God Has a History of Moving

As is obvious by now, I'm taking a preaching class this semester. This sermon is on 2 Samuel 7.1-14a, otherwise known as the Davidic Covenant.

God has a history of moving. Did you know that? God has a history of moving. God moved in the flames of the burning bush and in the waters of the red sea. God moved in the breath that brought life to dry bones. God moved in the walls of Jericho and stirred in the heart of Solomon. God embraced Mary and challenged Joseph. God guided the disciples and raised the dead. God has inspired protests against war and witnessed to the power of non-violence. God has a history of moving. And, in this passage, God is concerned with doing just that—moving.

We’ve been talking about David a lot recently. We’ve heard the stories that tell of David’s anointing, of great victories in battle. Joshua just told us about David’s triumphant return to Jerusalem with the Ark of the Covenant—God’s holy throne. David returns as a war hero, but quickly changes roles into that of the priest. We see him officiating rituals and wearing priestly clothing.

But David is not a priest, he’s a king. And, starting with chapter seven, we see David acting like one. Basically, he starts making decisions. About God. There’s no doubt that his intentions were good ones. David wanted to give the Ark a proper place to reside—shelter, protection. And now, as king and savior of Jerusalem, he could do it.

I can imagine David feeling awkward and uncomfortable, living in such splendor while the Ark, the symbol and manifestation of God in the world was stowed in a tent. So he decided to build the Ark a proper “house” out of Cedar—a fine, fragrant wood.

David tells his plans to Nathan, a prophet in the King’s court. And Nathan sees no problems with David’s idea, offering the Lord’s approval. But that same night, we are told. That same night, the Lord moves. God came to Nathan and, in the first part of the oracle at least, David gets (as we might say today) told.

“When did I tell you to do this?” God asks. “Have I ever told anyone, since the Egypt days, to do this?” God then proceeds to outline to Nathan (and thus to David) all the good works God has done for David. God doesn’t stop with simply listing the benevolence that he has poured upon David. God keeps going, adding that the Lord will make David a house and will give David a dynasty. “I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever,” God says. “I will be father to him and he shall be a son to me.”

In this passage we find a tremendous promise to David, one filled with hope for the future. These are good things—lineage and blessing. The favor of the Lord. This oracle is often referred to as the Davidic Covenant—in this case, an unconditional promise God makes to his people through David.

It’s a passage that is formative for our faith and our world even if we don’t speak of it explicitly. As Christians, we point to this text as the foundation for the importance of the Messiah we call Jesus. In the world, this oracle is often pointed to as a reason to have a Jewish state—an issue that has long been a hotbed of debate around the intersection of religion and global politics.

But, what fascinates me about this passage isn’t these or other implications. What is fascinating is the way it all began. David sets out to take care of God. God, instead, takes care of David. In the text, as I’ve already mentioned, we hear that David is planning on making a “house” for the Ark. House could be translated as temple or palace. Either way, David wants to build a permanent place for the Ark—a place of protection and shelter and safety.

The history of the Ark is a colorful one. It was the symbolic throne of God that was so holy that if anyone touched it, they would be struck dead—even in attempt to save it from disaster as we heard in the scripture read at the beginning of class. Through out the Hebrew Bible we find mention of the famed Ark of the Covenant—of its shape and covering and adornments. Yet, even though we have some of these details, the Ark remains shrouded in mystery. While we have descriptions, none are thorough enough for us to get a true picture of it. We’re not even sure what happened to it.

But what we can be sure of is that it was held in high esteem. This was a revered part of the Hebrew faith, so holy that it was taken everywhere the people went. Holy enough, David decides, to have its own building. So, as we’ve heard, David wanted to do the logical thing—protect that which was important to his people. Keep the sacred safe, the holy protected.

But God refuses to be grounded. God refuses to be made immobile. The oracle asks David “Of all the times I’ve lead you and been with you, have I ever asked for a house of Cedar?” David, of course, knows the answer—no. God continues, pointing out that not only has God not asked for protection, but God was the one to choose and protect the people of Israel and David

The oracle Nathan channels is, undoubtedly, an intense one. It calls on the history of the Hebrew people, not just in recent times of success and triumph, but all the way back to its days of enslavement. God, as we’ve heard already, has a history of moving.

