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Rev. Mihee Kim-Kort 9/26/23 Rev. Mihee Kim-Kort 9/26/23

"This Generation"

Trying to make sense of “this generation” can be fraught with misapprehension. Many things are different, yet many things remain the same. The Gospel of Matthew helps to reinvigorate our notions of modernity, and remind us of the place that children hold as descendants of faith and the new foundation for future discipleship.

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Inspired by the play-based curriculum of my children’s preschool, I used to turn my kitchen over to Desmond, Anna, and Ozzie, when they were barely toddling around and gurgling a few words at a time. I would get out all the pots and pans, every possible cooking utensil, and many large bowls of random ingredients: uncooked rice grains (to my mother’s chagrin), flour, baking soda, various shapes of dried pasta noodles, water, vinegar, food coloring. The shrieks of joy and frustration at the experiments we were concocting together punctuated the constant music of spoons clanging on bowls.

We would go at it: straining and combining, kneading and splashing, and if there was ever an image for the strange mixing of images and stories that often happens in so many of the stories of the Bible, (and especially the stories that Jesus tells us), this might be one possibility. I love the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel, and the chance to sit with his version of Christ’s life and ministry, a version that includes all the familiar stories ranging from the parables about the kingdom of heaven to the feeding of the multitudes.

Speaking of children, they actually play a striking role throughout most of the gospel of Matthew—they’re received and blessed by Jesus, they participate in miracles, they are recipients of healings. This is not surprising as Matthew’s focus is firmly rooted in one’s roots—the relationships between ancestors and descendants, and making explicit the line from Jesus to all the familiar characters beginning with Abraham to King David to less familiar names, then to “Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah. So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations,” (1:16-17). Matthew wants us thinking in terms of generations. Of the stories of ancestors. Of dreams of descendants. And all the beautiful ways we’re tied together.

There’s the moment in chapter 11, though, when he seems especially exasperated with “this generation.”

“But to what will I compare this generation?” (v. 16). He answers this himself with a parable about children who do not respond to the celebrating or to the wailing. Are the children who play and wail in the parable to symbolize the prophets of their tradition—Elijah, Moses? Or do they represent John the Baptist and Jesus? They were on opposite ends of the spectrum: John played the part of societal misfit, a throwback prophet whom many supposed was demon-possessed (v. 18). Jesus, on the other hand, associated himself with sinners and tax collectors, and was viewed “a glutton and a drunkard” (v. 19). John called for mourning and repentance in the face of judgment whereas Jesus proclaimed joy because of the presence of the kingdom. In both cases their messages encountered unbelief or indifference by “this generation.”

Having read this passage countless times over several years I always found myself nodding at the overall frustration that Jesus may have felt towards “this generation.” Why haven’t they figured it out?

The message of God’s kingdom was practically a bright, flashing neon sign with John the Baptist, and they had a front row view of the nearness of God’s kingdom enfleshed in Jesus: in all the teachings and miracles of healing and raising from the dead, of feedings and calming of storms and walking on water.

In other words, “this generation” in Matthew’s gospel seems easily swayed, capricious, even fickle.

At the same time, I can’t help but feel some empathy for them - the crowds, the people, the disciples… ”this generation.”

Chapter 11 is part of a narrative section following Jesus’ launching of the disciples out into the world – their commissioning to proclaim the good news: “The kingdom of heaven has come near;” and the work: to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Not only does “this generation” have this work, but there is the extra burden of the constant tension with the wider community; and not only the established religious community, but pressure from neighbors, relatives, colleagues and co-workers, and friends. There is judgment, rejection, persecution.

But this story isn’t just about the disciples, it was written to include Matthew’s community, (those reading the gospel at the time), that is, “this generation” includes Matthew’s people: those who’ve witnessed the destruction of the temple, the displacement of their people, and the emerging question of their own identity as God’s people in the midst of cultural upheaval, and governmental and political corruption. There was disease and poverty, and ongoing social inequities.

It feels familiar, doesn’t it? The world was heavy then, and it remains so today.

