Introduction: Shoeing Horses

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At a scenic stop in Ireland in July, we were visited by a friendly (and huge) work horse.

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In addition to being a pastor, I have a Ph.D in religion, with an emphasis in homiletics (preaching) and social ethics. But as I watch the many crises affecting churches and academia, sometimes it feels like I did an incredible amount of work to get a degree in shoeing horses. There just aren’t a lot of jobs for farriers these days. It’s a niche occupation. 

I don’t think religion will ever be obsolete. But I do think religious institutions, and the clergy who maintain them (my online friend David Dark refers to clergy as “professional god-talkers”) will become more rare in the coming years. In addition to all the evidence of plummeting church participation, churches are polarized and splitting. There is a well-documented trend of pastors burning out and giving up, especially during COVID. I’ve felt it, too, that sense of hopeless dread. This is a hard season in which to try to build or maintain a religious community. 

As a society, I’d argue that in many ways, we’re becoming more religious. Back in the 1960’s, the General Social Survey reported that only 22% of Americans said they’d had a life-changing spiritual or mystical experience. By 2009, according to a Pew Religion and Public Life survey, it was nearly half of all Americans. Spiritual experience increased even as church participation decreased. 

Some of this may have to do with the growth of a population who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” In the sociological research, they are often described as “SBNRs.” Twenty years ago in his book After the Baby Boomers, sociologist Robert Wuthnow described what younger generations did as “spiritual bricolage,” sampling from multiple streams of faith traditions.   

In many ways, I feel like the work I did to earn a Ph.D in religion prepared me to have a ringside seat at this period of the Great Emergence, to observe of this work of spiritual bricolage as an anthropologist might. 

Even though church and academy are struggling, on my good days, I don’t feel that my effort in church or academia has been wasted. I didn’t go into ministry for the career advancement opportunities — I did it because I love God and I love people. And I didn’t go into academia so I could fight to earn a tenure-track position — I did it because I love learning. That’s why I proposed the trip I’m about to share with you: Navigating Uncharted Waters. If you’ve signed up for these devotionals, that probably means you do, too. This moment in history calls for people who love God, love people, and love learning. 

Thanks for joining me on this journey. 

Prayer: God, you who are both hidden and revealed, reveal to us the path toward truth and life. Amen.

—Rev. Dr. David Barnhart, Jr. 

Navigating Uncharted Waters: Starting Soon

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Above image: San Carlos, Sonoma, Mexico. Personal photo.

In The Great Emergence, church historian Phyllis Tickle described how every five centuries, the church goes through a huge rummage sale, where everything we value — and many things we have taken for granted — get put on the table for sorting. Some of these things we, as a church and as a society, will decide to keep, and others we will discard. Our names for these rummage sales often involve the word “Great,” as in Great Schism and Great Reformation. 

We held the last rummage sale around 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenburg. His action kicked off The Great Reformation, separating Protestant and Roman Catholic churches and setting the stage for the Enlightenment. Many of the ideas we’ve inherited, the things we value and the things we take for granted, were hashed out in a few centuries. 

You may have noticed that we’re experiencing another rummage sale right now. Many ideas are on the table: ideas about gender, our preference for democracy over authoritarianism, male supremacy, capitalism, and the role of the media are just a few. And the stakes are very high. We are living in the early stages of what may very likely be a mass extinction. 

A few years ago I felt I needed to get some distance to consider all that we are facing. As a pastor and a public theologian, I wanted to see up close our Reformation history, and to consider where we might be going in the next 500 years — not just as a church, but as a species. I applied for  and was awarded a grant to take a sabbatical and to consider these things, and now I want to share with you what I’ve learned. I offer these reflective devotionals not as an expert prognosticator, but as a fellow traveler who is making some educated guesses.

If you’d like to follow along, you can sign up for email devotionals or visit my website here. 

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Prayer: Creator, help us in this season of uncertainty. 

—Rev. Dr. David Barnhart, Jr. 