A temple or palace for the Ark, then, immobilizes God. Certainly God is not confined to human walls, but all too often the fault is ours. God’s ability to move in his people and in this world is independent of human attempts to limit God. We are the ones that keep people away from God. We are the ones who forget the ways God has moved in the past and ignore the ways that God is moving now.

But God doesn’t simply shun the protection David tries to offer. God turns David’s offer on its head. Not only does God not want or need David’s house, but God declares that he will make David a house. Here we find “house” carrying another meaning beyond palace or temple. Here, God speaks of David’s house, or dynasty—a royal lineage. David’s initial idea of securing the Ark is met with God’s intent to do just that for David—secure his lineage.

Attempting to secure God, of course, is no unusual occurrence—the faithful have long tried to save and protect God. The crusades sought to defend Christianity and Jerusalem against perceived threats from Islam. Airplanes have been flown into buildings in the name of God.

The struggle to protect God isn’t limited to religions fighting it out, however. We also find it in our own churches, our own communities. And I wonder, what are we scared of? What is it that heightens our fear and causes us to hold so tightly to the God of blessing and promise that we build societies and traditions that keep others away from God? Who or what are we protecting God from?

In the local church, it is often the fear of losing our Jesus that causes us to push others away from God. Churches struggle with using inclusive language, and not just because it’s hard to change old habits. They struggle because if God isn’t male, then what is God? Suddenly, the boundaries and lines that we’ve drawn around the Divine are blurred and that makes us uneasy. It’s far simpler to compartmentalize God than to expand our understanding of the Divine. The idea that God can move and inspire and create beyond what we know and experience is terrifying and awe-inspiring in one breath.

But, it seems, the terror overtakes the wonder, and so we don’t stop at simply limiting God. We also build fences around the people searching to find and connect to God.

For the past year, I’ve worked as the music minister at a small, country church dealing with the explosion of Atlanta suburbia around it. Church members are friendly and, for the most part, genuine. I like it there. It reminds me a lot of the church I grew up in—family oriented and kind. It’s comfortable, familiar. But there are reasons I left the church I grew up in, and reasons I struggle at this church too.

I came out as a gay man to my parents when I was 15. The years prior to that conversation were rough ones. I was raised in the South, in a geographic, social, and religious location that had very particular understandings of who and what gay people were. Namely, sinners.

I was terrified about how my parents would respond, but equally as scary was the thought of what my church might say. The people at church, it seems, never quite got it. I didn’t want to change them. I just wanted to be me.

I had been going there since I was four. They weren’t just distant old people at church, they were family. I wasn’t just another snot-faced kid, I was a son. For a long time, I was that kid. The one that couldn’t seem to do wrong. The one that all the kids were friends with. The one that the parents loved. The one that the older adults adored.

I couldn’t do wrong, that is, until they found out that I was gay.

There wasn’t any big revelation. More of a sliding secret that crept beneath the pews and into peoples ears. People started drifting away. Phone calls that once rang often to include me in non-church youth activities, all but vanished. And then, 12 years of church family seemed to be distant.

I wasn’t sure what was happening. The God they had taught me about, the God I knew, didn’t abandon me. Why did they? Why did they push me away? Weren’t they supposed to be the ones of all the people in my life to hold me close?

It was hard, and to be honest, I’m waiting for the same thing to happen at the church that employs me now. Hardly a Sunday goes by that I’m not asked if I have a girlfriend or why I’m not married. If I mention I’m hungry or that I woke up late, it seems, amazingly, that a wife would fix all of those problems.

And every comment and question along those lines is another block in the wall being built up around God to keep people like me away from God. Sure, it isn’t explicit, but I know what the implications are. Come out, and loose my job. Be honest about my reality and, suddenly not be good enough. Admit to being gay, and you just aren’t welcome here.