At the end of the prayer, Jesus offers an invitation. It is tantamount to turning from the narrative world to the writer’s world to the reader’s world, what we sometimes call “breaking the fourth wall.” Matthew intentionally includes future generations. That is, “this generation” is the church today, meaning all of us here. When Matthew has us thinking in terms of generations, it’s because the story is constantly extending out. The circle is constantly widening to include more and more of us.

“But to what will I compare this generation?”

I reflect often on this last year in which we’ve attempted to recover some semblance of pre-covid normalcy by returning to the speed and intensity of life before. Or maybe we tried not to because we did learn that our pre-covid lives were untenable – not for us, not for our planet. But we got swept up anyway into all the activities and work, the programs and commitments, and this on top of regular life with its new babies/grandbabies, illnesses, and travel—most of it good, wonderful and purposeful.

Suddenly, our calendars became fuller than ever. Maybe it’s just me. No doubt much has shifted not only in the last three years but even in just the last year. In hard ways. There are a lot of conversations now about “this generation,” and the impact of all that has happened - is happening in the world - on them. What can we do, or should we do with “this generation”?

It struck me that at least one thing has remained the same. All around us there are narratives and stories, voices and sources claiming answers: the formulas, the plans, apps and tools—proffering and asserting a “wisdom,” a certain way of operating in the world, of living, of being, of choosing. To be pushed and pulled in so many different directions – this too weighs on so many in “this generation.”

And so we have Jesus’ countercultural words at the end of the passage: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

Before this invitation Jesus gives thanks to God: “You have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” What does God reveal to “infants,” to the most vulnerable, to the least likely, to the powerless among them? To “this generation”? :

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

We are invited to rest. And certainly this resonates in profound ways during this summer season. But the kind of rest offered here is, (typical to Jesus’ vision), a radical alternative. Rest as a response of love. Rest as an offering of care. Rest as a way of being in this world when everything says “do” and “go,” and “scroll” or “download” or “buy”?

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.”

This invitation to rest is radical because it is also an invitation to a particular kind of discipleship.

According to NT scholar Colin Yuckman: Despite all the warnings about rejection and suffering (10:16-22), Jesus speaks of a discipleship characterized by “rest,” “light” burdens, and an “easy” (or “good”) yoke.

But light burdens and easy yokes appear oxymoronic. They produce a tension in our understanding of Matthew’s Gospel, in which Jesus elsewhere reminds disciples that “the gate is narrow and the road is hard” (7:14). Less than a chapter ago in Matthew we hear a different tone: “whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (10:38).

The command to “learn from me” in the Greek (mathete ap’ emou) is related to the word for “disciple” (mathetes). The invitation to discipleship, however, is more than cognitive learning, or overcoming a gap in knowledge; it is the adoption of a way of life. And this way of life is expressed in terms of doing and being something in relation to Jesus.

In other words: to learn from Jesus is to rest in the person of Jesus. To follow Jesus is to rest in the person of Jesus.

The promise of rest is not guaranteed vacation time, but a beautiful theological affirmation. Of who we are. Of who is with us and for us. And it has precedence. Yuckman goes on to explain: The language clearly recalls Moses’s own vocation (Exodus 33:12-17). To ease Moses’s anxiety about the uncertainty of the wilderness journey, God promises to accompany God’s people along the way: “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14). God will fulfill the promise for this people whose existence has known little rest (first enslavement, then wandering, later exile and captivity).

Discipleship then, according to Jesus in Matthew’s gospel, is the ongoing return to the person that is the source of all we are and do in this world. It is as the prophet Zechariah says in the passage today: a return to the stronghold and to the promises of God’s restoration. It is the simplicity of the child-like dependence on God who sees us and all we carry, and loves us.

I think often of the young people in our midst, in our churches, who especially participated this past summer in the work of the church, (whether at church camp or on pilgrimage). How might we affirm all their journeys, their work, their experiences because they too need reminders that God’s invitation to rest is an invitation to discipleship? But they also show us a particular kind of wisdom as “this generation,” which is their adventurous response to these invitations, this summer, engaging their belovedness.

Perhaps this is why children are an important motif throughout the gospel. We read elsewhere that “unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” To read about feeding the hungry is one thing; to give a cup of water to one of these little ones is quite another; but to receive that gift is a part of our faith.