The Lie of the “Third Way”

I can’t help think about Harry Frankfurt’s essay, “On Bullshit” whenever I encounter white male pastors talking about a “third way” or being “centrist.” Frankfurt makes the point that humbug (a form of bullshit) is not a claim about reality; it’s a claim about the speaker.

Frankfurt quotes Max Black’s definition of “humbug” — “deceptive misrepresentation, short of lying, especially by pretentious word or deed, of somebody’s own thoughts, feelings, or attitudes.” I suspect this describes many 3rd-way pastors these days.

I want to add that I’m not unsympathetic toward pastors who misrepresent themselves during this rise of white Christian Nationalism. I think there are a lot of pastors suffering from Moral Injury, a form of PTSD.

https://twitter.com/preston_shipp/status/1580171014792617986?fbclid=IwAR08DmQBC5S_-rM-ozoBzNONqu7wy5bTd3_W2kggk3QsEtc4dR46zYs-ztg

“Third Way” and “centrist” rhetoric may be a form of self-preservation. It says, “I’m not your target” to angry congregants. For many, speaking truthfully about the rise of WCN puts their families and their careers at risk. Far easier to talk about “polarization” and put the blame “on both sides.” But this silence comes at the cost of moral injury.

“Centrism,” in the USian church at this historical moment is a way of positioning my whitedudeself at the center of two imaginary and equally-obejctionable extremes. It reinforces the norm of binary USian “left-right” politics even as it pretends to offer an alternative. But it’s really just status-quo preaching.

(I have to note that the word “centrist” is very descriptive: it really does *center* white male power in the area of public theology and public policy. In this way it perpetuates material harm for others and moral injury for pastors.)

“I defy classification” is a lie that many church leaders tell themselves about themselves. They lament polarization, demonization, and enemyfying, and praise nuance and perspective-taking. All good. But when it comes to specific policies and questions of power… silence.

A preacher w/out this insight may even identify himself (and it’s almost always a “him”) with Christ, “crucified by both left and right,” as I’ve heard one preacher say, vicariously placing himself in the center not only of American politics, but the f’n cosmos.

3rd-way/centrism is “bullshit” because it’s a claim about yourself, not about reality. The last thing pastors want to do is talk about specific policies or theological claims, preferring to gesture toward the extremes and make apophatic statements about their own (& Jesus’s) identity (i.e. “Jesus is not a Democrat or a Republican.”)

Again, I know this is *moral injury* for many pastors. It’s a trap that leads to burnout and demoralization when leaders are crushed between institutional evangelical-capitalist expectations for church growth and a vocational responsibility for truth-telling.

We need to name this bullshit self-centering rhetoric not only for the sake of the people being harmed by these crises, and not only for the sake of the church, and not only for the planet, but for the sake of the pastors who are complicit in it.

Church leaders cannot navigate the crises of climate change, fascism, & disaster capitalism by making nice with wealthy donors whose interests are in perpetuating those things at the expense of everyone else on the planet. If Jesus takes no side here, he’s not merely useless. He’s doing harm.

Pastoral Letter for Mother’s Day, 2022

The following is a message I shared in our our church newsletter:

Mother’s Day was originally a day to promote women’s equality, peace, and an end to war. It has become commercialized and sentimentalized and often is a painful reminder to those who have had complicated relationships with mothers or motherhood.  And this year, Mother’s Day ends what has been an exhausting week in terms of news and religion. The revelation that the U.S. Supreme Court will allow states to force birth is the culmination of a decades-long war on civil rights by religious and political extremists.  As a pastor without a uterus, I feel my own voice should take a backseat to those who are more directly impacted, and yet I also have a responsibility to deploy mine for the good of my friends and family. You may have seen that some of my words from a Facebook post in 2018 went viral again. I want to set those words in context with my baptismal vow to “resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves” and my ordination vow to uphold the Discipline of the United Methodist Church.  Below are excerpts from the United Methodist Social Principles, which have this to say about abortion:  The beginning of life and the ending of life are the God-given boundaries of human existence. While individuals have always had some degree of control over when they would die, they now have the awesome power to determine when and even whether new individuals will be born. Our belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us reluctant to approve abortion. But we are equally bound to respect the sacredness of the life and well-being of the mother and the unborn child. We recognize tragic conflicts of life with life that may justify abortion, and in such cases we support the legal option of abortion under proper medical procedures by certified medical providers. While they have their flaws (especially with regard to LGBTQIA persons), the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church generally reflect a well-reasoned majority theological and social position on current issues. The UMC has historically viewed abortion as a “tragic choice,” but emphasized that it is still a choice between a woman and her doctor: Governmental laws and regulations do not provide all the guidance required by the informed Christian conscience. Therefore, a decision concerning abortion should be made only after thoughtful and prayerful consideration by the parties involved, with medical, family, pastoral, and other appropriate counsel. The section on abortion also points out some of the best ways to reduce the frequency of abortion:  We mourn and are committed to promoting the diminishment of high abortion rates. The Church shall encourage ministries to reduce unintended pregnancies such as comprehensive, age-appropriate sexuality education, advocacy in regard to contraception, and support of initiatives that enhance the quality of life for all women and girls around the globe. It is important to note that while both abortions and unintended pregnancies have been declining for years, many of the United States and Alabama legislators who are restricting abortion access are simultaneously pulling the rug out from under people who get pregnant. In Alabama, for example, we still have abstinence-only education. We have not expanded Medicaid. We are a “right-to-work” state, which means people who get pregnant do not have labor protections, nor do they have parental leave to take care of newborns.  All of these factors combine to make people’s lives harder, to make unintended pregnancy more likely, and to complicate pregnancy and delivery. These policies are at odds with the United Methodist Social Principles. They are also at odds with God’s vision of justice and shalom in the world.  I am continuously awed by the process of new life. I spend hours building birdhouses so that mama birds have a safe place to raise their young. I delight in this time of year, watching fluffy fledglings take their first timid hops out of a nest. I believe all life is sacred, and I long for a world where all of God’s family is aided to flourish. I am “pro-family” for the human world and the more-than-human world.  But I also recognize that evil is a force that warps the most holy things in the world, including parenthood and the Gospel. When our society weaponizes pregnancy against populations of poor people, indigenous people, and people of color, or when religious groups weaponize the language of love and care to oppress others, it is a deep betrayal of the Good News.  All of which has made the last week — and the last six years — exhausting for many of us who identify as Christians who seek liberation and healing for ALL people. On this Mother’s Day, I hope you will take care of yourself and your own mental health. Rest and self-care are radical acts of resistance in a system that demands exploitive labor, which claims ownership of our bodies, and which tries to appropriate our spiritual and emotional energy for its own agenda of conquest and colonialism. We say that we will “resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” I hope you will join me in sacred rest, sacred lament, and revolutionary, worshipful, self-care.

A Good Friday Meditation

So, here we are. Good Friday. Honestly, this is a day I’m no fan of Christianity.

First, I find that little is more annoying about this season than bougie white boy preachers in thousand-dollar sneakers talking about Jesus and “revolutionary love.” Church is full of folks who are no friends of the revolution. “Revolutionary?” They ain’t even interested in abolishing prisons or reducing militarized police budgets, much less “revolution.” Their message isn’t revolutionary. It’s marketing.  

Second, Rome shows you what it does to revolutionaries: it crucifies them. “Crucifixion wasn’t just a form of execution; it was advertising,” says Amy-Jill Levine. A cross was a billboard. Crucifixions were staged near roads, so passersby could see clearly who was in charge and what happens to “revolutionaries.” As Max Weber put it: the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Crucifixion displays the state’s monopoly of violence literally: by splaying human limbs.

According to Josephus, after the Jewish revolt in Jerusalem in 70 CE, soldiers crucified so many people that they ran out of wood. They cut down every tree for miles to line the road with crosses, like flags. Today if you visit the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed to “let this cup pass from me,” when the guide says, “Some of these trees are so old that Jesus could have prayed under one of them,” you know it’s just stuff they tell tourists. The orchard where Jesus prayed was razed so Rome could have wood on which to nail revolutionaries.

