World Premier of Palestinian Christian Hymns at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church

Westminster Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis

Ensamble @ Westminster (Northenscold photo)

On May 6, 2012, two Palestinian Christian hymns had their world premiers during the Sunday morning worship service at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church. Both were commissioned by two Westminster members to celebrate the church’s partnership with Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church of Bethlehem, Palestine.

The music for these hymns was written by Palestinian musicians Marwan Abado, Naser Musa and Georges Lammam. They along with three others (Antoine Lammam, Miles Jay and Tim O’Keefe) constitute  the Georges Lammam Ensemble who were present and played and sung the hymns and other Middle Eastern music during the service. The lyrics for both were written by Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, the Pastor of the Christmas Church.

The first hymn, Ahar (We Are Free), had three verses and refrain that were a Christian response to the realities of the contemporary Middle East. The hymn’s lyrics in Arabic were on the cover of the church bulletin for the service shown at the right. The verses were sung in Arabic by the Ensemble to their own accompaniment on Middle Eastern instruments. The refrain was sung in English by the congregation:

• “We’re free, unbound from slavery.
• We’re free, in our humanity.
• As dark as it may seem, we’ll work toward the dream until we see the beam, the light of liberty.
• We’re free. We’re free. We’re free.”

The lyrics for the other hymn, Ghanu Lil Hayat (A Hymn for Life) had a message of resurrection to be sung in the Easter season. Its two verses were sung in Arabic by the Palestinian musicians with their own accompaniment, and the congregation repeated the first verse in Arabic:

• Lai sa ho wa ha hou naa ha hou naa
• Kuf fu a’n nii bu kaa caa ma naa buu ha y aat

Rev. Raheb            (Northenscold photo)

Rev. Raheb delivered the sermon, “A Village Tour,” based on this passage from the Gospel of Mark (1: 35-39):

• “In the morning, while it was still very dark, [Jesus] got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found [Jesus], they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’ He answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.”

This passage, Raheb said, was a short summary of Jesus’ political program. In the context of His having been born, raised and lived under Roman occupation and having been oppressed day and night, He was faced with the question, how can His people be liberated?

To answer this question, Raheb continued, Jesus chose not to go to Rome, the capitol of the occupying power, to demand that the people be liberated. Nor did He have any desire to be a king or religious leader or the founder of a political party. Jesus had a different concept of liberation. Instead He chose to go on a village tour to preach, teach and heal the people who were marginalized, who were not in control of their lives. Jesus told them that their liberation starts in the mind and in the heart and that they–the outsiders– were being called to be His ambassadors for the Kingdom of God. We are free!

The service was attended by a local Islamic imam and was live-streamed to the Internet and watched by members of Christmas Church in Bethlehem and by Christians in Europe. It is now archived and can be watched by anyone. It was the concluding event in Westminster’s Palestinian Arts Festival.

In my opinion, this worship service was one of the most meaningful in Westminster’s recent history. It fully integrated the mission of our global partnerships with our worship service. It emphasized that God speaks and acts in different ways, in different times and in different places. We in the United States do not have a monopoly on understanding God and Jesus. The Bible was not written in English in 21st century U.S.A. We can gain additional perspectives on God and Jesus from symbolically standing in the shoes of our brothers and sisters in different places and circumstances. Jesus lived and worked in an era of occupation.

Gratitude III

In “Gratitude I” I expressed gratitude for my educational and professional mentors. In “Gratitude II” the subject was gratitude for my wife, children and grandchildren, my spiritual journey and my financial ability to retire at age 62. Here are some other things to add to my list for thankfulness.

Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers emphasizes the importance of an individual’s family and place and date of birth as determinants of success. Warren Buffett, the great investor from Omaha, frequently says how fortunate he is to have won the ovarian lottery by having been born born in the U.S. in the 1920′s. They remind me to be grateful for having been born in the U.S.A. It is indeed a great country and provided me with opportunity after opportunity.

I am also grateful that I was born at the end of the Great Depression-era and as a result am a member of a relatively small age-cohort. This has meant that I faced less competition for many of the opportunities I have had. This also meant that I entered the labor force, after all of my university-level education, in 1966 when there was strong demand in the U.S. for new law graduates with good records. Today I read the many stories in the press about the difficulties of contemporary law graduates in finding good jobs, and this is confirmed by the law students I know at the University of Minnesota Law School. I am grateful I was not in that predicament when I was starting out.