The sad thing is this: the outcasts communities create to protect God aren’t just because of hot-button issues. We exile those who think differently about how to pray or share the table or, as Mallory pointed out a few weeks ago, think different paint colors should’ve been chosen.

We’ve forced our only interactions with God into holy stone and wooden shrines filled with quiet agreement about the blessed poor and meek. Yet, as we’ve immobilized God, we’ve immobilized ourselves. We, like David, have decided that God looks better as cross on hanging behind the chancel, a symbol of God in the security of a temple, then out in the world. And because we listen for God an hour a week sitting in a pew, we miss the action that we are called to take. We miss God’s call to move.

But hear the good news: God, still has a history of moving. And, sooner or later, God’s movement will inspire our own. The movement and action that God leads through the Hebrew Bible is hardly dormant. It was in the streets of Memphis and Selma. It’s in the community’s efforts in the flooding Dakotas. It is in the banners calling for justice made by our own peers that hung from interstate overpasses. God moves now. God moves in churches that insist that God loves people regardless of race or sexuality or gender or ability or age. God isn’t finished moving and creating and inspiring, and this must awaken our deepest sense of wonder.

We must stop telling God what to do or who to be. We have to release God from the chains we’ve bound him in, and let God move. Our attempts to hold God for ourselves have been met with the same proclamation David heard millennia ago: I will hold You because I have chosen you. Do not tell me how to move. Instead, move with me.”

Thanks be to God. Amen.

What are your thoughts on God?

For the next little bit, I'll be responding to questions my friend, M. asked me a week or so ago.

Well, M. Jump right to it. What are my thoughts on God? Well. To start, I would say that I have no idea who God is. For all the thinking and writing and researching and reading and praying and experiencing I've done (which is a lot and not all that much at the same time), I would have to say that I have no idea who God is.

But this doesn't mean that I don't have any thoughts on God. I do have some of those. Lot's really. Here are two.

(+) I think God is far beyond anything we can assign God to be. God isn't just not a male nor a female, but has the ability to be both and beyond gender at the same time. The same applies for all other ways that we label and chain God.

(+) I believe in a God of second chances and third chances and 9th chances and 47th chances. And, as Kierkegaard would say, This awakens my deepest sense of wonder and joy and is a great source of relief.

But, for some reason, I can't seem to find the words to express exactly what I think (mainly because that changes fairly regularly). So, here are some quotes that I find particularly meaningful in the way I think about God:

"For thirty years I sought God. But when I looked carefully I found that in reality God was the seeker and I the sought." - Abu-Yazid al-Bistami

"I had a thousand questions to ask God; but when I met him they all fled and didn't seem to matter." -Christopher Morley

"There is a sign of God on every leaf that nobody else sees in the garden." -Thomas Merton

"Sometimes--there's God--so quickly!" -Tennessee Williams

"I am often closer to God doing the dirty dishes than when listening to Bach or Mozart." -Henry Miller

"It is safe to assume that we've created God in our own image when God hates all the people we hate."--Anne Lamott

Of course, none of these are adequate. But, then, who could sum up God beyond all things in a phrase or a sentence? At the end of the day, I know nothing for sure, except that it's by God's grace that I can say that...

old friends, hard questions

My friend, M., recently emailed me. She and I went to Elon together and, during my sophomore year, we would share a meal fairly regularly. I'd lost touch with her recently. We'd each moved to opposite corners of the States, and started school and, you know, life. But today I got a note from her. She included that she is working on a project for school and had a list of questions she wanted my response to--questions about God, the church, and being gay and Christian.

It's interesting because for as much as we talk about these things at school somehow we never get to the meat. We talk about what other people think. What tradition holds to be the case or which theologians carry a high Christology, but we never seem to get here. To the question asked in genuine curiousity: so, what do you think?

So, for the next days, I'll be answering her questions here with the caveat that I'm really just thinking out loud and reserve the right to change my mind. Jesus did.

another day, another sermon.