Third, white Protestant support for torture, measured in 2008, was upwards of sixty percent. Six in ten are just fine with torturing folks. Waterboarding. Whipping. Stripping people naked and humiliating them. All the stuff that happened to Jesus? They’d give the green light for it to happen to any Middle Eastern guy with long hair and a beard.

While I’m talking statistics and cutting trees, only 40% of white Protestants believe in human-made climate change. I’m not just picking on Evangelicals, among whom that statistic is only 28%. I’m talking about mainstream “liberal” Protestants. When Roman soldiers cut down all the trees to make crosses, most church folks would be cheering them on in the name of law, order, and domination of the natural world.

So today, when Christians cry crocodile tears while singing how they would “cling to the old rugged cross,” it leaves me feeling a bit cynical. They may be having a genuine spiritual experience when they close their eyes, raise their hands, and sway gently to a Christian rock anthem, but it bears no relevance to Golgotha or the places Jesus is being crucified right now. It rubs me the wrong way when religious people pretend to care about the most famous victim of state violence ever, but don’t give give two figs for Patrick Lyoya or Sandra Bland. When they would cling to crosses, but disparage tree-huggers.

On days like today, I resonate much more with those who have rejected religion altogether, especially if it’s because they could not reconcile the prepackaged answers with today’s most salient questions: Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does God allow the state to have this monopoly on violence? How did the spiritual power of Jesus of Nazareth get hijacked so thoroughly by Christendom? Where is the “Good News” in the destruction of this world and the oppressed people who love it?  

“Good” Friday. The adjective leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The revolutionary I love and follow is still being executed by the state, which has yet to repent of its role in manufacturing suffering. The state, in collusion with the church, will resurrect in his place an agent of white settler colonialism, one who blesses Rome and the priesthood, who tells battered spouses to stay with their abusers in the name of long-suffering love, who persecutes queer kids and tells gay Christians to remain celibate, that it’s “their cross to bear,” an agent who sanctions bullying, who clear cuts forests and pumps oil from the ground to build sprawling highways so that Christians can park their cars at suburban churches on Easter morning and sing praises to an authoritarian king.

Honestly, the only thing that keeps me Christian is that my faith says, “it is God on that cross.” The only thing that keeps me Christian is that I keep seeing Jesus as an actual revolutionary who cares about the suffering of people at the hands of state power, a Jesus turning over the money tables on Wall Street. Jesus keeps showing up on the steps of churches telling preachers that they are whitewashed tombs whose words are full of death and decay. Jesus keeps standing up for queer kids and defending people whose wombs are treated like the property of the state or their husbands. Jesus keeps calling for actual prisoners in real prisons to be set free, and for the people with clubs and swords to put them away because they only lead to self-destruction. Jesus keeps telling people to observe that the birds and flowers—and humans—don’t have to earn a place in God’s economy, that their existence and life is enough to bring glory to God. The powers that be keep trying to silence God’s anointed and he, she, they keep showing up with all their pronouns and ethnicities and genders and refusing to be quiet or disappear from public view.

When I ask, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” she—God in human flesh—looks me squarely in the eye, shows me the wounds in her hands and side and answers, as she always does, with a question: “Are you asking me?” Then she gestures at the world as if to invite me to take up a cross and follow.

Where else can I go? She has the words of life.

So

The Universe, by Hildegard of Bingen, from WikiArt

For God so loved the cosmos;
loved the human world and the more-than-human world,
loved the quarks and the nebulae and
the vast stretches of empty space
between the tiniest particles and between the largest galaxies;
loved tree frogs and beetles,
mushrooms and songbirds,
loved you and me and the space between us;
that she poured her divine self out
and looked out on the world through human eyes in human sockets,
and felt the fleshy vulnerability of her creatures.

With the full, enthusiastic consent of Mary,
(and with no need of a man),
she nurtured in the water of a womb
a child;
and gave her beloved child to us,
and named this child “God saves,”
who was also her Very Truest Self;
because God has always been a giver
a lover
and prone to prodigal excess.

