Excellence and Justice

Excellence at an impasse

Posted: 06 Feb 2013 02:01 PM PST

Sarah Dreier

By Sarah Dreier, Legislative Representative of International Policy for the ELCA and The Episcopal Church 

The discipline of yoga has taught me to realize that I am whole in God, regardless of what goes on around me — that no experiences I encounter in my worldly life will adulterate that godly wholeness. Drawing on this notion of spiritual wholeness, I have developed and redefined what it means to be excellent in my work as the legislative representative of international policy for the ELCA and the Episcopal Church, even as I tackle worldly injustices that seem utterly impassable.

Every day, I work with Congress and the Administration to challenge them to address and abate global injustices, including hunger, malnutrition, lack of development, violence and other human rights violations. I advocate for U.S. policies that will help eradicate extreme poverty, increase child and maternal nutrition, combat HIV and AIDS, address the atrocities of human trafficking, and hold multinational corporations accountable to the taxes they are so adept at evading. I urge Congress to pass an annual federal budget that is consistent with our church’s commitments to address poverty and support those who are most vulnerable in the United States and around the world.

And I am not alone. I work with a network of professionals in Washington, D.C., and New York — and with engaged Lutherans and Episcopalians all over the country — who are committed to speaking reason to partisanship, justice to power, generosity to profane greed; to confronting poverty, racism, sexism, violence, climate change and all other forces that subjugate rather than emancipate God’s people.

Even working together, these enormous objectives seem insurmountable, impassable.

But this should not intimidate us to respond to worldly impasses by surrendering or lowering our standards of success. Instead, through, with and for God, we may be driven by a different kind of excellence — a spiritual excellence that enables us to overcome even the most challenging worldly impasses.

What does it mean to be excellent servants of God as we face and try to overcome these worldly impasses? Surely, we must not misinterpret Jesus’ warning that the poor will always be among us (John 12:8) as permission to surrender to these impasses of injustice. We are instead commanded to open our hands to the poor and needy in our land (Deuteronomy 15:11).

Two principles have guided my own understanding of excellence, within these worldly constraints:

First, take a leap of faith, and trust that God is working through us to overcome the impassable.

Last week, I heard a representative from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief ruminate on the global fight against AIDS in the last few decades — how unbeatable the pandemic seemed at so many critical junctures, and yet the unthinkable progress that our world has seen in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Today, scientists and politicians agree that if countries and international actors maintain a strong commitment to treating and preventing HIV and AIDS, the end of the pandemic is within our reach. Talk about surmounting impasses!

This is just one example, and we have seen, time and again — around the world — that through God, nothing is insurmountable.

Second, redefine excellence, oriented not only toward large accomplishments or measurable changes, but focused instead on the “least of these” — the poor, vulnerable, excluded and weary among us.

When we redefine our own excellence in terms of our service to “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40) — the poor and weary among us — we begin to recognize the unseen vulnerable whose lives are better because we engage them and work with them to lighten their burden (even when we do not overcome the big-picture obstacles), or the contributions that our diverse body of Christ are making to a public dialogue and an evolving public ethic.

We in the church are counter-cultural, tasked to uplift an ethic that prioritizes and exults the “least of these” in a Wall Street, partisan, radically individualistic world. When we remember that we are made in the image of God, this spiritual wholeness frees us from being restricted to worldly impasses. We are freed to reorient our notion of ethics toward those whom society has cast aside. And this leap of faith and redefining of excellence — I believe this is what makes us truly excellent in the eyes of God.

ELCA members in the new congress 

As the new Congress was sworn into office this past month, we welcome and pray for all Senators and Representatives, including the 14 ELCA members in the 113th Congress (District Number follows state):

Senator Sherrod Brown, Ohio
Congresswoman Lois Capps, California 24
Congressman Dennis Heck, Washington 10
Senator Martin Heinrich, New Mexico
Senator Tim Johnson, South Dakota
Congressman Tom Latham, Iowa 3
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, California 19
Senator Jeff Merkley, Oregon
Congressman Scott Peters, California 52
Congressman Collin Peterson, Minnesota 7
Congressman Thomas Petri, Wisconsin 6
Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, Maine 1
Congressman Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania 9
Congressman Tim Walz, Minnesota 1

Summary of Proposed Criminal Justice Statement

Draft Social Statement on Criminal Justice

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Summary

 

 

The ELCA Task Force on Criminal Justice has written this draft as one of the steps toward the development of a social statement that may be considered by the 2013 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. Draft social statements have no official standing as statements of the ELCA. They are a means to invite participation by all in the process toward the creation of a statement.