In preaching class, we've been in our small groups preaching to one another on assigned texts. My text focused on a moment when the Jesus we see isn't the Jesus we're used to seeing found in Mark 7 Here is the sermon:

There is no denying it, this is a hard text. If we were reading through Mark, we would have just come off a few chapters of fun miracles--the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus walking on water, and so on. We've witnessed Jesus' ability to care for people in really pragmatic ways (I mean, he fed people--lots of fish and bread) and his desire to strengthen their faith.

We’re used to this Jesus—the Jesus who helps, heals, cares for. Last week’s sermons told focused on other stories of Jesus’ helping hands. We heard about demons being cast out and bodies being healed and children being brought back to life.. Sometimes, those who were healed didn’t even ask for it. The John 9 text we lived in for the first weeks of the semester saw that to be the case—the blind man was brought to Jesus, and he was healed. With out asking.

But here, in these words, we stumble on another Jesus. One that, if we are honest with the text, is a hard Jesus to deal with. The Jesus we know wouldn't turn people away. But here, in Mark 7, we see Jesus tell this syro-phoenician woman—a gentile--that He won't heal her daughter because she isn't a Jew.

The story has Jesus roaming around the northern coastal plain, near Tyre in what is modern-day Lebanon. Trying not to be noticed, he ducks into a house, yet, it seems, word is already spreading about his arrival. A woman, whose daughter has an unclean spirit falls at his feet.

This is the familiar part, the scenario that we see played out again and again in Mark. Jesus is walking, doesn’t want to be noticed, tries to keep a low profile, but those who need help find Jesus anyway.

But, we find out, this isn’t just any woman.

The text points out that this is a Gentile woman, of the syrophoenician race. This certainly wasn’t a surprise to Jesus. He knew where he was, and what kind of people lived there. Tyre was near the border of the land of Israel. It was no secret that Gentiles lived over its northern border, nor that Jews of that time were living in a Gentile world.

This woman who shouldn’t be even talking to Jesus because she isn’t a Jew, much less asking for anything because she is a woman, approaches Jesus and asks him multiple times to heal her daughter. In the Matthean version of the story, there is a little more interaction here. She pleads with Jesus, and he denies her twice. In the Markan scene, we are told that “she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.”

In either case, the response Jesus gives is surprising to say the least. “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

I think it is probably safe to assume we aren't talking about our family pet here. This isn't a compliment. In fact, I'd say its mean.

Imagine--Jesus being mean? Not very Christ-like, eh?

Still, she doesn't give up. She responds: Yes, Lord. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's tables.

And with this response, Jesus seems to do an amazing thing—he changes his mind. He tells the woman “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” She goes home, and finds that it is true. Her daughter has been healed.

This one woman’s faith in the crumbs healed her daughter.

What’s interesting about Jesus’ last words to this woman is that they don’t match the model. We’ve heard Jesus time and again through the gospels say ‘your faith has made you well.” But here, he is hardly as explicit.

Instead, he cites her response as the thing that saved her daughter, not her faith explicitly. Yet, it seems to me, it was her faith that inspired her to go after the crumbs.

That is where the gospel is in this story—in the crumbs, crumbs that have the ability to change people’s minds—even Jesus’.

But, here’s the thing about food—people like to hoard it, even the crumbs. Sometimes I hear these hoarders referred to as “half-way Christians”—folks who are so concerned about what THEIR gospel says to THEIR community, that when it’s time to share it with the world beyond, they fall short. Sometimes we call them, seminarians.

You know the people I'm talking about. They claim to believe in Christ, then push people away from Him.

Or they say they care about God's creation: "I recycle!" the say. But recycling only happens when it is convenient. You want to shout that Christianity isn't convenient--you don't get to choose it just when it happens to fit.

Better yet, they are the people who watch the church clock. "What do you mean we have to sing all six verses?," they wonder aloud. "We are supposed to be out of here at noon! We have to beat the Baptists to lunch..." or “I have a blackboard post to finish writing.”

Or those who mourn for the homeless population's reality, but when begged for a dollar, refuse to give it. "They'll just buy drugs or alcohol," the half-way Christian argues.