Then her Very Truest Self,
lived as one of us,
loved and taught others to love
(as She has always been doing, as She is still doing)
with the same kind of love that pours out
that sees
that inhabits
in such a way that Justice and Peace would become synonyms,
that they would hold hands;
in such a way that forgiveness would set free instead of perpetuate harm,
in such a way that prisons would be abolished,
(as She has always been doing, as She is still doing)
and the poor would be filled with good things
and the powerful would be brought low,
and the low would be lifted up,
because the abundance of the world is and has always been enough.

But the human world loved its dismal sense of deserving
more than light.
It loved its warring madness,
it loved dominating and colonizing and subjugating;
it loved shaming and putting people in their place,
and measuring out who deserves what,
and taking land and lives,
and crucifying anyone who got in its way.
It loved being important and big and worshiped.
It loved defining the world according to itself,
setting up whiteness as a god
and nation as an idol
who demanded child and elder sacrifice
in exchange for guns and gold.
It loved marketshare and mindshare.
It loved creating scarcity out of abundance,
burning oil to create money,
so that it could have more
by making others have less,
so that it could play games
with the life of the planet,
so that it could bleed the world dry
and strip mine the hills
to open a new strip mall.

It was so crafty at manufacturing suffering,
that after it killed Her child,
it mimicked her grief
and mocked her love
and turned the religion of Her Very Truest Self
into another dominance game
another theology of deserving.
It put crosses on steeples
on every street corner,
as a reminder that anyone who did not follow would be crucified.
It created disciples of hate to wound others in the name of Jesus.
It taught people that the world that God so loved
was disposable
and to pray to God about what comes after death
so that by a counterfeit resurrection
many would be led astray
and teach others to do the same.
And, feigning outrage at the death of Her child,
the One it murdered,
it would continue to burn heretics at the stake
along with witches, and queer people, and scientists, and lovers, and artists
and any saint who dared dream of a better world
for this world
instead of the next.
And all the while,
it would tell its followers:
“Do to them before they do to you.”

Any who dared whisper
“God is love”
would be reminded
of love’s cruelty,
of tough love,
of loving at or loving on,
a love that alters where it finds alteration,
of the Great Chain of Being and the Right of Kings
and that a Man’s Home Is His Castle.

This is why John had to tell us
that She loves differently:
“So loved.”
Her love looks like a person,
and that person looks like you,
and you are made in the divine image of love.

Standing on Mount Nebo,
looking out over the promised land,
filled with burning forests and dead songbirds,
the corpses of insects and frogs who will never again sing at night,
paved roads full of automobiles with nowhere to go that isn’t just like the place they left,
we searching ones look for the breath of the Holy Spirit,
a purifying wind,
to blow away the polluted air,
to push the carbon dioxide back into the ground,
a wind that will animate the dry bones
and desiccated exoskeletons,
to knit sinew to bone
and muscle to sinew
and to cover all with flesh and feather and tentacle and leaf,
the fleshy vulnerability of all of her creatures,
because all of creation
ALL of it
every last bit of it
has been groaning for ages waiting for humanity to wake up
and be born again
to see with new eyes in new sockets,
to recover their original blessing,
their awe and curiosity;
their gratitude and reverence.

She is still looking
like a shepherd on the hills,
still looking
for those who so love the world
just so.

How We Got Here

Veil Nebula, by Ken Crawford. From Wikimedia Commons

Sometimes when I start to feel hopeless about the world, about climate change, weaponized ignorance, and interlocking systems of injustice and petty cruelty that create white supremacy, male supremacy, and toxic religion, I have a vision of what happened before I was born.

And I’m not saying I believe this is actually the way God or consciousness works, but I have this image of God giving me—giving all of us—a choice about whether or not to be born in this age, out of all the ages of history. I imagine the sales pitch: “Going into this world will be, in many ways, like running into a house on fire.”

“I’m not asking you to be a hero,” God says. “But to be a human. You will be part of a team. And the whole thing may collapse on you. And you’ll probably fail. Will you love this world? To pour out your life because you love it so? Because that’s what we do, you know. That’s what love does.”