 

ELCA social statements are theological and teaching documents. They assist the ELCA and its members to reach informed judgments on social issues from a perspective of faith. They are intended to cultivate individual and community deliberation as well as to guide moral formation.  They govern this church’s institutional policy in terms of its social witness and guide its work as a public church. Social statements are developed through an extensive process of deliberation involving the whole church and are adopted by a two-thirds majority of an ELCA Churchwide Assembly.

 

In a nutshell the statement says:

 

The ELCA affirms the fundamental principles of the U.S. criminal justice system but also hears the cries that reflect the system’s serious deficiencies. Drawing from the biblical witness to God’s wondrously rich forms of love and justice, the ELCA is compelled by a “holy yearning” to address the need for change and improvement. The ELCA through its members and various expressions are called to strengthen or take up responsive ministries. In addition, drawing on evidence and data, the ELCA is compelled to speak publically to commend positive efforts and to identify areas in the criminal justice system that require reform.

 

The following summarize key ideas from each section:

 

I Prologue

 

It is deeply alarming that the United States of America ranks among the top two or three countries in the world in percentage of individuals under the control of the criminal justice system. (1 out of 31 of all adults, and, for people of color, as high as 1 out of 11.)

• Christians are called to confess that the church, as individuals and through its various organizations, has fallen short in responding to crime — both in terms of its harms and the problems in the justice system. We ask God’s aid in opening our hearts to the cries of our neighbors, and pray for guidance to speak and work more prophetically and actively toward earthly justice.

 

II Justice  

• God seeks wholeness for humankind — biblical shalom — but God’s strategy of governing human life is expressed in Scripture and experienced as a twofold work. On the one hand, human beings experience God’s deep care through receiving grace-filled righteousness, shared in the gospel about Jesus Christ, received in faith and partially seen in the lived reality of the church as a gospel community. At the same time, human beings experience God’s deep care through the gifts of law and civil forms of justice. This care is expressed through institutions and systems that, when properly operating, provide for protection, order and the flourishing of society.

 

• The ELCA affirms the fundamental principles of the U.S. criminal justice system, such as due process of law and the presumption of legal innocence. We honor those in the system who through their service help it to operate with fairness and a measure of human care.

• In assessing the current system, this church also recognizes serious deficiencies. Budgetary constraints and persistent inequalities based on race and class frequently challenge its basic principles and impose significant costs on all involved in the system, and on society as a whole.

• This church gives thanks for and yet also recognizes serious flaws in the exercise of law enforcement, the judicial system, and the correctional system. It commends work being done in responding to systemic racial disparities, the rights of victims and other problems, though it continues to believe that a great deal more must be done.

 

III Yearning for ever-fuller justice 

• Sin and crime are different but related categories. Although both often characterize acts that cause great injury to others and even the self, sin represents an offense against God, while crime represents an offense against the state. Nonetheless, Christians yearn for the day when both will be fully overcome in God’s great love.

• In the meantime, drawing from the biblical witness to God’s wondrously rich forms of justice the ELCA is compelled by a “holy yearning.” That yearning leads toward recommitting itself to wise responses of love as a denomination and speaking publically about paths to greater justice.
 

IV Wise responses of love  

• This section in the Draft primarily addresses people of faith and specifically members of the ELCA, and asks them to respond in ministry creatively and wisely in ways that promote human flourishing.

• God’s “yes” to us just as we are is without condition. The Bible imagines at least three ways of responding in faith with a grateful “yes” to the world’s needs by: seeking wisdom, welcoming the stranger, and bearing the burdens of others.