What about the people who sing of God's love for everyone, but really can't stand that black kid who came to church today wearing a baseball hat and low riding pants?

Or the ones whose words of love begin to go sour as attempts for inclusion merely bring an exclusion of another sort?

Or they squabble about the details--about who God loves more or who sins less or who got it first or who hasn't ever gotten it.

These are the people who hoard the crumbs, who desperately hold on to the way things are instead of looking to the way things might be.

And here’s the worst part is: I'm one of them. And, I suspect, at one point or another, you’ve had a moment of being one too.

But hear the good news of this story: Jesus. Changed. His. Mind. Jesus changed his mind. And we can too.

We can fling our arms wider to those who are desperate for crumbs of hope, peace, belonging, faith, love, all of those identifiers of the Christian faith. We can call people to us, look them in their eyes and see Christ whether or not we are the same color or the same gender or the same sexual orientation. In changing his mind, Jesus threw out the old, rigid traditions that separated people from one another and from God. He changed his mind, and healed her anyway.

Sometimes, however, we aren’t the ones with the minds to change. Sometimes, we are the ones frantic for the crumbs, for little bits of sustenance for the journey. Can you think of times that you were desperate for crumbs? I can.

The cold of Copenhagen was unrelenting. I had been there for 3 months, since January, and was beginning to think that winter would never end. I was an ocean away from home, my birthday was quickly approaching, and I had never felt so alone in my life. My time was consumed with study and reading and sleeping—hardly an adventure.

I was riding my bicycle home from school late one night when I passed the cathedral—the Church of Our Lady. I had been in it before. It’s a huge church, one that glows with white marble and the clean lines of Scandinavian design.

As I rode by, I noticed the church doors were open. So, I stopped, locked my bike and timidly walked in. All around the church were candles and silence. Every ten minutes or so, a prayer or psalm was sung to mark the passing of time. After a long quiet, a priest emerged from the front with bread and wine, and those there moved toward the front.

Danes, like most Europeans, are not very religious. They seem to have gotten it out of there system, but the small gathered community here seemed to pay no attention to the cultural mores of the day. They gathered in a semi-circle around the altar in the front of the church. Desperate for my own crumbs, I joined them.

The liturgy began. In Danish. But amazingly, I knew everything that was happening. These words spoken for millennia united us in Christ that night. The bread began to make its way around. To my right, a woman said offered it to me in Danish. I took it and offered it to the man to my left, in English. The cup was passed in the same way. We fed each other, sustained each other. And, if I’m honest, they gave me the crumbs, literally and figuratively, that I’d been craving all along.

You see, we’re all searching for crumbs from the table and we all hold bread for others. Christ challenges us to change our minds—to open them to those who we’ve shunned away from the table, and for us to acknowledge when we’re desperate to be fed ourselves. Think of how the crumbs sustain us, then imagine how the feast will feed us all. Thanks be to God.

the return of the dog dooner, and john 9

So, it's been a long while since I updated the Dog Dooner Cafe. A lot has happened, in the past four months. Namely, Mom died. I'm not sure where November, December and January went, but I'm glad they're over.

I'm taking Intro. to Preaching with Tom Long and Gail O'Day this semester. One of our first assignments had us doing exegetical work with John 9 (the story of the blind man being made to see). All 144 of us then preached a brief, 5 minute long sermon on the text.

Here is mine:

The classroom was cold, which was a good thing. It kept my fellow Con Ed students and I awake during the two-hour afternoon sessions that had somehow been scheduled during prime nap time. I was in a group of chaplains. Half of us were stationed at a private hospital on the north side, and the other half, my half, had been placed at Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital.

At the start of our assignments, we jumped through all sorts of hoops—security checks and vaccinations. When our first day at the site finally arrived, we were given tours of the facility and an ID badge, then told to get to it.

“That’s it?” I remember asking. “You aren’t going to tell us what to do?” My supervisor responded with a pat on the back and those familiar words of encouragement “you’ll figure it out—you’ll learn better this way. Trust me..”