This is an invitation to enact wisdom by redirecting our lives. Because the truth and wisdom of our faith is in the living. One discovers the wisdom of Jesus by following, (and yes, sometimes), doing, and also sometimes napping, (Google the Nap Bishop and the Nap Ministry). It’s also making space to dream and to imagine and to hope, and we do so by adopting his spirit and living his imperatives, that is, first to rest in him.

It is fitting that Matthew’s Gospel ends not with Jesus’ departure, but with the assurance of his ongoing presence: “I am with you, even to the end of the age” (28:20). We rest in Jesus, we respond in love so that through him we might be the flesh and blood, the hope and joy of his kingdom in this world.

Mihee Kim-Kort

Rev. Mihee Kim-Kort is a Presbyterian minister, agitator, speaker, writer, and slinger of hopeful stories about faith and church. Her writing and commentary can be found in the NY Times, TIME, BBC World Service, USA Today, Huffington Post, On Being, Christian Century, Sojourners, and Faith and Leadership. She is co-pastor with her spouse of First Presbyterian Church in Annapolis, MD and a doctoral candidate in Religious Studies at Indiana University.

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Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.

As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.

Dr. Raj Nadella 4/8/21 Dr. Raj Nadella 4/8/21

Preaching Thomas and Embodied Solidarity (John 20:19-29)

In the story of post-resurrection appearances in John 20, Thomas seems to ask for proof of Jesus’s resurrection. But was he also asking for something else?

When Jesus made a surprise visit to the disciples, he showed them his hands and side, apparently to convince them that he had risen from the dead. There was much celebration of this joyful reunion that Thomas learned about from other disciples. The Greek word elegon, a past continuous verb, suggests that the disciples kept telling him that they saw Jesus, but Thomas wasn’t ready to believe yet.

He wanted proof that the Jesus who appeared to the disciples was the same Jesus who was crucified. He wanted concrete proof of the risen Jesus.

It must have been hard for Thomas, and others, to believe that Jesus who confronted the Roman empire and challenged its status quo could actually survive and tell the story. It would have been hard to fathom that anyone could beat Rome’s death machine which had effectively eliminated every single challenge to its apparatus of oppression. Understandably, the idea of meeting the risen Jesus seemed unrealistic to Thomas.

For communities ravaged by imperial violence, the idea that justice can prevail seems like an impossible scenario.

However, John 20 suggests that Thomas was not interested solely, or even primarily, in proof that Jesus rose from the dead. If he only wanted proof of resurrection, he would have simply asked to see Jesus and perhaps touch him. But Thomas is asking for much more: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

Why was it especially important for him to see Jesus’s nail marks, feel the holes left by the nails and touch the wound in his side that had been pierced by the Romans?

Apparently, Thomas wants proof of Jesus’s crucifixion and suffering as well. He seems more interested in visible and tangible proof that Jesus who appeared to the disciples was in fact crucified. Later, when Jesus makes another appearance, he invites Thomas to examine his nail marks and put his hand in his side. All this begs the question: Why was it important for Thomas to be convinced that Jesus did in fact die on the cross?

Gerard Sloyan helpfully noted that John’s gospel was likely addressing an early form of Docetism. The word Docetism is derived from Greek word dokein which means “to seem.” Docetics believed that Jesus was a phantom-like figure who did not suffer on the cross but only appeared to do so. Within that context, John likely employed the Thomas figure to address such doubts and highlight the significance of Jesus’s suffering on the cross. Hence, the emphasis on the nails and putting his hand in the side that was pierced.

On a practical level, Thomas and others must have known at least a few figures who led popular movements against the Roman empire, gave powerful speeches about confronting oppressive structures, built an image as champions of justice, but quietly slipped away when they had to put their bodies on the line. Which is why Thomas wants visible and tangible proof that Jesus put his body on the line in the process of confronting the empire.

He wants assurance that Jesus wasn’t just an eloquent teacher and a charismatic leader, but actually had his skin in the game, nails in his flesh and a spear in his side.

When Jesus finally met Thomas, he invited him to touch his wounds and side. The text doesn’t say whether Thomas actually touched them. He likely did not. He did not need to. The scars left by the nails and spear were too big too miss and too scary to touch.