• The ministry and compassion of members of this church to those in the criminal justice system should be expressed concretely by four practices: hearing the cries of those affected; accompaniment, hospitality, and advocacy.

 

V Paths to greater justice  

• This section in the Draft addresses all people, seeking to join with other people of good will to affirm positive trends and recommend means of reform in the criminal justice system, as guided by evidence and data.

• Positive trends to affirm include efforts at sentencing reform, reentry programming, restorative justice and victim’s rights.

• The most pressing need for reform concerns the very high levels of incarceration in the U.S. Incarceration should be reserved for serious and violent offenders who pose a danger to society. The system should make greater use of alternative forms of sentencing that have been demonstrated to be successful.

• Research shows that race frequently influences decision-making at numerous points in the criminal justice system in ways that disadvantage people of color and cumulatively contribute to racial disparity in incarceration. Significant actions must be taken to address this continuing problem.

• Any comprehensive assessment of the criminal justice system must attend to national drug policy because that policy has a marked effect on all aspects of the system. The ELCA calls for careful attention to the full costs and consequences of the current policy, and openness to changes where they would enhance the welfare of the community.

• On theological grounds regarding the proper role of government, as well as for humanitarian reasons and questions about true cost effectiveness, the ELCA opposes current trends that would increase privatization of the criminal justice system.

• Other areas for reform include practices regarding juvenile offenders, collateral sanctions, rehabilitation, and encouragement for alternative strategies to enhance public safety and lower crime rates.

 

VI Conclusion: a new paradigm  

• It must be remembered that those involved in the criminal justice system are human beings, created in the image of God and worthy of compassionate response and better alternatives. A transformation of perspective is needed in this society that will challenge a logic that equates more punitive responses to crime with more just ones.

• In God the ELCA places our hope for the fullness of justice promised only by the gospel. And to God we owe our thanks for human reason and its abilities to discern — with prudence and creativity — how our communities might reflect in this time the justice of the law. The ELCA therefore recommits itself to ministry with, for, to and among the many, many people whose voices cry out for justice in our criminal justice system. “For what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).

In these final days of 2012, Congress faces important fiscal decisions. The actions our leaders take — or don’t take — will critically impact people who struggle with hunger and live in poverty.

As members of the ELCA, we serve our vulnerable neighbors in our communities and around the world every day, and out of this experience, we encourage our public officials to advance the common good by protecting programs that help our neighbors rise out of poverty.

Your action is needed now: the House of Representatives is slated to vote tonight on two bills that would undermine crucial supports for people living in poverty. 

Tell your representative, as he or she votes this evening, to prioritize the needs of families and children living in poverty, and remind your senators that you care deeply about how decisions made in the current fiscal debate impact vulnerable people.

Click here to call your members of Congress now.  Look for the talking points to help guide your conversation.  (This information can be found on the ELCA Advocacy website by clicking elca.org/Advocacy.

In the days, weeks and months ahead, our nation should work to reduce our federal deficits in ways that do not increase poverty or inequality. Tell your senators and representative to work together, devising a balanced approach that defends programs and policies that aid low-income people and help hurting families attain economic security.

Members of Congress need to hear from people of faith — click here to call to your senators and representative now.   This information can be found on the ELCA Advocacy website by clicking elca.org/advocacy.

 

As the debate over deficit reduction, tax policy and federal spending continues, ELCA members and other people of faith are forming a “Circle of Protection” around programs that aid hungry and poor people.

Peace,
Pastor Doug

Connecticut Shooting - A pastoral letter

“O come, O Dayspring, come and cheer;

O Sun of justice, now draw near

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

And death’s dark shadows put to flight

Rejoice, Rejoice Emmanuel shall come to you O Israel”

 

                ~ Evangelical Lutheran Worship #257

 

 

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

 

The word “rejoice” seems so inappropriate right now, almost to the point of being vulgar.  How in the world can we possibly rejoice in the face of last week’s terror attack on six and seven year olds in a Connecticut elementary school?  On the human level, our hearts break for those in that school whose last moments must have been filled with unspeakable fear.  As parents who entrust our children to schools every day, the thought of one of our own children never coming home from school again: never being in the safe embrace of our arms again: never having the opportunity to blossom into adulthood, fills what’s left of our aching hearts with unfathomable fear. 

