did they know that things they’d always known would get scrambled,

            Did they know that the rules would be turned upside down.

Surely they did not know that He’d weep with those who wept,

            Surely they did not know that women would support His ministry,

Surely they did not know that the privileged would be threatened,

            Surely they did not know that the blind would see and the lame walk.

Maybe they had an inkling that the poor were his focus,

            Maybe they had an inkling that justice was His middle name,

Maybe they had an inkling that they would see a different righteousness,

            Maybe they had an inkling that they did not have a clue.

The blind could see, the deaf could hear,

            The pushed to the curb invited to the inner circle,

The untouchable would be embraced,

            The ones left beside the road would be taken to the inn.

What are we to learn about the Man from Nazareth,

            What are we to learn from the way He walked,

What are we to learn from the hard-headed followers,

            What are we to learn from their time of hanging out together.

What if I were to hang out with Him for a while,

            Who would I stand up for and who would be embraced,

Would it be the immigrants, the poor, the LGBTQ, the person of color,

            Or could it maybe be those without insurance or those who are homeless.

Would I yell for justice to the leaders of the land

            Who say disparaging things about women or the disabled,

Would I scream from the rooftops against those who have sold the church

            And the Kingdom for a nationalistic agenda.

Would I march when some are sitting satisfied,

            Would I write words of discomfort to those who’ve already decided,

Would I donate to the causes of justice that trouble the privileged,

            Would I join up for those who are leading these efforts.

Hanging out with Jesus just might get some of us in trouble.

Here in the Red and White Tent

Here in the Red and White Tent

Waymon Hinson

August 27, 2017

Here in this tent

            We are singing

Here in this tent
            We are praying.

The one at the top of the hill

            Striped red and white.

Here in this tent

            He preaches truth and grace
Here in this tent
            He translates with enthusiasm and rhythm.

The one at the top of the hill

With the two-holed toilet down below.

Here in this tent

            They dance as they sing
Here in this tent
            They moved into the isle.

The one down the long bumpy road

We sit and we stand full of people.

Here in this tent

            We are called to finish well
Here in this tent
            We know and worship.

In this red and white tent at the top of the hill

Here in rural Africa.

Almost You Talked Me Into It: A Nod to King Agrippa and Paul the Apostle

I sit on my throne of judgement
Listening to your impassioned words
Making sense of them and
They collide with my entitled world.

Almost you talked me into stepping

Down from my safe privileged space
And power to humble myself
Before your King of Kings so you say.

You speak of monumental moments

In your life’s narrative leading to
Telling me that my life
Can find newer meaning if I’ll only come around.

I sit and I listen quietly to these new words

After all I am powerful and you are a prisoner
But your words and your passion are not the same
As I usually hear when sitting up this high.

Almost you talked me into it

Almost but not quite
You gave it a good shot see you later if at all
You go and die and I’ll stay safe and secure here.

He sits on his chair of opinion and privilege

Across the table or before her computer
The words stories and tales of suffering and woe
Reach out to capture his heart, seize her soul.

She hears and does not hear

He sees and does not see
Tormented souls and strife and struggle
Then explains them as before.

You almost talked me into it

Almost but not quite
Your impassioned plea for those people
Landed on my ears but I’ll just see them with old eyes.

Almost you persuaded me to believe in their cause

Almost not quite in their stories
I will stay the same in my insulated world
From my safe space I will name-call blame insult demean.

The least of these

Collides with that which is me
And that which is me
Trumps the least of these.

Almost

Not quite
And so we part
Almost was not enough.

Protest, Dissent, and the Gospel, Part Two

Protests take many shapes and sizes and names.  Some are loud with hundreds or even thousands of people.  Some are community driven. Some are a solo walk.  Some take the form of refusing to buy products from various companies, or to shop in certain stores. All are principle-driven, and those principles are as varied as are our people.

As for me, I want there to be principles and an over-arching principle.  I want to be able to look in the Creator’s face and explain why I will protest some things and not others. Because of that, I lean toward a social justice orientation. That’s what the prophets did when they shouted from the mountaintops about the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor and a variety of other things. 

Along with saving us from ourselves, Jesus was the Divine Provocateur.  He could not bring His message to the world without upsetting the social and religious order of things. Sometimes he did his provoking in quieter surroundings like speaking to the woman at the well who was most likely marginalized by the other women in the community given her serial marriage situation.  Sometimes he spoke in more public settings like with the woman caught in the act of adultery when she was dragged before him but not the man with whom she was having sexual intercourse. Then there is the most public scene when he cleared the Temple of those who were polluting it.  The story is told twice, once in John 2 and the other in Mark 11. Did it happen twice or just get written into the text at two places? Either way, he made a serious public scene, driving the buyers and the sellers out, turning over the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and he “would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts” (Mark 11: 16).  The disturbance was so profound that the chief priests and the teachers of the law heard about it and began to look for ways to take Him out.  They realized that the crowd was mesmerized by Him and they had to go slow.

Look at where it got Him. For some of us, our protests lead to “unintended consequences.” For Jesus of Nazareth, He knew where it was leading. He told His followers several times until it finally sunk it, afterwards. I do not pay with my life when I voice opinions and beliefs. I may lose friends or wind up being avoided in certain settings, but I do not die for what I believe. Maybe I do not protest loudly enough.

At my house, we are not terribly rowdy.  We generally are mindful of our speech, tone, and words. We have friends and family who are much more vitriolic than we are. We do, however, care very deeply about things.  We protest in our own ways with our votes and our words. At the most basic of levels, we desire for our attitudes about protest and things we protest to matter to the one who protested at the highest levels and paid the most significant cost.

Protest, march, speak up, hold your coins, and other matters and let your decisions voice your principles. That way, we honor those who have come before us and we remain true to our convictions. That is the American way. That is the human way.