Easter Vigil, Westport

I met a guy named Neaners a few months ago. That was his street name, anyway, and it seems to have stuck. He is from Burlington, in the Skagit Valley north of Seattle, where, like here, a lot of people are dealing with poverty, addiction, violence, and a lot of struggle. Neaners was a Latino gang leader and had spent 7 1/2 years in prison, much of it in solitary.

While he was there, he had a dream. He said he envisioned a “lil’ farm with flowers and pigs and animals ‘n shit” where “homies can kick back in their chanclas [sandals]” and the “unloved and wanted” could make meals, sing, plant vegetables and “be in a lovin’ kinda place.” He dreamed of a farm and a place where kids just coming out of jail and prison could come, could work and earn a living, and could find love and acceptance. When he got out, he has built that dream.

Together, kids who used to belong to white power gangs work alongside the sons and daughters of Latino farm workers. Former tweakers and gang members work together.

I was impressed by Neaners and I was even more impressed by his vision and his leadership. Here, in our School of Hard Knocks, we have been dreaming too, dreaming of ways to build a movement to end poverty here on the harbor. Dreaming of ways we can work together and build a better world.

 And, in the middle of our everyday grind, dreams of a better world can seem pretty far off, cant they?

That’s why we celebrate Easter.

Jesus was a backwoods carpenter turned religious teacher who lived under occupation. That is, he lived under the Roman Empire, lived in deep poverty, and lived in a time where everyone was wondering if there was any way out.

And he preached a different kind of world, a different kingdom, he called it. He hung out with all the people the religious people didn’t like—criminals, sex workers and hustlers, fisherfolk and farm workers. Beyond that, he was one of them; couch surfing during most of his ministry, sometimes homeless.

For three years, he built a movement, as hundreds and maybe thousands of poor people dreamed with him of a better world. Of a world where everyone had enough, where no one was hungry, where all were healed and whole. And, just one week before Easter, he marched with those people into the capital city of Jerusalem, announcing a new movement, announcing a new kingdom. He marched into the temple, and threw out the business owners who were making a profit off of people’s poverty, and declared a new kingdom.

And he was a threat. The religious leaders and the political leaders of the city realized that he was a threat to their power. He had masses of people behind him, so they waited until he was mostly alone, sleeping outside in a garden park. He was arrested and his followers ran for their lives. He stood trial and was sentenced to be executed by crucifixion.

It seemed, at that moment, that the Empire had won. That Jesus’ movement was over. That the kingdom he preached about would never come. That the poor would never have enough, that the hungry would stay hungry. That despair was going to win.

And then we have this strange story of resurrection. Jesus comes alive again. Its like God is saying; “Oh, no. You can’t end my kingdom that easily. You, Rome, are not going to win.”

And that resurrection ignites a huge movement. Jesus’ movement for the liberation of the poor continues after all.

That is why we celebrate Easter. That is why we sit here and remind ourselves that another world is possible. That is why we continue to dream and work for a better world. That is why Neaners started his garden and his farm.

I love to watch us dream. Dream of better housing as too many of our people are homeless. Dream of good and meaningful work. Dream of starting farms and gardens. Write letters to those who are behind bars. Dream of a better world for our young people. Dream of building a community that truly cares for each other. Lets keep dreaming. Lets keep working toward Easter, living Easter.

Alleluia, Christ is risen.

Cry Glory

Sermon: Transfiguration Sunday

I recently received a letter from a young woman in jail. In my role as a street pastor, I visit jails often. And I often write back and forth with people. This young woman writes to say that our little church building in Westport is one of the few places in her life where she has experienced any kind of acceptance. She writes that the harbor is a “dark and depressing place” but that finding some space where she feels welcome and accepted makes things just a little bit better.

As I work on the streets, I am always struck by just how young our community is. Here in Aberdeen, over half our population is under 35. So many of our young people are on the streets, couch surfing, and in and out of jail.  Grays Harbor county has, for example, the highest rate of incarcerating children for non-criminal offences in the nation.

And I think about the profound effect that has on generations of young people. For example, I work with many, many young mothers.  Most of the baptisms I perform are in hospital rooms, as moms hold their babies and give them names. Sometimes I only have a few minutes, as I borrow hospital water, and trace the sign of the cross on the baby’s forehead. Just a few minutes before CPS takes custody. I walk with moms who try desperately to try to find a place to stay, who try desperately to get clean for their baby, who try desperately to make a life and a family that they have never had. 

Some of them tell me what it is like to have been in and out of juvie and jail, what it is like to have been told by everyone in their life that they would never amount to anything.