In our heads, we ask the questions, “Would banning military grade assault weapons or improving our mental health system or taking on an entertainment industry addicted to R-rated violence have prevented what happened in Newtown last week?”   Maybe:  Maybe not.  We’ll never know.

In our hearts, we cry out to God the torturous and unanswerable questions.  How could this happen to those whom Jesus takes into his arms and promises the deed to the Kingdom of Heaven?  Why did something like this happen?  When will this kind of violence go away?  When will my heart stop breaking and the tears stop flowing?

 

“Rejoice, Rejoice

Emmanuel shall come to you O Israel”

 

Perhaps this season of Advent has something audacious to tell us when faced with the juxtaposition of the word “rejoice” with what happened last week.  Though the world around us defines joy as a happy feeling brought about by favorable conditions, as Christians we know better.  We know that joy runs deeper and wider than that.  Though at times joy can feel like happiness, there is another side to joy:  A defiant side:  A defiant side that has its origins in the presence of God or as John describes it, “the light of the world, the light no darkness [or bullets] can overcome.”

 And yet rage and tears remain despite the good news of light overcoming darkness.  But maybe that’s okay.  Anger and tears reveal that you have a heart:  Having a heart means it can break.  And if a heart breaks, it does so because it loves.  And love is the ultimate act of defiance which in turn gives birth to joy.  In the midst of tears, love openly rebels against hatred and vengeance.  Love resists the world non-violently.  Love embraces those who ache.  Love kills not with bullets but with kindness.  Love embodies forgiveness and brings about healing.

 We don’t know when healing will come or what it will look like.  We have no idea when the tears will stop flowing.  But in just a few short days we will hear how God has drawn near in the flesh and blood of a newborn baby and how in the birth of that child, love is born anew and death’s dark shadows are put to flight.

 So maybe the defiant words of the psalmist say it best after all.  “Weeping may lodge for the night, but shouts of joy will come in the morning”.

 Peace and love in this season of pain and joy,

 

Pastors Doug and Joanne

 

 

A Growing Church is a Dying Church September 4, 2012 by J. Barrett Lee Whenever a congregation goes looking for a new pastor, the first question on their minds when the committee interviews a new candidate is: Will this pastor grow our church? I’m going to go ahead and answer that question right now: No, she will not. No amount of pastoral eloquence, organization, insightfulness, amicability, or charisma will take your congregation back to back to its glory days. What then can your pastor do? She can make your board meetings longer with prayer and Bible study. She can mess with your sense of familiarity by changing the order of worship and the arrangement of the sanctuary. She can play those strange new songs and forget about your favorite old hymns. She can keep on playing those crusty old hymns instead of that hot new contemporary praise music. She can bug you incessantly about more frequent celebration of Communion. She can ignore your phone call because she’s too busy praying. She can ruin your perfectly balanced budget with appeals for more funds to be allocated toward mission and outreach. She can take up your precious evenings with kooky new book studies and meditation groups. She can take up your precious weekends with exhausting volunteer projects. She can open your church building to the ugliest and meanest freaks in town, who show up at odd hours, beg for handouts, track muddy snow into the building, leave their cigarette butts in the parking lot, and spill their coffee on the carpet during their Junkies Anonymous meetings. She can come off sounding like a Jesus freak evangelical, gushing on and on about the Bible and your personal relationship with God. She can come off sounding like a smells n’ bells catholic, pontificating on and on about tradition and sacraments. She can come off sounding like a bleeding-heart liberal, prattling on and on about social justice and the need to constantly question old interpretations. What can she do to grow your church? Nothing. There’s nothing your pastor can do to make your church grow. She can’t save your church. Your church already has a Savior and it’s not her. She can push you. She can open doors. She can present you with opportunities. It’s up to you to take advantage of them. She can plant seeds and water them. It’s up to God to make them grow. And what if that happens? What will growth look like? Will all those old, inactive members suddenly return? Will the pews be packed again? Will you need start a second service and buy the lot next door in order to expand the parking lot? No. You might see a few new faces in the crowd. There won’t be many of them. Some might stick around but most won’t. Those who stay won’t fit in with the old guard. They won’t know about how you’ve always done it. They’ll want to make changes of their own. Their new ideas will make you uncomfortable. Your church won’t look or feel like it used to. You’ll feel like you’re losing control of this place that you’ve worked so hard to preserve. It will feel like your church is dying. And that’s just the thing. A growing church is a dying church. It has to be. It cannot be otherwise. The way to Easter Sunday goes through Good Friday. The way to the empty tomb goes through Golgotha. The way to resurrection goes through crucifixion. When Jesus told you to take up your cross and follow, did you expect it to lead anywhere else? What Jesus told us about himself is also true of churches: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it bears no fruit. But what if it doesn’t work? What if you let your pastor do all that crazy stuff and nobody new shows up? What if the church still goes under? What if all that time you spend studying the Bible, expanding your horizons, deepening your spiritual life, and serving your community turns out to be time wasted? What if it does? Tell you what: if that’s what happens, if you commit yourself to all this and still feel like it was a waste of time in the end, then maybe your church really needed to die.