Contemporary law graduates and other young people today often finish their student days with large student debts, further exasperating their situation in this difficult job market. Because of the full-tuition scholarships I had over nine years at Grinnell College and the Universities of Oxford and Chicago, I did not have any student debt and did not face this problem. For this I am also grateful.

This last point also uncovers another reason for gratitude. The three scholarships I had were the result of businessmen (George F. Baker and Cecil Rhodes) and lawyers who were financially successful in capitalist systems and who had philanthropic motivations to give back and encourage others.

Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School Professor and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, is absolutely correct when she says:

• “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that   marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.”
• “Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk   of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

The same thought is expressed many times and many ways in the Bible. Here is what the letter to the Hebrews says. “[S]ince we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” (Hebrews 12: 1-2.) “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; and those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.” (Hebrews 13: 1-3.)

For all of these blessings, I give thanks to God and to those named and unnamed individuals who helped me along the way.

Oscar Romero’s Last Homily

 

Capilla de Hospital de la Divina Providencia

Capilla de Hospital de la Divina Providencia

At 6:00 p.m. on Monday, March 24, 1980, Monsignor Romero commenced his celebration of a memorial mass for the mother of the publisher and editor of a newspaper that was a voice for justice and human rights in El Salvador.  The service was held in the beautiful, intimate, modern chapel at a cancer hospital in San Salvador that was across the street from Romero’s small apartment.[1]

In what turned out to be his last homily, Romero lead the people in Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd . . . . Though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff–they comfort me.” Romero then read the gospel text for the service, John 12: 23-26:

“Jesus [said], ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified . . . . [U]nless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their own life lose it; those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.’”

Romero Mural @ His Apartment

Romero said, “[E]very Christian ought to want to live intensely. Many do not understand; they think Christianity should not be involved in such things. But, to the contrary, you have just heard in Christ’s gospel than one must not love oneself so much as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us, and that those who try to fend off the danger will lose their lives, while those who act out of love for Christ give themselves to the service of others will live. . . .”

“We know that every effort to better society, especially when injustice and sin are so ingrained, is an effort that God blesses, that God wants, that God demands of us. . . . [W]e must try to purify these ideals, Christianize them, clothe them with the hope of what lies beyond. That makes them stronger, because it gives us the assurance that all that we cultivate on earth, if we nourish it with Christian hope, will never be a failure. We will find it in a purer form in that kingdom where our merit will be in the labor that we have done here on earth.”

“Dear brothers and sisters,” Romero continued, “let us all view these matters at this historic moment with that hope, that spirit of giving and sacrifice. Let us all do what we can. We can all do something . . . . We know that no one can go on forever, but those who have put into their work a sense of very great faith, of love of God, of hope among human beings, find it all results in the splendors of a crown that is the sure reward of those who labor thus, cultivating truth, justice, love, and goodness on the earth. Such labor does not remain here below, but purified by God’s Spirit, is harvested for our reward.”

“This . . . Eucharist is just such an act of faith. To Christian faith at this moment the voice of diatribe appears changed for the body of the Lord, who offered himself for the redemption of the world, and in this chalice the wine is transformed into the blood that was the price of salvation. May this body immolated and this blood sacrificed for humans nourish us also, so that we may give our body and our blood to suffering and to pain–like Christ, not for self, but to bring about justice and peace for our people.”

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[1] Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love: The pastoral Wisdom of Oscar Romero at 242 (Harper & Row 1988); James Brockman, The Word Remains: A Life of Oscar Romero at 219-20 (Orbis Books 1982); Oscar Romero, Voice of the Voiceless: The Four Pastoral Letters and Other Statements at 191-93 (Orbis Books 1985); James Brockman, The Church Is All of You: Thoughts of Oscar Romero at 110 (Winton Press 1984).

Refugee and Asylum Law: The Pre-Modern Era

The history of refugee and asylum law, in my opinion, may be divided into two major periods: (a) the pre-modern era before the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and (b) the modern era starting with that 1948 adoption.[1] There are four major points from this earlier period that have impressed me.