Two months later, I was frustrated. I kept visiting sick kids and their families, but still didn’t feel like I had a clue as to what was happening or what I was doing. This was confirmed by the overwhelming sense that parents were placing their hearts into my hands, and I could think of was “You know I’m 22 and barely passing Hebrew, right?”

At this particular group meeting, I was lamenting our lack of concrete direction. I came back to the same phrase: “I..I just don’t know what I’m doing.” Once I had finished my diatribe, with that statement, my supervisor was quiet for a minute. Then, looking me dead in the eyes, she spoke. “Jon, you keep telling me what you don’t know. Tell me, what do you know?”

I had to think about that. “Well, I know how to make people laugh,” I said. “And I know how to cry. And how to hug. And how to listen.” And soon, my initial denial of ability turned into a deep realization of the talents and abilities that I, indeed did have. Simple things. Sure, I couldn’t solve the world’s problems, but I could play Candy Land with the 4 year old who spent his days alone because his parents have to work.

The man who was born blind had a similar experience. He, being blind from his birth, happened to be in the right place at the right time. Jesus, making his way through Samaria, happened across this man. His disciples, seeing this man, asked Jesus why this man was unable to see, suggesting that it was sin which had blinded him. Jesus refuted their assumption, then proceeded to heal the man.

When word spread of the miraculous healing to the religious authorities of the day, they began to investigate the healing. After confronting the man who was born blind, the Pharisees sought out the man’s parents. His parents, nervous about the consequences of becoming involved with such a tense situation, point the religious leaders back to their son. “He’s of age,” they explained. “Ask him.”

The Pharisees approach the man once again, this time exhorting him to praise God, then exclaiming, “we know this man (Jesus) is a sinner.”

Here is the where things, at least for me, get interesting. The man has a few options. He could agree with the Pharisees and be in good standing with the religious authorities. He could deny that Jesus had anything to do with his healing. He could remain silent altogether.

But he doesn’t do any of those. Instead, he responds from his own personal experience. I can hear him begin to speak, slow and low, nervous and unsure about the new beauty he is able to see all around him. “Whether he is a sinner or not, I Don’t know.” A safe beginning, but he doesn’t stop there—he doesn’t let his reality end with what he doesn’t know. Instead, he exclaims: “One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”

Then, as the Pharisees ask more questions and begin to make declarations about God and Jesus and Moses, the man who was born blind but can now see calls them all to task: “You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We now that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” Instead of being intimidated, he turns the question to them: What do you really know?

It seems to me that we often find ourselves in the midst of situations that are beyond our understanding. When asked what life is about, many of us answer: I don’t know. What is the Trinity? I don’t know. What is the difference between a claim statement, a focus statement, a function statement, and a summary? I don’t know.

The mystery of Christ is that we simply can’t know. I can’t tell you how the incarnation has influenced and continues to influence our lives. I simply don’t know. The beauty of the incarnation, miracles, teachings and resurrections is in their mystery. But there are things I know. I know that somehow, we meet him. That somehow, he impacts our lives and carries us along when we stumble and fall. And, that somehow, however unbelievable it might be, he can make the blind see. We might not know it all, but what we do know changes our lives.

So, it seems, it is our turn to answer. What is it that we know? I bet the answer will change our lives.

My Friend Abby on Calling

For ConEd, we visit each other's churches and are expected to lead a worship service. My friend, Abby, did one on calling. After reading some passages on specific calls, she gave this homily:

Who are these people? The short answer is well, people. A strange mix of people actually. The first of these is a child, called by a god he did not know. Even though he was in the temple, this was voice that was unfamiliar. And it was a voice calling him to the priesthood, and it was not an easy call. It meant that he would denounce the family of the man who raised him. It meant that he would anoint Saul as king, and later condemn Saul when he visited the witch of Endor. But when God called, Samuel’s answer was, “Speak. I am listening.”