As our congregation continues to pray and discern about becoming a Reconciling in Christ congregation, I am proud to share with you a keynote address given by our presiding bishop, Mark Hanson, at this past summer's ReconilingWorks Conference. My hope in sharing these words is that each of us will better be able to see how being a Reconciling in Christ congregation goes beyond the congregation to encompass our whole life together in this wonderful creation called "The Body of Christ".

ReconcilingWorks Keynote Address Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson July 7, 2012 I greet you in the name of Jesus. Amen. Often I am asked, “Bishop Hanson, what is your favorite Bible passage?” I usually resist the designation “favorite” because the scripture in which I am dwelling depends on where I am and what is taking place at the time. Yet when pressed, I often go to 2 Corinthians 5:14-21. The Good News keeps rolling from verse to verse. “[For] the love of Christ urges us on,” “And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves,” “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;” “[I]n Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.” “So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (NRSV) Oh my, the news is so good. How can we contain ourselves from declaring it? The world deserves to hear it. It is the power of this word that has brought us together. And it is to proclaim and embody the promise of this word that we have our shared vocation as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. These words, familiar as they are, frame my presence and my presentation today. So I begin with reflections on our relationship as presiding bishop and members of ReconcilingWorks. It is a joy and great privilege to serve as this church’s pastor, providing leadership for our life and witness. A part of that witness the past years has been how we as a church have addressed questions of human sexuality and the place of people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered in the life, ministry and leadership of the ELCA. In the midst of our discussion, debates and decisions, some have asked questions about my role as pastor for the entire ELCA. Some have questioned whether ReconcilingWorks members have the ear of, and great influence over, the presiding bishop and churchwide staff. Others have questioned why I have not been a stronger advocate for the changes adopted by the 2009 Churchwide Assembly—that I have been more focused on the unity of the ELCA and The Lutheran World Federation than celebrating our rich diversity. Within these complex dynamics of relationships and histories, I have come to be with you as an ambassador of Christ and a servant of the ministry of reconciliation. I am so grateful for the church we are today—a church committed to welcoming all while valuing our differences and respecting diversity. Through this unity in diversity we show forth the body of Christ. I am also so grateful for you. You have remained in the ELCA as you have worked for us to become a more fully inclusive church. I say that recognizing that many of you were not permitted full participation, experiencing marginalization and rejection even as you stayed actively engaged in congregations and in the life and witness of the ELCA. You have exhibited perseverance in times of discouragement and you have led the way, testifying to the growth in faith, leadership, witness and the joy that many are experiencing as a result of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly decisions. You are providing essential leadership in the ELCA’s anti-bullying commitment, helping us to make sure that commitment is more than just words in a resolution, but occasion for awareness and action, repentance and healing. You have reached out to those who have and continue to oppose the 2009 Churchwide Assembly decisions. As well as anyone, you can empathize with the searching questions asked by those who oppose the decisions, and that is, “Is there a place for me in this church?” Let our witness continue to be a resounding “Yes.” For we are a church that belongs to Christ. There is a place for you here. God calls you by name. Through word and water, bread and wine, God draws us to God’s self in the unity of Christ’s body. As Christ’s living body, we are sent into the world in the power of the Holy Spirit with the promise of the gospel. We are sent into a culture that seems driven to draw lines in the sand so that diversity becomes cause for distrust and division. There we embody what Paul described in his letter to the Corinthians as the living body of Christ—our unity is in our diversity. In fact, our diversity gives strength to the unity we have in our bearing witness in word and deed to the Good News of Jesus Christ. I believe we are now at a time of high expectations of