First, there have been instances when individual states granted protection or asylum to people of another state, but the granting of such protection was always within the discretion or grace of the potential protecting state. Whether or not this was done was influenced by a multitude of circumstances. Correspondingly the individual fleeing his or her own country had no legal right to claim protection from another state. An interesting example of this type of asylum happened in 615 CE, when Mohammad requested his cousin and other followers to leave Mecca and seek refuge in Abyssinia or Ethiopia to escape persecution by Mecca’s leading tribe. This is known as the First Hijra (Migration) of Muslims. At the time, the King of Abyssinia was a Christian and known for his justice and respect for human beings. Responding to a letter from Mohammad, the King said he understood that Mohammad respected Jesus and, therefore, granted asylum to the Muslims.[2]

Second, as we have just seen, religious belief sometimes has motivated a government to grant asylum in this earlier period. In addition, religious bodies and individuals often call upon their members and fellow believers to be hospitable to outsiders such as those fleeing persecution. In Judaism and Christianity, for example, there are numerous Biblical texts to this effect. In the Hebrew Bible, the people are told, “Do no mistreat an alien or oppress him for you were aliens in Egypt.” (Exodus 222:21.) Similarly, “You are to have the same law for the alien and for the native born.” (Leviticus 24:22.) In the New Testament, Jesus when asked what the greatest commandment was, said, “Love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39.)[3] Similarly Arabic traditions and customs have served as a solid foundation for protecting human beings and preserving their dignity. These include “istijara” (plea for protection), “ijara” (granting protection) and “iwaa” (sheltering). The Islamic Shari’a further consolidated the humanitarian principles of brotherhood, equality and tolerance among human beings. Relieving suffering and assisting, sheltering, and granting safety to the needy, even enemies, are an integral part of Islamic Shari’a. In fact,  Islamic Shari’a addressed the issue of asylum explicitly and in detail, and guaranteed safety, dignity and care for the “musta’men” (asylum-seeker). Moreover, the return, or refoulement, of the “musta’men” was prohibited by virtue of Shari’a.[4]

Third, after World War I, the Covenant of the League of Nations did not have any explicit provision regarding refugees. The closest it came was its Article 25, which states, “The Members of the League agree to encourage and promote the establishment and co-operation of duly authorised [sic] voluntary national Red Cross organisations [sic] having as purposes the improvement of health, the prevention of disease and the mitigation of suffering throughout the world.”[5] There also were various treaties regarding refugees in the 1920s and 1930s, but they did not grant legal rights to asylum.[6]       Fourth, German persecution of the Jews in the 1930s showed the weaknesses of this discretionary approach to asylum. In 1933 the Nazis took over control of the German government and fired Jews from the civil service and sponsored boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses.  Germany also started an official encouragement of German Jewish emigration, and in September 1935 Germany’s Nuremberg Laws cancelled German citizenship for Jews. By the end of 1937 450,000 German Jews had left the country.[7] In March of 1938 German annexed Austria (das Anschluss) and thereby brought the 200,000 Austrian Jews under German laws, including the Nuremberg Laws.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Evian Conference

Several days later U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to call an international conference to facilitate the emigration of Jews from Germany and Austria and to establish an international organization to work towards an overall solution to this problem. That July the conference was held in Evian, France. Thirty-two countries attended and expressed sympathy for the refugees. With one exception, however, no country agreed to take additional Jewish refugees. The exception was the Dominican Republic, and it did so because its dictator, Trujillo, wanted more white people in his country. The Conference also created the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees to “approach the governments of the countries of refuge with a view to developing opportunities for permanent settlement.” It also was to seek German cooperation in establishing “conditions of orderly emigration.” This Committee, however, never received the necessary authority or support from its members and, therefore, failed to accomplish anything. After the conference, Hitler said, “It is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people, but remains hard hearted and obdurate when it comes to helping them . . . .” Moreover, the failure of the Conference to do anything about the German Jews was seen as an encouragement for Germany’s increasing persecution of the Jews, including Kristallnachtin October 1938 and the Holocaust itself through the end of World War II in 1945.

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[1]  I have not studied what I can the pre-modern era in great depth and especially invite comments and critiques of this analysis.

[2] E.g., Hijrat Al-Habashah, http://www.positivearticles.com/Article/Hijrat-Al-Habashah/45073

[3] Religious beliefs motivated most, if not all, of those people and congregations that were involved in the Sanctuary Movement in the 1980′s to provide safe space to Salvadorans and Guatemalans fleeing their civil wars. See Post: The Sanctuary Movement Case (May 22, 2011).

[4] Prof. Ahmed Abou-El-Wafa, The Right to Asylum between Islamic Shari’ah and International Refugee Law: A Comparative Study (Riyadh – 2009 (1430 H.), http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendocPDFViewer.html?docid=4a9645646&query=sharia.