Thomas responds by saying, “My God and My Lord.”

What made Thomas call Jesus God and Lord was not his power but his wounds and scars. It was not the resurrection alone that convinces Thomas of the Lordship of Jesus but the assurance that Jesus did in fact place his body on the cross.

For Thomas, the scars represent Christ’s commitment to challenge the power of the empire, to suffer along with the powerless, and stand in solidarity with them.

In a culture that celebrates the resurrection and its power as key aspects of the Christ event, the story of Thomas highlights the cross and suffering as the hallmarks of the Christ event. Many Christians gloss over Good Friday and move too quickly to Easter Sunday, perhaps due to a discomfort with the motif of Christ suffering. Within such contexts, this text celebrates embodied solidarity that was quintessential to the story of Jesus — God who became flesh, dwelt among us and suffered in the process of confronting forces of evil. Incarnation was about the word becoming flesh and the flesh putting itself on the line alongside the oppressed and allowing itself to be pierced and scarred.

In his book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, James Cone observes powerfully that “The gospel of Jesus is not a rational concept to be explained in a theory of salvation, but a story about God’s presence in Jesus’ solidarity with the oppressed, which led to his death on the cross. What is redemptive is the faith that God snatches victory out of defeat, life out of death, and hope out of despair.”

The hope that Cone highlights can only be realized when God’s people carry each other’s crosses in our everyday contexts and stand in solidarity with each other to bring life out of death and hope out of despair.

As we continue to reflect on Easter, meeting the risen Lord should not be solely about celebrating his victory over death but should focus on embracing his wounds and scars that signified God standing in solidarity alongside us. (Jesus’s invitation to Thomas to touch his wounds and put his hand in his side are an invitation for us to be in solidarity with each other and place our bodies on the line for those at the margins.)

The story of Thomas and the gospel of John in general tell us that embodiment matters in the struggle against injustice. They caution us against substituting words for embodied solidarity in the process of challenging the powers of our time. At a time when many Christians these days have invested right words and theologies to causes of justice but have largely not invested much skin in the game, the Thomas story insists on tangible proof that we have placed our bodies on the line in order to transform oppressive structures.

Dr. Raj Nadella

Raj Nadella is the Samuel A. Cartledge Associate Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. His research and teaching interests include postcolonial biblical interpretation, migration and New Testament perspectives on economic justice and their ethical implications for the Church and society. He is the author of Dialogue Not Dogma: Many Voices in the Gospel of Luke (T&T Clark, 2011) and an area editor for Oxford Bibliographies Online: Biblical Studies. He is the co-author of Postcolonialism and the Bible and co-editor of Christianity and the Law of Migration, both forthcoming in 2021. He has written for publications such as the Huffington Post, Christian Century and Working Preacher.

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Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.

As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.

Dr. Raj Nadella 1/14/21 Dr. Raj Nadella 1/14/21

Reflection on Terror in Washington D.C.

The violent attacks on our nation’s Capitol and the mayhem that unfolded are disturbing and shocking on many levels. Still, there is much about those attacks that is eerily familiar, especially the absolute sense of entitlement with which thousands of White insurrectionists stormed the capitol complex and the freedom they enjoyed in doing so.

It appears that the insurrection was driven not just by a sense of blind loyalty to Donald Trump but also by an irrational fear of the changing political landscape in the U.S. that has seen many people of color headed for prominent positions. The insurrection occurred as a Black-Indian woman is about to occupy the nation’s second highest office and the most diverse cabinet in American history is about to be sworn in. It occurred on the day a Black American and Jewish American won historic Senate victories in Georgia. Within this political context, the attack in D.C. was a grotesque display of power by White supremacists aimed at maintaining the status quo at any cost.

Many of the insurrectionists displayed, among other things, American flags and Christian symbols. Perhaps it is significant to note that many of them were also unmasked. The image of unmasked rioters carrying American flags and Christian symbols in support of White Supremacy is a metaphor for the ways the insurrection exposed the unholy alliance between White supremacy and some segments of Christianity. As the attacks on our nation’s Capitol were playing out, The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser tweeted about her teenage son quoting Sinclair Lewis, “When fascism comes to America, it will come cloaked in American flags and bearing crosses." The tweet highlights the ways sections of Christianity have been eagerly jumping into bed with the empire the last few years and enabling it to perpetuate ugly aspects of the empire in pursuit of power. Many self-styled Christian leaders have actively aided White Supremacy by weaponizing religious symbols and contributed to the current crisis.