the Holy Spirit. Fears are giving way to faith—to a living, daring confidence in God’s grace. That is how Luther described faith in his preface to the Book of Romans. Luther wrote, “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so certain that you could stake your life on it one thousand times. This kind of trust in and knowledge of God’s grace makes a person joyful, confident and happy with regard to God and all creatures. This is what the Holy Spirit does by faith. Through faith, a person will do good to everyone without compulsion, willingly and happily; serving everyone, suffering everything for the love and praise of God, who has shown such grace.”1 In that daring confidence, we are called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to serve God’s ministry of reconciliation in a culture and world that continues to fortify borders and erect barriers to protect and preserve power and privilege, be that power and privilege by virtue of our gender, race, sexual orientation, economic class or citizenship. There is a steely resolve to protect and preserve privilege by perpetuating and adopting attitudes and actions, policies and practices that exclude. There is a great temptation to deny the power and privilege we do have, by identifying almost solely where we experience exclusion. Yet is it not the call of the Gospel to lay down our privilege? Aren’t we to be with all who are excluded, marginalized, shunned and shamed in order to engage in the work of reconciliation to which God calls us? Robert J. Schreiter, professor of Doctrinal Theology at the Chicago Theological Union, reminds us that reconciliation is not a quick fix for a broken relationship. It is not a “hasty peace.” He describes it as “an intensely sought, but divine goal.”2 I often talk about the words written on the exterior wall of the Walker Art Institute in Minneapolis. “Bits and pieces together form a semblance of a whole.” 1 Martin Luther, Luther’s Works Volume 35, Word and Sacrament I, E. Theodore Bachman and Helmut T. Lehmann eds. (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1960) 370-371. 2 Robert J. Schreiter, Reconciliation: Mission and Ministry in a Changing Social Order (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1992), 1. 2 As my colleague the Reverend Malpica-Padilla, Executive Director of the ELCA Global Mission unit, reminds us, so much energy goes into trying to portray a semblance of being whole, when reconciliation involves seeking the truth, offering and receiving forgiveness and changing the structures and systems, the attitudes and actions that cause us to be in need of reconciliation. This work of reconciliation is centered in God’s gift of reconciliation given through Christ and received in faith.3 I have high expectations of the Holy Spirit. I believe the promise recorded in Ephesians 2: 13-14, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” (NRSV) One of the great opportunities we have as the ELCA is to hold in healthy tension a clear witness to the Gospel while building bridges of reconciliation with those who do not proclaim Jesus as savior. When I am with youth and young adults, the questions I am asked are not about human sexuality, but how we live as Christians with people of other religions and those who have no religious beliefs. I experienced the opportunity for inter-religious dialogue when I was invited to be on a panel of the Coexist Foundation awards night held at New York University. The Coexist Foundation seeks to deepen understanding among people of different religions. This night they were giving a $100,000 prize to a person who had carried out that vision in a situation of intense conflict. The award went to a woman from Indonesia who, after college, returned to her home community where Christians and Muslims were engaged in deep hostility and acts of violence. She began to organize women and children as a nonviolent force for peace and reconciliation. They gained power and gradually the conflict subsided. They moved on to the next village—nonviolence became the way of life. The program for the awards night was the Grand Mufti of Egypt Sheikh Ali Gomaa, Rabbi David Saperstein and I engaging in interreligious dialogue. The moderator, a British broadcast journalist, asked us questions. His final question was, “In two minutes please share what is central to your faith tradition. What is so core that you would never give it away?” Rabbi Saperstein began by talking about how in Judaism there are many paths to God, which leaves Jews open to dialogue with other religions. Then it was my turn. I said as Christians we begin not with ourselves, but with God, who continuously and improvisationally is creating paths to us so that God might reveal the depths of God’s grace, God’s reconciling love and mercy for us and the whole creation. God chose Abraham and Sarah, well beyond child-bearing years, and said, “Through your descendants, I will bless all people.” God stopped Moses, a murderer on the run, saying, “Moses, go to Pharaoh and demand he let my people go!” As God’s people were wandering through the wilderness in the infancy of their liberation, they became restless, longing for the security of bondage. God improvised again, calling Moses up on the mountain saying, “Give my people these ten words of freedom so that they will worship only me and live responsibly and respectfully with one another.” 