[5]  Covenant of the League of Nations, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp#art25; Holborn, The Legal Status of Political Refugees, 32 Am. J. Int’l L. 680 (1938); Holborn, The League of Nations and the Refugee Problem, 203 Annals Am. Acad. Of Pol. & Soc. Sci. 124 (1939).

[6]  A list of these treaties is set forth in Article 1(A)(1) of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/refugees.htm.

[7] E.g., U.S. Holocaust Museum, The Evian Conference, http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007698 ; U.S. Holocaust Museum, Emigration and the Evian Conference, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005520 ; Annette Shaw, The Evian Conference–Hitler’s Green Light for Genocide, http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/evian/evian.html; Wikipedia, Evian Conference, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89vian_Conference.

Dr. Rev. Anna Carter Florence’s “Skinny-Dip Sermon”

The Biblical text for this unusually titled sermon by Dr. Rev. Anna Carter Florence[1] was John 21:1-19.[2]

For Christians this is the familiar story of the unsuccessful post-crucifixion fishing trip by Peter and six other disciples. When they returned to shore, a man on the beach told them to go out again and put their net on the other side of the boat. They did and caught a lot of fish. Then one of the disciples recognized the man on the beach as Jesus and said, “It is the Lord.” Peter, who was naked presumably to avoid catching his clothes on the fishing gear, immediately put on his clothes and jumped in the lake. When they all were back on the beach, Jesus had started a charcoal fire to cook fish for breakfast and to warm Peter. After breakfast, Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. Three times Peter said, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” After each response, Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” Finally Jesus said to Peter, “Follow me!”

Florence said this was another example of Peter as the lone ranger, as the one who always changes the subject from Jesus to himself, as the one who forces Jesus to intervene, as the one who always wants to be the best at everything. Peter is always making “I” statements. We all are like this Peter.

Peter’s immediately putting on his clothes and jumping in the lake, at first glance, is strange behavior. If you want to swim, you do not put on clothes. But it is like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden after eating the forbidden fruit and needing to clothe themselves when God cries out for them.[3] No one wants to be naked before God and exposing all of his sins. It is really difficult to be forced to look at your own shortcomings.

And Peter did have shortcomings he did not want exposed. Jesus’ asking Peter three times if he loved Jesus while Peter was warming himself by the fire on the beach was telling Peter that Jesus knew that after his arrest, Peter had denied knowing Jesus three times in response to direct questions, all while Peter was warming himself by a fire in a courtyard.[4]

Yet Jesus said to Peter, “Follow me.” Jesus chose Peter to start the church. And Peter chose to accept this call. It is another example of God’s choosing a flawed human being to do something new and of that human being’s choosing to accept the call of God.

This sermon on May 17th was part of the Festival of Homiletics to bring together a wide variety of outstanding preachers and professors of homiletics; to inspire a discourse about preaching, worship, and culture; to engage issues related to church in the 21st century; to engage theologically the practices of preaching and worship; to invite individual preachers to consider various styles and methodologies of preaching; and to inspire preachers in their roles of proclaiming the gospel.[5]

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[1]  See Post: Dr. Rev. Anna Carter Florence’s “Preaching as Testimony” (April 6, 2011).

[2]  Bible, John 21: 1-19.

[3]  Bible, Genesis 3: 10-11.

[4]  Bible, Matthew 26: 69-74; Mark 14: 66-71; Luke 22: 54-60; John 18: 15-18, 25-27.

[5]  Festival of Homiletics (May 16-20, 2011), http://www.goodpreacher.com/festival/index.php.

No to Minnesota Constitutional Amendment on Taxes

Republican state legislators are now proposing to amend the Minnesota Constitution to require a super-majority vote (60%) in the Legislature to approve most tax increases.[1]

This is a stupid idea.   Have they not read about the many fiscal problems California has due to its imprudent requirement for super-majority legislative votes to approve a budget? The U.S. Senate is hamstrung due to its outdated and unconstitutional rules that impose a de facto super-majority vote (again 60%) to do almost anything.[2]  Minnesota even has difficulties passing a budget under normal rules.

Our Legislature needs to operate on a simple democratic principle–the majority rules.

The proposed constitutional amendment stems from the understandable, but mistaken, view that whatever a person earns is due entirely to his own efforts. On the contrary, every one of us owes whatever success one has to a multitude of other people, to a “cloud of witnesses.”[3] Warren Buffett often remarks on his great fortune to have been born in the U.S. We are all in this together. We are our brothers and sisters’ keeper.[4]

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[1] Kazuba, Raising the bar on raising taxes, StarTribune, May 3, 2011, at B7.