The eighth century prophet Amos spoke of the divine disgust for people who substitute religious festivals, offerings, and symbols for justice, the quintessential divine attribute. Amos encouraged people to pay more attention to ensuring justice for the marginalized than to religious sacraments. What would Amos say in our context? He would ask Christians to focus more on addressing the idolatry of racism rather than on engaging in seemingly religious rituals. He would ask Christians not to engage in a form of religion that might cause them to be blind or indifferent to structural racism that treats armed White people attempting a coup much more gently than unarmed Black people questioning systemic violence, to paraphrase Jelani Cobb. If visible expressions of religion take precedence over commitment to justice, they run the risk of becoming substitutes for justice or even weaponized in service of injustice.

Few progressive Christians would participate in anything remotely similar to the attacks in D.C. but the prophetic call for the Church is to consistently privilege justice over religious symbols.

It is not enough not to actively contribute to the disease of racism. Any indifference to it or a failure to consistently enervate it invariably makes one complicit in it. My prayer is that faith leaders will have the needed wisdom to realize the seriousness of the Church’s complicity in this disease and sufficient courage to confront it.

Raj Nadella

Raj Nadella is the Samuel A. Cartledge Associate Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. His research and teaching interests include postcolonial biblical interpretation, migration and New Testament perspectives on economic justice and their ethical implications for the Church and society. He is the author of Dialogue Not Dogma: Many Voices in the Gospel of Luke (T&T Clark, 2011) and an area editor for Oxford Bibliographies Online: Biblical Studies. He is the co-author of Postcolonialism and the Bible and co-editor of Christianity and the Law of Migration, both forthcoming in 2021. He has written for publications such as the Huffington Post, Christian Century and Working Preacher.

Eric D. Barreto 9/17/20 Eric D. Barreto 9/17/20

Forgiveness: Can You Imagine It?

So, apparently, conflict over the minutia of life was not unknown to Paul. It's certainly not unknown to us, especially these days. Disagreement rings everyday in our ears. Contentiousness flows through our fingertips as we post about our politics and, sometimes — perhaps too rarely — our deepest convictions.

But the kind of conflict Paul outlines here (Romans 14:1-12) is not cosmic but quotidian, not central but adiaphora. It really doesn’t matter what we eat. It matters whom we serve. It really doesn’t matter what days we count as sacred. It matters who has adopted us.

The trouble, of course, is that we humans, all of us, are terrible at telling the difference between the conflicts that matter because they resonate in God’s reign and those conflicts that must strike God as so incredibly insignificant.

Our human tendency to mistake urgency for importance is older than breaking news on cable TV or the latest viral tweet.

Paul here calls us to attend to the stuff that matters. “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” In the light of life and death, vegetables and holidays fade from our view. In the light of God’s embrace, our squabbles cannot and will not break the fact that we belong one to another in God’s love.

But then again, we have to live together in this community. Easy for you to say Paul as you describe an ideal community to churches you have yet to visit!

When we strive to live in community, when we strive to learn together, when we strive to embody the kind of love to which the gospel calls us, conflicts are inevitable. Life together is difficult precisely because we need one another to discern the disputes that matter and those we can set aside as mere argumentation.

Moreover, in community, we are bound to hurt, to offend, to threaten the very relationships that God has nurtured in our midst. That a community will need to practice forgiveness is inevitable. At the same time, my friends, we have to understand that forgiveness is costly in community. Forgiveness requires hard conversations and harder moments of silence. Jesus calls us to forgive not seven times but 77 times in Matthew. And to be clear this is not a checklist of forgiveness but an extension of forgiveness as far as we can imagine. Forgiveness means setting aside our human propensity to blame and hold grudges in order to model God’s gracious embrace.

We might say that forgiveness is a journey, a way of life.