3 Rafael Malpica Padilla, “Accompaniment as an Alternative Model for the Practice of Mission” in Trinity Seminary Review (Columbus, Ohio: Trinity Lutheran Seminary, 2008), Vol. 29, Number 2. 3 But our rebellious, sinful ways continued. God thought, “What do I do now?” Ah, God had yet one more improvisational move. “I will become one of them, bend low and meet them in their humanity.” Yes, in Jesus embracing the outcast, sitting at tables with sinners, engaging in public conversation about faith with a woman of Samaria, challenging religious and political authorities’ exclusive ways of power, Jesus embodied God’s love and mercy. And we crucified him. Ah, but God did not stop improvising. God raised Jesus from the dead. And now this improvisational God has claimed me in the waters of baptism. God has called you and me and joins us and leads us to be God’s reconciling presence in the world, proclaiming the Good News, serving our neighbor, striving for justice and peace. God said, “Mark Stephen, you are my child. I will love you steadfastly, forgive you mercifully and on the last day raise you up to new life eternally. And I join you to Christ’s living body, the Church.” Oh yes, we go with the mark of Jesus on our brow and the promise of Christ’s resurrection on our lips. Together we go in the power of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness to God’s continuing improvisational presence. I think I did it in two minutes. All the time I knew the dilemma with the question. For as a Christian, what we will never give away is the Good News that God is always giving God’s self away for the life of the world, showing God’s gracious and forgiving love for you and me and the whole creation. This is who we are as the ELCA. We are a church that shares a living, daring confidence in God’s grace. We are a church deeply rooted and always being made new. We are deeply rooted in Scripture. At the heart of that narrative is Jesus—God’s word made flesh. The story of Good Friday’s aching loss, Holy Saturday’s forsaken absence, and Easter Sunday’s astonishing newness of life in the risen Christ becomes the figural narrative woven through our preaching, worship, ministries and through the varied vocations in our daily personal and communal lives. From those deep roots, God is making us and all things new. For us as the ELCA, that means our commitment is to plant the church, not try to uproot it. It means our priority is for congregations always to be engaged in a process of re-rooting in our communities. We believe that will occur as we join together with other congregations—Lutheran and ecumenical—with campus ministries and social ministry organizations, with advocacy networks and partners such as ReconcilingWorks, engaging in three great listenings: listening to God as God speaks God’s promise and purpose, listening for the gifts the Spirit has given us and listening to the people in the community—to their hurts and their hopes. I believe every ELCA congregation is in a mission context. Of the 60 new congregational starts approved last year, over half are in ethnic-specific, multicultural contexts or in communities of deep poverty. Why? Because we need to become diverse in order to survive as a predominantly white denomination in an increasingly pluralistic context? No. Or because we as white folks have something to give that people of color lack? No. Rather because absent the presence, the witness, the leadership, the power of those so often marginalized and excluded and feared, we are less than the community Christ calls us and the Spirit empowers us to be—a Pentecost people. That is why our commitment to welcoming the new immigrants into our communities and congregations is inseparable from advocating for immigration reform. Those whom 4 we are willing to hire to manicure our lawns, clean our houses, wash our cars, labor in our fields should not be separated from families, denied an education or fair access to full citizenship. When I worshiped with the members of Santa Maria de Guadalupe congregation in Irving, Texas, at their Friday evening healing service, 900 were present. I witnessed a community joyfully praising Jesus and boldly demanding justice, while serving a growing migrant community. When I asked young people how they know