I feel this vision when I get to be in communion with prison abolitionists and local farmers and deconstructing clergy and scientists and therapists and freedom fighters and activists and scholar-reformers. On good days, I feel like maybe we chose this, to be here, doing this work in this house on fire, because it was the time that needed us.

I’m not saying we chose this mess or chose to suffer — I think. But I think for humanity to reach maturity, some of us understand that we have to take responsibility for shit, even if it isn’t our shit.

And on good days when I catch this vision, I also realize that there is so much to love in this house on fire: my amazing family and friends, of course, but also animals and plants and music and beauty. And on good days I feel like the luckiest son of bitch in the world, and I’m glad you chose this time to live, too.

“Except Through Me”

“No one comes to the Father except through me” is one of the most abused verses in the Bible. A dialogue intended to comfort grieving disciples gets weaponized for exclusion and missionary colonialism.We need to read it in context: In John 14,

Jesus has just told his disciples that he’s about to leave them, and they are heartbroken and confused. Thomas blurts out, “What do you mean we know the way to where you are going? We don’t even know where you are going!” (14:5)

Jesus answers, “You know me, bro, and I AM the way.” He’s telling them this isn’t some gnostic secret. You don’t have to solve a mystery. You don’t have to make this harder than it is. You know me, so you know the way, and, most importantly, **we’ll be together again** (hence, “no one comes to the Father except through me.” Don’t worry about losing me; I’m your path, your way.)

Two Paths Diverged… by Ché Lydia Xyang. From Wikimedia Commons.

It’s important to linger here over the FIRST thing Jesus says in response to Thomas’s question. Thomas doesn’t know that he *already* knows the way. He thinks there’s something special he needs to do, some secret map. Jesus says “You already have the map: it’s me.”

Which opens the door for us to wonder: how many people know without knowing that they know? (Throughout John’s gospel, this is a theme—people respond to JC based on the orientation of their hearts.) Jesus sounds very Buddhist here: You already have what you need.

Listen: the disciples are afraid they will lose Jesus. He is telling them that they will be together. They won’t be *missing* Jesus when they get to the place they are going, because they will be traveling through The Way the whole time.

(Also: John’s community is heartbroken over losing him. These words are for them, too. John’s community thought he would live until Christ’s return (see 21:23). When he dies, they feel abandoned. You can hear their grief in Mary and Martha’s words to Jesus: “If you had been here, our brother would not have died!” (11:32))

Jesus then adds the infamous, “nobody comes to the Father without me,” which, again, is intended to be reassuring to the disciples: “I’ll be with you the whole way.” But it’s also in a context: “If you’ve *really* known me, you’ve already known the Father.” (Which also implies it is also possible to know Jesus without *really* knowing him—a fact especially applicable to religious leaders, which I will say more about below.)

He also says, “From now on, you do know the Father and have seen him.” Phillip is incredulous: “Okay, fine, show us the Father and we’ll be satisfied.” Again, he’s expecting that there’s something more he needs to know or do.

And JC slaps his forehead and says “Seriously? I’ve been with you all this time and you don’t see God?” This is the closest he comes to the exasperated Jesus we see in Mark, who says, “How much longer do I have to deal with you imbeciles?” (my paraphrase) So, far from being an exclusivist claim, “No one comes to the Father except through me” is supposed to be a reassuring claim that the disciples are on the right path, that they already know what they need to know, and that JC’s unity with the Father can & will be theirs.

And if you look at JC’s encounters with various folks in John, you see that the people who *really* know Jesus respond to God authentically and immediately: the man born blind, the woman at the well, etc. The man born blind says, “I don’t know much else, but I can see now” (Jn 9:25).

Meanwhile, religious leaders, who are obsessed with being right, are too hindered (“blinded,” in the language of the story) by their own religious exclusivism to admit room for an unmediated encounter with the divine. They can’t see God’s activity in front of their noses, much like today’s exclusivist Christians.