And in that journey of forgiveness repair is an unavoidable stop. After all, repair is the currency of the kingdom of God, the assurance of God’s grace, the embodiment of God’s restoration of all creation. If forgiveness is costly, repair is sacrificial and demanding alike.

This Sunday’s lectionary texts are full of reflections on forgiveness but also included is Miriam’s song celebrating the Lord casting Pharoah’s chariots into the sea. The alignment is instructive, for forgiveness without repair further harms the harmed and repair without forgiveness will always be a fragile truce between enemies.

We may not fight about vegetables or holy days or fasting all that much these days.

Yet we are drawn like moths to a flame to the kinds of disputes that do not resolve in repair but descend into reciprocal destruction.

As we begin this new semester in these days of pandemic and protests for justice and an election in which the lives of the marginalized are most at stake, God is calling us to life, the resurrected Jesus leads us from death into abundant life, the Spirit nurses us into relationships of repair.

Conflicts will come. We know this.

But so will forgiveness and repair. Believe this. It’s God’s promise to you and to me and for this whole community.

My family has been playing the Hamilton musical soundtrack on repeat for years now. One scene in particular has been haunting me most recently. Having lost his son and broken a vow with his spouse and lost his way, Alexander Hamilton finds himself alone in a still nascent New York City. Walking alongside his wife Eliza, they clasp hands, reconcile, and grieve. It’s not a moment of mere reunion but a moment full of sadness and loss. The chorus sings in the background, “Forgiveness: can you imagine it?” In the midst of tears, Alexander and Eliza move from imagination to tears, from a broken place to a grief that can repair but not eliminate the scars they suffered. The song concludes, “There are moments that the words don’t reach. There is a grace too powerful to name. We push away what we can never understand. We push away the unimaginable.”

Forgiveness. Can you imagine it?

My friends, such imagination is not a matter of will, of trying really hard, of being right. It is not a matter of being smarter or better. Such imagination does not flow from getting that job we desperately we want, that admission we seek so diligently.

No, such imagination, such forgiveness, such repair is a promise God has made. And a promise like that is not something we grasp. It’s a gift in which we walk.

Eric D. Barreto 300.jpg — Eric D. Barreto

Eric D. Barreto is the Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. His passion is to pursue scholarship for the sake of the church, and he regularly writes for and teaches in faith communities around the country.
Twitter | @ericbarreto

Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.

Eric D. Barreto 8/6/20 Eric D. Barreto 8/6/20

Trust and Conspiracy in a Pandemic (Matthew 14:22-33)

The social media post pointed to a video promising deliverance from the pandemic, an assurance that things are not as dire as they seem. Nor, the video suggested, do we need to worry so much. It promised to provide a glimpse behind a curtain trying to show a truth that “they” want to keep from us. The truth, you see, was right there if you just chose to believe that a litany of scientists, experts, and leaders were not really interested in your health but in your continued delusion. It’s all a conspiracy, but now you had the chance to get in on the secret “they” didn’t want you to know.

The video had been widely discredited, of course. Even the social media giants — too often reticent to stand proactively against propaganda and conspiracy theory — had taken down the videos in order to keep others from being deluded.

And yet this social media post defiantly wrote, “Deny this if you choose. I believe it. That is my right.”

Others have written and researched the sources of mistrust that nurture conspiracy among Christians in particular. Scholars have recently traced the proliferation of a sense of persecution among white Christians and its link to believing that racism against Black people and communities is overblown.

The sociologist Samuel Perry posted data on Twitter that suggests that Christians who feel persecuted are more likely to “disregard COVID-19 precautions” like increased hand-washing and wearing a mask in public. Robert P. Jones recently wrote about his research showing that white Christians were significantly more likely than others to deny the persistence of structural racism and to advocate for Confederate monuments to remain.

Jones concludes, “The results point to a stark conclusion: While most white Christians think of themselves as people who hold warm feelings toward African Americans, holding racist views is nonetheless positively and independently associated with white Christian identity. Again, this troubling relationship holds not just for white evangelical Protestants, but also for white mainline Protestants and white Catholics.”

Too many Christians miss a critical element of faith, of what it means to believe something.

Faith is not just a matter of thinking the right things or saying the right words. Faith is fundamentally a confession of trust, an embodiment of how we relate to God and thus to one another as children of God.