[2] See Post: The Abominable Rules of the U.S. Senate (04/06/11).

[3]  The Bible, Hebrews 12:1.

[4] A slightly different version of this post was published as a letter to the editor in the StarTribune (May 7, 2011), http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/121416799.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue.

Retiring from Lawyering

Ten years ago I was contemplating early retirement from the practice of law. I systematically tried to analyze the pros and cons of such a decision and summarized these thoughts in an essay that a friend used in a seminar for other lawyers.[1] I discussed the issues with friends at college and law school reunions.

I was inclined to continue my legal career because it was the more financially secure option, because I enjoyed (for the most part) the challenges presented to a lawyer that were discussed in a prior post and because it was difficult to give up the status and sense of identity of being a lawyer.[2]

On the other hand, the previously discussed negative aspects of practicing law said, “retire.” So too did the increasing stresses of the lawyer’s life.[3]

This thinking and these discussions lead to my decision to retire 10 years ago. Most important for me were two points. First was the realization that the longer you worked, the shorter would be your life after full-time working along with the greater risk that you would not be in as good as health later. Second was the question: what do you want to do with the rest of your life? Continue focusing as a lawyer on trying to help others with their problems? Or focus on your own life? Clearly I wanted to focus on my own life while I still had good health.

My decision to retire was confirmed at a worship service at Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago on North Michigan Avenue immediately after my law school reunion. The topic of the sermon “Called” by Rev. John Buchanan was vocation. The Biblical texts were Jeremiah 1:4-10 [4]and Mark 1:16-20.[5] Throughout our lives, Rev. Buchanan said, we should strive to discern what God is calling us to do with our lives, and then we need to respond to that call.

Here are the personal retirement goals I set for myself 10 years ago:

• Be a good grandfather to a grandson in Minnesota and a grand-daughter (and another grandchild on the way) in Ecuador.
• Be a good father to two adult sons and a good husband.
• Learn Spanish.
• Teach law in Ecuador in the English language and spend more time in that country.
• Do more international travel.
• Continue to do human rights legal work in some way.
• Conclude my research about Joseph Welch and Edward Burling and two of my ancestors and write articles about them, as was mentioned in a prior post.[6]
• Write a personal journal and memoirs.
• Be more disciplined in physical exercise.
• Develop appropriate financial planning and management for retirement.

In making this decision, I recognized that I was very fortunate to be in a position where I could afford to retire. I did not have to continue working in order to be able to put food on the table and have a roof over our heads.

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[1] Krohnke, Who, me, retire? A Recently Retired Lawyer’s Reflections on Retirement (June 2001), http://www.acrel.org/Documents/Seminars/Whome.htm. I hope this essay is helpful for lawyers and others who are contemplating retirement.

[2]  Post: Ruminations on Lawyering (4/20/11).

[3]  Id.

[4]  The Bible, Jeremiah 1:4-10, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%201:4-10&version=NIV.

[5]  The Bible, Mark 1:16-20, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%201:%2016-20&version=NIV.

[6]  Post: Adventures of an History Detective (4/5/11).

The Parable of the Prodigal Son and His Older Brother

In my teenage years as a dutiful only child, I identified with the older son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.[1] He remained at home working on the farm while his younger brother was dissipating his advance inheritance in a far country. Yet their father throws a big party for the younger brother when he returns home.  Like the older son, I just could not understand the totally unjustified favorable treatment of the wayward younger son. Like the older son, I was angry with the father and the younger brother over this injustice.

Many years later, however, I could see myself as the younger son in the Parable. As a college freshman I began rebelling against organized religion and the spiritual life. During my subsequent 24 years in a distant country, I clung “to what the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfillment: accumulation of wealth and power; attainment of status and admiration; lavish consumption of food and drink . . . . It’s almost as if I want[ed] to prove to myself . . . that I did not need God’s love, that I could make a life on my own, that I want[ed]to be fully independent. Beneath it all was the great rebellion, the radical ‘No’ to the Father’s love . . . .”[2]

When I came to my senses and returned home, my rebellion and other sins were forgiven by God, who was waiting, saw me when I was still a long way off and ran to welcome me home. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see.”[3]

Each of us often experiences life as a succession of unrelated events. Such events, however, are the raw material of our spiritual pilgrimage. Discernment of the spiritual significance of these events requires us to pause to reflect on how God appears in our lives. We can aid this task by putting ourselves into the stories of the Bible and by allowing the words of great hymns to speak to us.