I’m telling you these stories because our text opens this morning with Jesus talking about suffering. Jesus lives in an occupied land. He knows that, as he travels up to Jerusalem, that he is going to be arrested, jailed, and executed. It has happened to so many others.

My ministry also always begins with suffering. We had so many people die last year. The youngest was a 23 year old veteran, a young man who lived for a short time in your parking lot over this past summer. I just sat with a young woman this last week who had just got out of major surgery and was in terrible pain. They could only afford one night in a hotel and then she would be on the street. No time for recovery when you are homeless.  

Everywhere in the city, in this county, there is extensive suffering. It can feel unrelenting. It can feel unending. It can be so easy to give up hope.

I think it was that way for Jesus and his disciples too. Which is why I think we have the story of the Transfiguration.

Just after Jesus tells his disciples that he is expecting to face arrest and execution, he takes Peter and John up a mountain. And then the story honestly gets a little strange. I mean, what would you think if your friends come back from a hike and say that they just saw two dead people talking with your best friend?

But, strangeness aside, Peter and John witness an extraordinary moment. Jesus, standing in glory. And, with him, Moses and Elijah, two great figures from the Hebrew Bible.  

You know, it is easy to imagine that glory and triumph come from the top. 1000 years ago, many Christians seemed to believe glory came with tyrant kings marching on crusades. Even now, we sometimes equate glory with ornate cathedrals, or with big budgets, or with winning national elections.

But, in our text this morning, glory comes in the person of Jesus, a poor carpenter about to be executed by the state. And, standing with him, is a shepherd and rebel leader who led his people out of slavery and a courageous prophet who spent the better part of his life and ministry on the run from the law.

And, for just a moment, as Jesus prepares to set his face toward suffering and death, we see him revealed in glory.  Its only for a moment. The text tells us that, just as soon as the disciples see this, it is gone and they are alone again with Jesus. But, for a moment, they witness glory.  In a little corner of an occupied empire, a few poor fishermen witness glory.

Even so, every now and again, I get to witness glory.

And it comes in precious moments when I witness extraordinary courage.

When, against all odds, a courageous mom gets through treatment and fights like hell for her baby.

When a man in prison donates most of his earnings toward helping people get housing.

When people stand up for each other, when a young man-- with warrants out for his arrest  no less-- stands in front of the mayor and asks him to listen to the concerns of homeless people.

When people sacrifice for each other. When people, surrounded by so much despair, choose life.

When a few leaders of tent city decided that they wanted to create a community that protects each other and adamantly works to create space that is safe for vulnerable and disabled people.

When young women in jail, stripped of everything, in their early 20s, having spent more of their life locked up than out, still look out for each other.

When a homeless kid who slept in a shack last night and walked in shivering cooks lunch for his neighborhood and greets everyone with a giant smile on his face.

These are my heroes. 

Glory. A glory that comes, not in great power, not with great pomp, but glory that comes to us in the middle of great and profound suffering. Glory demonstrated in acts of unspeakable courage and love. Glory that reminds us of a poor carpenter, a rebel leader, and a hunted prophet.

My dear correspondent from jail was not wrong when she said that the harbor was a dark and depressing place for so many. But it is also, in the middle of that, home to profound courage. In the deep suffering that I witness, in all of the pain and the tragedy, I also am humbled and profoundly grateful to witness the glory.

At the end of that vision on that mountain so many years ago, the two disciples hear a voice from heaven saying; “This is my son, my beloved.” Perhaps that is the most glorious thing of all. Being reminded, because this is what Jesus came to remind us, that we are all beloved children of God. On the streets, in jails, under bridges, and in all the tragedy of life on the harbor, people cling to that. They fight for that. They fight for their dignity, their worth as children of God.

As I witness that, all I can do is stand in awe of great and profound courage.

And cry Glory!

Daring to Hope

It takes so much courage to hope.

When I visited Palestine a year ago, someone had scrawled a message on the concrete wall that divides the West Bank from Israel. It said; “Hope against hope.” When I was there, we met with a young woman from Bethlehem who had been educated in the U.S., but decided that it was her mission to return to her hometown. She works with Dar al-Kalima, a Lutheran program that offers art and education to young Palestinians in the West Bank. She talked about how her role was to hold hope for her people. I was struck, in that room that day, surrounded with the stories of people’s suffering, just how much courage it takes to hope.

That has stuck with me. It stuck with me largely because I feel like that is what I do, what we do, in our ministry. Hold hope.