Faith is not just a yes to doctrine but a yes to the God who created us, the God who saves us, the God who draws us to new life. And that “us” in the last sentence is important, for God’s creation, salvation, sanctification have a communal dimension and import. In Christian faith, it’s never just about me but about us. And thus faith in God necessarily implicates the trust we share with our neighbors.

The embrace of conspiracy among far too many Christians is at its core a crisis of (mis)trust and thus also a crisis of faith.

When some Christians choose to trust the one doctor who confirms my preconceived expectations, the one person of color who diminishes the impact of racism, the one politician who promises a return to greatness, then we see a crisis of faith, not just in God, but in the diverse stories and generous genius God has created.

We could talk more about why Christians have become so easily seduced by these conspiratorial whispers. However, I want to close with something else.

Instead of theologies that lead us astray, that misshape our sense of trust, that delude us with fanciful narratives, what theological convictions drive us to a critical hope that is both properly suspicious of the propensity of the powerful to harm while also nurturing a loving trust of our neighbors, especially those neighbors marginalized by powerful structures?

This last Sunday many churches read from Matthew 14:13-21, the story of Jesus’ proliferation of bread to share with 5,000 men and an uncounted number of women and children. The miracle here is not just a magic trick, a sleight of hand, a special effect meant to dazzle the crowds. No, the miracle is one of abundance in a place where the disciples only see what they lack. “This is a deserted place,” the disciples inform a Jesus who has healed the sick and proclaimed good news with every step he has taken (v. 15).

There are no desolate places when Jesus is present. There is enough to go around, more than enough when Jesus sets a table before us.

This upcoming Sunday we encounter Jesus striding on the sea and calming the winds and the waves in Matthew 14:22-33. First, bread in the wilderness. Now, calm in the eye of a storm. Notice what Jesus tells his disconsolate disciples: Do not be afraid. There is nothing to fear, for I have drawn near to you.

I wonder if the thirst among too many Christians for a conspiracy theory that makes sense of a world seeming to be spinning out of control is a way to reach out for something solid in a dissolving world, a reality that seems to be slipping through our fingers.

But in reaching out for a hidden truth that makes it all make sense, we miss that Jesus is already there with us in those places that seem foreboding and lonely and dangerous.

Jesus’ very presence is the assurance of God’s promise of new, abundant life.

Let’s be clear. The other side of conspiracy is not naïveté or an unquestioning trust in those deemed experts or those who wield power over us. A critical perspective is indispensable. We know that the powerful have enacted terrible regimes of oppression in the past, occluding their actions and justifying their treatment of the powerless. The Tuskegee Experiment was real. So is systemic racism.

But it is vital that we nurture a faithful sensibility that can distinguish between cries of oppression which ring in God’s ears with compassion and the privileged fear that the comfortable may lose their unmerited place in the structure of a broken world God is setting right. It is crucial that we discern the difference between fears rooted in a sober look at the world as it is and promotes our survival and fears of loss and scarcity rooted in a twisted vision of one’s neighbors.

Do not look to the man behind the curtain pulling the strings. Do not look for the code that explains it all. Do not look for the conspiracy that contorts and changes to explain every wrinkle and incorrect prediction.

No. Look to the Jesus who offers us bread in the wilderness, a bread that nourishes us to notice that we are not alone, a bread that teaches us that there is always enough in the reign of God. Look to the Jesus who strides on the waves, who beckons us to the water, who delivers us when we cry out, “Save us.” That Jesus draws us close and reminds us not to fear but to love God and neighbor alike with every thought and word.

Join Us for a FREE Event

Being Church Today

Monday, August 17 | 10:30am-1:00pm CDT

Church Anew has gathered a diverse group of Christian thought leaders to ignite innovation and imagination for leading congregations in a time like this. These keynote speakers will amplify the voices of local leaders from the Minneapolis area, who will share stories of how the church is leading in our own context, particularly in response to systemic racism in our communities.

