The DNA of Reconciliation

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.  –2 Corinthians 5:18

I have spent the last two days at the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation’s 9^thannual Reconciliation in America National Symposium here in Tulsa.  This year’s theme was “The DNA of Reconciliation.”  This is my second year attending the Symposium. I’ve been saying that last year, I learned so much, I needed to come back and learn more!

The Symposium happens each year over the anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which was the worst single act of racial violence in this country’s history.  Tulsa did not begin to come to terms with this horrific violence until 1996, seventy-five years after it happened.  The massacre was not spoken of in white families, nor in many African-American families.  Before 1996, many people who had grown up in Tulsa didn’t even know it had happened. 

The Symposium brings together a broad spectrum of people from government, education, the arts, religion, community organizations and concerned citizens to learn together, share wisdom with one another, think together about our work at bridge building and provoke one another to action.  It provides opportunities for networking and relationship building.  People come to this event from Tulsa, other parts of Oklahoma and across the nation.  

The path toward reconciliation has not been an easy one, and the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation has played a large role in that ongoing journey.  Tulsa still has a long way to go.  Racism is still real and palpable here.  Systemic racism continues to privilege some and oppress others. But, I think this community has also come a long way to build bridges of reconciliation and understanding.  Our Mayor and city are working on developing equity measures and launching a “Resilient Tulsa Strategy” to make Tulsa as equitable as it can be.  The religious community works together to bring people together and take positive actions to address ongoing problems and concerns.  

For the second year I was awed and humbled by the amazing people I met at the Symposium.  It was inspiring to meet people who are living “ministers of reconciliation” in this community in whatever field of work they pursue, who love this community and all the people who live here, and who are committed to working at reconciliation in spite of the significant obstacles that still lie ahead.  I look forward to continue to learn, and to act, and to join my brother and sister Tulsans in these efforts.  I encourage you to look for similar opportunities in the communities where you live (or to continue the work you are already doing) to bring reconciliation to God’s broken world.  As followers of Jesus Christ, I think this is exactly what we are called to be doing. After all, it’s the least we can do to thank God for the reconciliation God has already given us.

Peace,

Bishop Mike.

PS:  Next year’s John Hope Franklin Reconciliation in America National Symposium will be held May 29-31, 2019 here in Tulsa.  Put it on your calendars, and check out the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation website:  jhfcenter.org  to learn more about their work.  I plan to be there!

The Patient Parent

John 3:1-17

“How can anyone be born after having grown old?” --Nicodemus   (vs. 4)

My dog, Melbie, has a sensitive stomach.  She gets carsick driving to the end of the block.  It doesn’t seem to take much to get her to throw up.  Still, she has the infuriating habit of nibbling on anything and everything she can get her mouth on.  When we go out for a walk she’s like a vacuum cleaner, sucking in grass and sticks and leaves and rocks and the little “snacks” the neighborhood rabbits leave behind (if you know what I mean).  We have done everything we can think of to discourage this behavior, but it seems inbred.  Dogs don’t have a great grasp of cause and effect, so she doesn’t understand when we say, in an exasperated voice, “You know, if you eat that, you’re going to throw up!”  as she nibbles her way across the front yard.   We keep hoping that, as she grows out of puppyhood, her sensitive constitution will grow up too.

We human beings are not much different than my dog.  We can be very slow to learn.  Cause and effect can elude us.  We have a very annoying habit of doing the same (often very unhealthy) things over and over again, expecting different results and then act surprised when again and again things don’t go well.  That has certainly been the experience of God’s people down through the centuries. The bible is full of stories of how God’s people just don’t seem to get it.  In spite of God’s guidance, warnings, discipline, and a parade of prophets, God’s people just keep nibbling on things that aren’t good for them.  The consequences of idolatry and disobedience are two of the most common, recurring themes in the scriptures.  And it’s not just in the Old Testament.  Jesus’ disciples could be pretty obtuse at times. The history of the Christian Church is littered with stories of God’s people gone awry.  I could tell you stories of churches I have known that just don’t seem to get it…  and of the times I’ve completely missed the point too.  But I won’t.

The point here is not to recriminate Melbie, poor Nicodemus or any of the rest of us.  The point is to see him, and the whole, long, messy, often ugly history of God and God’s people as the most enduring sign of God’s grace, mercy and love.

It doesn’t matter how many times I have to clean up Melbie’s barf.  I still love her completely.  Even if she never grows out of this annoying propensity, I will still love her completely.  And if I, a fallible, imperfect human being, am capable of that kind of love, I can only begin to imagine how much greater God’s love must be for God’s world.  

God is an amazingly patient parent.  God never gives up on us.  God has gone to amazingly great lengths, even to the point of sending his Son to die, to heal a world that, so often, refuses to be healed.  A world that, frequently, doesn’t even know it needs to be healed. Jesus invites Nicodemus, you and me to trust in that love,  to live in that love and to share that love with the world.  Jesus promises that when we trust in that love our lives will be renewed by God’s Spirit and that we will discover an abundance of life that begins now and extends beyond death itself.  Eventually, Nicodemus appeared to get that (see John 19:39) and some days, when I stop nibbling for a moment, so do I.

Peace,

Bishop Mike

Thanks for reading.  