Then Mary, not much more than a child herself according to tradition, who sits in the presence of a divine messenger, utterly confused. Everything she knows says that what Gabriel speaks is not possible. And although she does protest, the angel answers her only once, before she replies, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be according to your word.” It was her answer to God’s call that allowed God to become human—human not as a divinely formed being like Adam, or something sprung forth fully born like the Greek gods, but human, born of a woman with the same pain and anguish as every child since creation.

And finally, three of the disciples. Peter, outspoken, devout, faithful, denying Peter was the one who fell down before Jesus, caught up in his own unworthiness. It can’t be me, Lord. It can’t be. I am full of sin. It seeps out my pores and haunts me in my dreams. It can’t be me. But it was, and when our Lord said to him again, “Come, you will fish for people,” Peter came, trusting that following this Savior would be enough.

We come here today as people who have answered a call, most likely with fear and hesitancy. Can we trust this man from Nazareth? Can we trust his words to be enough? Are we ready for this life of service?

No. I will say assuredly to everyone here, no, we are not ready. But we answered the call, hoping, trusting that it will be enough.

And so we come, answering the call to lift up holy hands in acts of worship and service to our exalted savior and his church.

I invite you now: Come to this center table and place your handprint within the cross. Your handprint will surely touch others and they must overlap if we are to all fit. That’s fine; no, that’s good. For we are not alone in this journey, but have been given friendships and colleagues and fellow travelers along this road to which Christ calls us. And when we are done, our hands will have formed the cross, an image of the Savior. Remember, it is this cross that must form us. Come, each of you.

choosing life, pt. 3

read pt. 1 and pt. 2.

"I feel like we should offer a prayer of thanksgiving," I told my friend James. We were standing beside the drive-thru ordering speaker of the Wendy's that was attached to the gas station.

"Do it!" he said. I hesitated, but decided that it would be the right thing, so I gathered the Candler crew, and we held hands. Soon, the parking lot came together in a circle. Next thing we knew, a bus full of supporters unloaded and our single circle had turned into a double ring. A woman (who turned out to be Davis' sister) asked "Who's gonna lead the prayer?" James shoved me toward the middle, "Jon will."

I was in the middle of a circle of a 100 or so folks, all holding hands waiting to pray. I should state here that speaking in large groups isn't a fear that I'm generally concerned with. But this terrified me. I had prayed before, sure, but never for someone's life. So, I started with what I knew. We were thankful.

"Holy and Loving God"--a good seminary beginning, I thought. "Holy and Loving God, we come today thankful for your creation and for your gift of life. You have inspired our highest court to choose life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

Each thank you received a response--an Amen, or thankyoujesus or hallelujah--something. "You have told us that you've set before us life and death...you beg us to choose life. Help us to choose life. Help us to choose life for ourselves and for others. Today a battle has been won, and we are happy for it. You have heard your people cry, and you have answered them. Tomorrow is a new day, God. And with it comes new struggles and new challenges. Guide us through those as well. Inspire us to choose life when the hard times hit, and when we don't want to go on."

Then others began to add their own prayers.

There we stood in a parking lot, holding hands and praying together. As the prayer ended, a voice began to shout. "I am Troy Davis! You are Troy Davis! We are Troy Davis!" It spread like wildfire among those gathered, and ended with an explosion of hugs. As we roamed hugging complete strangers, I met Mrs. Davis, Troy Davis' mother. She had been in that circle--holding our hands and praying hard too. I had unknowingly prayed for the mother of a death row inmate. I was baffled.

I can hardly imagine what she is going through. Regardless of what we think about the case, it is when we take down our walls and think about those on death row as people--people with families--that we begin to see the horrors that we are allowing to happen.

Christ's words had new meaning. "Who is my mother and my brother?" He asks. She is my mother, and this man scheduled to die is my brother. I do have a brother on death row. So do you.

Later that evening, a group of us were eating a celebratory dinner at the local Golden Buddha. As we were finishing up, my friend Todd almost shouted "What I want to know is: where are the churches in all this? They should be there alongside us."

"It seems to me," I replied "the church was in the Hess gas station across from the prison standing in front of the Wendy's praying earlier tonight."