Jesus’s words do not slam the door on other faiths; they blast it wide open: People can know the way without knowing they know the way. “I have sheep who don’t belong to this fold” (10:16). Also, religious people can think they know and be wrong. As he says to the religious leaders: “Your father is the devil.” (8:44)

As a pastor, I recognize the strongest warnings of the gospel are to me: Do not presume to restrict God’s saving and healing activity. As Jesus says, “My sheep know my voice” (10:14). In John, the people working against healing and saving are religious leaders; don’t be like that.

(Caveat: you can use “hidden Christ” language to be a theological imperialist, claiming people of other faiths are simply “secret Christians.” I take JC’s language to be more expansive than that: The Way isn’t subject to human gatekeepers. The Word is loose in the world.)

So if words of Jesus meant for comfort have been weaponized to cause anxiety and exclusion, be suspicious of the religious leaders who wield them that way. Read the whole dialogue. John is dealing with grief & heartbreak. He is not slamming the door on presumed “outsiders.”

A Christmas Prayer for a Changing Climate

The late leaves hanging on the plum tree, from Wikimedia Commons

Lord, you said that if I had faith the size of a mustard seed
I could tell this mountain, “get lost,”
And it would throw itself into the sea.
I don’t know if I have that much faith.
But I ask that you would
Stop
Those who move mountains to reach the coal underneath.
That you would
Stop
Those who dump their waste into the sea.
That, in the words of the psalmist,
You would break the teeth of the liars,
Those false prophets who played in the snow just a few years ago,
Asking, “What climate change?”
That you would make their lying tongues cleave to the roof of their mouths.
That those who sell the needy for a pair of slippers
That those who buy expensive things while they made unjust laws
That those who have sold our children’s futures
Would sink to the bottom of the sea with their yachts,
Heavy as hundreds of millstones,
That they would become food for the fish whose oceans they’ve choked with plastic.
I ask that you would knock down prisons
Built with covid money.
I ask, as John did, that you would destroy those who destroy the earth,
Because though I do not have faith the size of a mustard seed,
I have rage the size of a mountain.
Let the mountains fall on them, Lord.
Let those who legislate poverty,
Let those who tread down the good pasture with their feet
And muddy the rivers with their excess
Be washed away by the rising tides.
And if any of my own wealth has been unjustly gained,
Return it fourfold
To those from whom it was stolen
To the people,
The plants
The rivers,
And the land.
And when all I have is gone,
Leave me with faith
The size of a mustard seed. Amen.

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Scripture references:
Matthew 17:20
Psalm 58:6
Job 29:10
Amos 2:6
Isaiah 10:1
Matthew 18:6
Luke 4:18
Revelation 11:18
Luke 23:30
Ezekiel 34:18
Luke 19:8

Advent Week 3: Waiting

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Saint Joseph, 1475, Tuscany. Personal photo.

After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she remained in seclusion…
And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home. (Luke 1:24, 56, NRS V)

I have often heard preachers romanticize the tedium of waiting. They say, “Advent is about waiting.” We talk about waiting with hope, about active waiting versus passive waiting. We recall the way kids count down the days until they can open Christmas presents. We talk about the waiting of pregnancy, and about the appropriateness of the metaphor “she’s expecting.”

But it’s all just waiting. Between Mary’s Magnificat, Elizabeth’s prophecy, and the events of Christmas, there’s a lot of waiting. It is notable that the author says nothing about those mundane days. Eight months elapse in two sentences.

We know that the time was not necessarily boring, but it was full of everyday tasks: working, cooking, doing laundry, fixing broken things, weariness, sleeping, travel. The gospel authors, like any good storyteller, skips over these nondescript days in order to advance the story.

That’s one of the reasons I love the carving of Joseph in the photo above. You can see the weariness on his face. This is presumably after the long journey, after Jesus’s birth, perhaps after several sleepless nights of feeding and diaper changing.

It’s also a face full of love, because that’s what makes the waiting and the everyday experiences important. That’s what makes the waiting and the uncertainty and our mortality bearable.

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Prayer: Maker of Time and Giver of Life, help us to bear the waiting and the uncertainty with love.

—Rev. Dr. David Barnhart, Jr.