I started Chaplains on the Harbor in September of 2013, on a hope and a prayer, while I was a deacon assigned in Aberdeen. After being away for the better part of a decade, I started this ministry very close to my own hometown, in the county I grew up. It is the kind of place that none of us who leave ever intend to come back. I didn’t expect to ever return.

But here I am. We split our time between Aberdeen and the little fishing town of Westport, where we have our church building. Grays Harbor County is one of the poorest counties in the state, with about half of our residents accessing social services to survive. We have the highest incarceration rates of minors for non-criminal offences in the country. We have hundreds of people on the streets and hundreds more couch surfing. It’s a place that has been poor and desperate for a very long time.

It is a place that finds it hard to hope. All the time, I hear people say how dark Aberdeen and the harbor feels. How difficult it is to survive there. Most of the folks we work with are in their 20s and 30s. They have grown up on the harbor, as our industries collapsed. Many of them went through the foster care system or through juvie. Most of them have been in and out of jail, on and off the streets, ever since. As I minister with people, as I am their pastor, on the streets, in the jails, in our community meals and services, we talk a lot about hope.

The gospel reading this morning is Luke’s introduction to Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is claiming this beautiful text in Isaiah to explain his mission.

To bring good news to the poor

To release prisoners

To heal the sick

To let the oppressed go free.

And he doesn’t preach this as some kind of glorious future. He stands in Nazareth, a poor village on top of a mountain, preaching to the folks he grew up with, a bunch of poor villagers and farmers. And he is bold enough to say; “Today.” This mission is now. Not in a future heaven. Not in a future kingdom. But now. Today. We can hope today.

The lectionary stops there for this week, but we have to note that the rest of the story doesn’t go so well.

You would think that this news that Jesus brings, this mission that he preaches would go over pretty well in Nazareth. But it doesn’t. When people realize what Jesus is saying, they get scared. And angry. They literally run Jesus out of town and try to throw him off a cliff.

The message is too dangerous, too scary. They live under occupation and if they let Jesus keep preaching, they could be in danger. (And keep in mind: they are not wrong. Jesus is executed only a few years later). I wonder, too, if it is just too hard to hope. Too hard to hope that things can change. That was not the main response to Jesus’ teaching. Great crowds in Galilee follow him everywhere. But, for the folks in the synagogue that day, hope was too much, too dangerous to ask.

There are times that hope can seem too dangerous on the harbor. Poverty pits people against each other. People are afraid to speak out because they could go to jail or get picked up on their warrants or lose their apartment if they complain about how bad things are for them.

But, I have to say, as dark as things can get, most of what I see is courage. It takes so much courage to hope.

I walk with young moms who have been on the streets most of their lives, who fight for their children. They fight to get clean for their kids, they fight to find a place to live for their kids, they fight against impossible odds to try and regain custody and make a family they never had. It takes so much courage to hope.

I walk with young kids in jail—many of them in the their early 20s—kids with felonies for sleeping in abandoned buildings when its cold or self medicating with opiates for chronic pain or shoplifting—whatever it takes to survive-- and they fight to imagine a better life. Like small towns all over the country, there are few legitimate jobs and most of these kids have never had one. They dream of getting out and making a better life for themselves. It takes so much courage to hope.

I walk with elders and young people on the street as, this last year, they created Aberdeen’s first organized tent city. They were called names by the city, they’ve had police raids and giant rocks thrown at them, but they have stayed the course. They believe that the work that they do is important, that they are bringing the crisis of homelessness to the public eye and that they deserve to be part of building a better future. It takes so much courage to hope.

I walk with a community in Westport, a community where nearly 70% of the adult population is out of the workforce. People with disabilities, people who work in the canneries or clean fishing boats, people who live in trailer parks and abandoned buildings and in tents on the beach—all of us together build a community where we eat together and pray together and provide space for each other. We never do it perfectly and sometimes we drive each other crazy, but we are learning to love and care for each other. It takes so much courage to hope.

These are my heroes. These are the men and women who dare to hope. Who dare to imagine a world where the prisoners are free and the oppressed liberated. Who dare to stand up to city councils and public opinion and police raids. Who dare to hope. Who dare to do what the Nazareth community was not ready to do when Jesus first showed up. Who dare to do what Jesus led a whole rabble multitude to do in Galilee.  

We dare to hope.

Dr. Raheb, the pastor of that Lutheran community in Bethlehem, said that hope was like planting olive trees. He said; “We plant olive trees so that there will be trees for the children to play in. So that there will be oil to bind up their wounds. So that there will be branches to wave for the prince of peace.”