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[1] The Bible, Luke 15: 11-31, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2015&version=NIV.

[2] Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son at 38-39 (1992).

[3]  John Newton, Amazing Grace Lyrics, http://www.constitution.org/col/amazing_grace.htm.

Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church

Growing up in the small Iowa town of Perry, I was an active member of the local Methodist Church. I was president of MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship), and our pastor, whom I respected, encouraged me to go into the ministry.

Once I went to college, however, I soon convinced myself that all religions were antiquated superstitions that were of no use to an intelligent, hard-working person like myself. This not uncommon sophomoric rebellion lasted for the next 24 years.

Westminster Presbyterian Church Sanctuary

In 1981 I could admit to others and myself that I did not have all the answers and that there was an inner emptiness in my life. I started attending and then joined Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church (http://www.ewestminster.org). A friend was a member there. I worked downtown, and the church was open to the downtown community, especially through its Westminster Town Hall Forum, which brought notable people to speak on key issues in ethical perspective. This was a church, I came to understand, that respected intellect as an important aspect of religious faith and life. Its mission statement provides that “In response to the grace of God through Jesus Christ, [its mission] is:

• to proclaim and celebrate the Good News of Jesus Christ;
• to gather as an open community to worship God with dignity and joy, warmth and beauty;
• to nourish personal faith through study, prayer, and fellowship;
• to work for love, peace and justice;
• to be a welcoming and caring Christian community, witnessing to God’s love day by day;
• to work locally and beyond with our denomination and the larger Christian Church; and
• to be a telling presence in the city.”

I have been and continue to be an active member of Westminster, serving as an elder and member of various committees. Most recently I have been chairing its Global Partnerships Committee that supervises our partnerships with churches and other organizations in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, and Bethlehem. This is one way we endeavor to fulfill the Biblical injunction from Apostle Paul: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of [us] are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:26, 28)[1] In other words, we are all brothers and sisters without the artificial distinctions that so often divide us from one another.

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[1] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%203&version=NIV.

My Christian Faith

Jesus was a human being who had a special, if not unique, relationship with God the Creator.

By his life and by his death, Jesus demonstrated to the people of his time and to all people of all time how we as His brothers and sisters should live our lives.

The first foundation of my Christian faith is Jesus’ encounter with a clever lawyer in Luke 10:25-37 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10&version=NIV):

The lawyer asked Jesus a trick question as to what the lawyer had to do to inherit eternal life. The lawyer did not really want to know the answer; instead, the lawyer wanted Jesus to give an answer that could be twisted to incriminate him. Jesus ducked the question and instead responded with another question: “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” The lawyer replied, “Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus then said the lawyer had answered correctly and that he would live if he did exactly that.

The lawyer, however, would not let it end there. He then asked what he thought was another trick question of Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Again, the lawyer did not really want to know the answer; instead he wanted Jesus to provide an answer that could also be twisted against him. Again, however, Jesus did not answer directly, but instead told the Parable of the Good Samaritan without the punch line identifying the good neighbor. Once again Jesus asked the lawyer to fill in the blank, this time to identify the good neighbor in the story. The lawyer did just that by saying, “The one who had mercy on [the man by the side of the road].” Jesus then said, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10: 29-37)

Parenthetically as a lawyer myself I have to say that the lawyer in this passage was clever, but not clever enough. The really clever lawyer would not have let Jesus refuse to answer the question. Instead the lawyer would say something like “I am not here to answer questions. My job is to ask the questions. Yours is to answer my questions.” And if this encounter were in a courtroom, the lawyer would ask the judge to instruct the witness to answer the question.

Returning to the Parable of the Good Samaritan, one of the lessons of this story for me is that your neighbor whom you should love as yourself is anyone and everyone and that they can appear when you least expect them. That sets forth a daunting assignment. I have never met this challenge and never can.

That leads to the second foundation of my Christian faith. God knows that we fail and yet forgives us. The most powerful statement of God’s forgiveness comes in another story by Jesus, The Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-31), http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2015&version=NIV.  As an only son and as a father of two sons, I see myself in this story as the older, resentful son as well as the younger, lost son and more recently as the father.

The meaning of these two stories for me is captured by the third foundation of my Christian faith, the following statement by my personal saint, Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero:

“The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision.”

“We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is            another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.”

“No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings        wholeness. No program accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.”

“That is what we are all about. We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.”

“We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.”

“We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a  future that is not our own.”