Dr. Raj Nadella 7/7/20 Dr. Raj Nadella 7/7/20

The Sower and the Seed and Black Lives Matter

The Sower and the Seed (Matthew 13) is a familiar parable that is most often interpreted with a focus on the sower (he is too generous and even profligate in sowing everywhere) or on the soil (some soil is more receptive to the word than other). The parable highlights the disparate locations where seeds fall and juxtaposes the final fate of various seeds. While most seeds perished because they fell along the roadside, on rocky places, or among thorns, a few that fell on good soil flourished.

Parables by nature have many different meanings and occasionally call for readings different even from allegories that accompany them. A key aspect of this parable is the arbitrary manner in which the sower scatters seeds resulting in their contrasting fates. Where they fall and each environment—birds, scorching sun, and choking thorns—determine whether they perish or flourish. Seeds that fall on the path, or on the rocks, or among thorns have the odds stacked against them from the outset. None of the seeds in the parable have much, if any, agency. No doubt people should be good seeds, but can we really attribute failures or successes to seeds themselves if they have little agency in their destiny?

The parable takes on a new meaning when read in the context of growing economic disparities and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Many individuals and communities cannot grow, pursue their dreams, or realize their full potential as humans because they are excluded from systems (fall by the wayside), lack access to sufficient resources (fall on rocky soil) or are stifled by oppressive structures (choked by thorns). It sheds light on the role social determinants such as race, rather than hard work, ethos, and commitment, play in one’s flourishing or perishing.

In Matthew 13:7, Jesus describes seeds that were choked by thorns. The Greek word for choking—πνίγω—refers to strangling, throttling and suffocating. When read in the context of Black Lives Matter movement and the brutal killing of many African Americans like George Floyd by chokehold, it brings to memory a disturbing phrase we have been hearing too often—"I can’t breathe.” The fate of seeds that were choked by thorns parallels the plight of individuals whose lives and aspirations are crushed by thorns in the form of police brutality and dehumanizing economic structures.

But the parable in Matthew also highlights seed that fell on good soil and produced a crop—a hundred, sixty, or thirty times. Read in current political and economic contexts, it exposes the American Dream that enables some to flourish on account of their social location but turns into a nightmare for others as they are pushed to the margins and suffocated. In some cases, the few thrive precisely by pushing others to the margins, scorching them and strangling them—figuratively and literally. Octavia Butler’s 1993 novel, The Parable of the Sower, set in a context of climate catastrophe, growing economic disparities and police brutality in 2020 aptly captures some of these disturbing social realities.

In a culture that celebrates seeds that fall on good soil and calls them blessed but blames less fortunate individuals for their own economic and political misfortune, it is hard to expose the extent by which social determinants impact one’s success or failure. It is even harder to reduce their ability to choke individuals and remove impediments to growth of the marginalized.

But that is precisely what lies at the center of Jesus’ mission in the Gospel of Matthew.

Within the literary context of this parable (Matthew 12), Jesus heals many and empowers them to realize their full potential. Prominent among them is a man with a withered hand that Jesus restores to its fullness. The Greek word for withered hand—ξηράν—is semantically connected to the Greek word for withered seeds in the parable. Such a close link illuminates the plight of the seeds that are cast on rocky soil and scorched by the sun when they attempt to grow.

The blessed in Matthew are not those who are fortunate enough to fall on good soil, benefit from favorable structures, and flourish. In the Beatitudes (5:3-11), Jesus proclaims blessed are the ones who mourn, the meek, the marginalized, and the persecuted.

The blessed in Matthew are precisely those who fall by the wayside, on rocky soil, and are grasping for life.

In most Beatitudes, the agency in the second half is in the passive voice (they will be comforted, they will be fed, they will be shown mercy, etc). The passive voice leaves the agency open-ended and calls for human agency—the church and community—in addition to divine agency.

Accordingly, it is the church’s job to advocate for the interests of those who are scattered by the wayside and move them to fertile soil. The community has an obligation to safeguard the interests of the seed that fall on rocky soil and are scorched by the oppressive sun. The Church is invited to participate in and with the Spirit as it breathes over the breathless and challenges imperial forces that seek to choke individuals and entire communities.

Blessed are those who are cast by the wayside for they will no longer be excluded by structures.
Blessed are those who fall on rocky soil for they will be moved to good soil.
Blessed are those who fall among thorns for the Spirit, the ultimate breath, will let not thorns throttle them.