We hope like that. We eat together in the hope of a world where no one goes hungry. We visit each other in jail in the hope of a world where all our children are free. We worship together in the hope of a world where all are given the dignity and respect they deserve as children of God. We build community in the hope of a better world.

We dare to hope.

Marked and Sealed

Sermon: Baptism of our Lord

Most of baptisms I have performed have been in hospital rooms, with young mothers who sometimes have just moments with their babies before then lose custody. I use borrowed water. Moms promise to love God and their little one. I say the words of baptism and I give their babies the names their mama chose. Then, I trace a cross on their little foreheads and say those words; “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism, and marked as Christ's own forever.”

I love those words. I love them because I usually never get to see these babies again. The state usually takes custody within hours. I know these little ones have a long road ahead and so do their moms.

It is some comfort to me to say those words; “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.”

That as difficult as this little one’s life might be, another world is possible. Life is possible.

I think about the young people who ask me about baptism. The young woman in county jail who wants to be baptized.

Baptism is a kind of initiation. An initiation into the kingdom of God.  In our text, John introduces it as another way to live. The people who come to him for baptism—farmers and fisherfolk, tax collectors, soldiers—come looking to turn around. To find a new way to live in the middle of occupation. To be initiated into something different.

I think of all the ways that our children in Grays Harbor are initiated.

Sometimes as young as 10 or 11, children are initiated into a life of poverty and struggle in juvie. Here on the harbor, we have the highest rate of child incarceration—for non criminal offences— in the country.  Here, jail begins early. It is an initiation. I know young women who have been told from the time they are 12 or 13, by social workers, by judges, that they will never amount to anything. That they will never be anything more that drug addicted, knocked up mothers.

An initiation into a life of poverty and jail.

Gangs have initiation rituals, often violent ones, sometimes by proving your courage by letting gang members beat you up.

An initiation into a life of kill or be killed, of dealing on the black market and trafficking drugs, of surviving in a world that is hard to survive.

So many initiations. The moment our children realize no one is on their side. The moment mothers realize they cannot keep their children. The moment people really start to believe they have no future.

I am sure first century Palestine, just like 21^st century Palestine, had its own initiations like that.

So, in all this suffering and all these initiations, baptism is a different kind of initiation.

First, its an initiation into a world where God cares. None of my young folks on the street believe that anyone cares for them. And sometimes they are right. But, in baptism, we say that God cares. We proclaim a faith in a God who says through Isaiah; “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” Few people on the street have their birth names, sometimes by fate, sometimes by choice. But baptism proclaims a faith in a God who knows your true name.

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.” In jail, in prison, chained or free, on the streets, in cold tents, couch surfing with people you barely know, in the hospital, dying, escaping death—those are the waters. Death is everywhere. Last week, I stood at the bedside of a young man who very narrowly escaped death. Everyone on the streets knows the waters. But a God who is with them, with us, who does not judge, but cares; who knows death with us, who died once with us—that is a radical God.

Baptism acknowledges the death around us. But even in the middle of the terror, it initiates us—ALL OF US—into a different life.

Into a different sort of kingdom. A kingdom that John preaches, a kingdom where soldiers and tax collectors stop exploiting people and poor people share with each other, a kingdom where everyone has enough and poor people don’t end up locked up or slaughtered.

We are baptized into death. We die to the empire and all its desires. We die to greed. We die to caring only for ourselves.

In a world that tells us to hoard all we have, we rise to share with each other.

In a world that tells us to only look after ourselves, we rise to love each other in real and tangible ways.

In a world that constructs prisons for children, we rise to struggle with them for their freedom and release.

In a world that calls too many of us trash and worthless, we rise to leadership in the kingdom of God.

We rise. We rise with a God who cares into a community that takes care of each other.

Today we celebrate the “baptism of our Lord.” Only, in Luke, the focus is on Jesus as just one of many who get baptized. So, this is a day to remember our baptism. To remember that we die to the world as it is, in all of its greed and cruelty. To remember that we rise to new life, in the company of a God who cares, in the hope of a better world, here and now.

As we celebrate a renewal of our baptismal vows this morning, I am going to be thinking of moms crying in hospital beds and tiny babies carried off, only held long enough to be baptized and named. I am going to be thinking of the young people who crave baptism in jail, who are dying, literally, for a better world. I am going to be thinking of the vows we say, to love God and each other and to respect the dignity of every human being.

And, above all, I am going to be thinking of those words, said over each of our heads and the heads of those I love; “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism, and marked as Christ's own forever.”