One Minute to Nine

Acts 2:1-21

[Peter said,] “Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.”  –Acts 2:15

This weekend,  I will be at Bethany College in Lindsborg, KS where I will be preaching at the Baccalaureate worship service prior to the school’s commencement ceremony.   I was honored to be asked to be a part of the service!  Bethany is a great liberal arts college in central Kansas that finds its identity in its Swedish and Lutheran heritage.  The school’s mission is to “educate, develop and challenge individuals to reach for truth and excellence as they lead lives of faith, learning and service.”  The small school has faced some significant challenges in recent years, but has emerged as a thriving, vibrant place that lives up to its stated mission.

On Sunday, the Festival of Pentecost, we’ll be sending Bethany’s newest graduates out into the world. Like all schools who are graduating seniors this season, Bethany’s graduates will be sent out to the four corners of the world to use the gifts they have honed at the school in a vast array of vocations.  Sitting in the Presser Hall auditorium on Sunday, the graduates will experience the odd mix of elation and grief, eagerness and trepidation, excitement and uncertainty that most graduates feel as they say farewell to a significant time in their lives and look forward to whatever is next.  

I wonder if that’s a little of what Jesus’ disciples were feeling as they sat in the upper room in Jerusalem at one minute to nine on that first Pentecost?  Just before his Ascension, the resurrected Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem for the “promise of the Father.”  (Acts 1:4)   He told them that they would receive “power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8) and that they would be sent out as witnesses to “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”   At one minute to nine, I doubt that the disciples could have imagined all that awaited them and all that they would experience once the mighty, rushing wind of the Spirit began to blow.

And then, the clocked ticked nine, and it happened.   The Spirit blew.

Like drunk fools they spilled out onto the streets of Jerusalem proclaiming the healing, life-giving Truth of Jesus Christ, the unfolding of the Reign of God and the Good News that death had been swallowed up in life.   Like Jesus promised, the Holy Spirit guided them, and directed them and gave them the words they needed to tell their story and invite others into it. Like Jesus had promised, they carried their message of Jesus’ love and life, grace and mercy from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.  Like Jesus promised, they met resistance, challenge, persecution and struggles, but persevered in their mission to become a thriving, vibrant, inclusive community of hope and compassion unlike the world had ever seen.

For us, it is a minute after nine.  

Like those graduates who will gather at Bethany on Sunday, we can still feel that odd mix of elation and grief, eagerness and trepidation, excitement and uncertainty as we contemplate our varied futures. But, even though we know that the world may think us drunken fools, we dare to step into that future anyway.  We step out, confident that the Spirit of Jesus goes with us, just as the Spirit always has, giving us the words and the wisdom we need to live and to share Jesus’ Good News of hope and compassion to the ends of the earth.

Blessed Pentecost!

Bishop Mike

Thanks for reading!  Join me in praying that God would use graduates everywhere to bring justice, peace and hope to a hurting world. 

Life Happens

John 17:6-19

[Jesus prayed…] “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.”  --John 17:6

Every morning, I spend fifteen minutes or so laying out my plan for the day.  I put together my “to do” list, jot down those I need to call, and decide which projects need my attention.   I like having a plan.  It gives me the illusion of control.  But, most days, by eleven o’clock, the plan is completely shot.  The phone rings.  Interruptions come.  Things happen.  The winds change.  But, that’s life, isn’t it?   Life is humming along, seemingly going well, and then, suddenly…  everything is different.  

I think Jesus’ disciples must have been feeling a little of that disequilibrium as Jesus spoke with them in the Upper Room on the night before he died.   They certainly felt it in a big way shortly after their conversation as Jesus was arrested, tried and nailed to a cross.  Jesus’ prayer for the disciples in John 17 hangs in the hold-your-breath moment between the orderliness of things going as planned and the chaos of plans gone completely awry.  In that moment, Jesus prays that the disciples might find an anchor in the storm that is about to break around them.  He prays that they would find their unity in the gifts of his word and their relationship with Jesus and his Father.  

In the Gospel of John, the “Word” is God’s plan for the cosmos made flesh and blood in Jesus the Christ.  Jesus’ Word is a message of light and life for all people; an abundant life that is available to us now and extends into eternity.  Jesus’ Word is about a life lived in the Spirit; the Advocate who guides us and teaches us and protects us and connects us to the Father and to one another.  Jesus’ Word is about what is True; not just in an empirical, fact-based sort of sense, but in the sense of affirming God as the wholeness, completeness, and fullness who lies at the heart of all that is.  Jesus’ prayer is that this life-giving, Spirit-filled Truth will carry the disciples through the chaos that lay immediately ahead of them, and would hold them together in the challenging days they would meet as they went out into the world to proclaim Jesus’ message and continue Jesus’ work.

When our plans go awry…  When life happens…   (which it always does)  Jesus’ prayer for his disciples today is the same as his prayer for his disciples then.  Jesus’ resurrection is the promise that Life is stronger than death.  Not only in the case of the ultimate deaths which we will all face one day, but in the thousands of  “little deaths” which confront us daily (and some of those aren’t so little, are they?!)  Jesus’ Spirit is still with us guiding us through the Word, through the community of people who surround us, and in many intangible ways that are difficult to wrap words around.  The Truth that is the Creator of all continues to ground us in a world filled with ever shifting sands and constant uncertainties.  Can we trust that?  Can we believe that?  Can we live that?  Jesus’ promise is that even our ability to trust, believe and live in him is a gift. A gift given to all those who belong to him.  Including you and me.

Peace,

Bishop Mike

Thanks for reading.