God is present in that place, one girl about eight said, “I know God is here because I was healed of my heart disease when they prayed for me.” Another girl said, “I know God is here because I feel peace when I am here with my family. Here we don’t have to worry that my parents will be taken away from us because they are undocumented.” She said that with absolute confidence with the sheriff sitting in the front row. Oh, yes, sisters and brothers, this is who we are called to be as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We are a church that believes God calls you by name and there is a place for you here. Last fall while visiting one of our ELCA colleges, students were invited to have lunch with me. Honestly, I thought that I would be eating alone. But the students began to join in conversation. One first-year student sat down. With tears in his eyes he said, “Bishop, I never thought I would meet you and be able to thank you personally. But the ELCA saved my life. (I gently reminded him Jesus did that!) He said that through high school as he came out as a young gay man, all he heard from the religious community was condemnation and rejection. He said, “Then I found a church where I am welcome, embraced as I am, who I am.” It was an ELCA congregation. Yes, that is who we are as a church. We are a church that is energized by lively engagement at the intersection of faith and life. “O it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith,” said Martin Luther.4 We continuously strive for a deeper understanding of what the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ means for the world. Doing so puts us right where God wants us to be—in the thick of life. Why do we as a church body take years to develop social statements on topics such as the economy, race, the environment, human sexuality, genetics and now criminal justice? Because those are the complex issues with which we contend almost every day of our lives. And we believe no one should have to make decisions alone about how to live responsibly in such a complex world. So we listen to Scripture, study our Confessions and theological tradition, and hear the insights of experts. We engage one another in conversation as we study drafts and re-drafts. We finally act in assembly and when approved, we have given this church a document that will inform but does not bind our own consciences. It’s not only statements and messages that inform our thinking. Sometimes we need metaphors and music. You may know that I like to listen to the blues. In fact, an unfulfilled dream is to play the blues like the first pianist I heard Lazy Bill Lucas and have BB King backing me up on the guitar. Why do I love the blues? Because I love the 4 Martin Luther, Luther’s Works Volume 35, Word and Sacrament I, E. Theodore Bachman and Helmut T. Lehmann eds. (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1960) 370. 5 interplay between those base notes and chords and the riffing of the pianist. It is a metaphor for me of the Christian life. In the affirmation of baptism, we sound five notes when we say we will live in the covenant God made with us in baptism: • live among God’s faithful people • hear God’s word and share in the Lord’s supper • proclaim the Good News of God in Christ through word and deed • serve all people following the example of Jesus • strive for justice and peace in all the world Those are the base notes that hold our varied personal and communal callings. On those base notes, we will always be improvising in our varied contexts. We will not always agree on what justice is called for. Some will argue restorative justice. Others might say distributive justice. Still others retributive justice. What is given is that, as the baptized, we will be engaged in the struggle for justice. Think of the Gospels and the interplay between base notes and improvisation. The base note sounded over and over again is “The Kingdom of God is like…” Then Jesus would riff on the kingdom of God by telling parables. A base chord was Jesus saying, “I am going to Jerusalem and there undergo great suffering, be killed and after three days rise again.” Along the way, Jesus improvised as he called disciples, challenged authorities, taught and healed, created controversy, calmed storms and embodied God’s reconciling mercy. We are a church whose unity is in this Jesus Christ who gathers us around word and water, bread and wine. That means as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, we will define ourselves first on the basis of our relatedness to others and to God’s creation and not on the basis of our distinctiveness—that which sets us apart. It also means that we will be engaged in the long process of reconciliation where differences have separated rather than enriched us. Many predicted that a consequence of our 2009 Churchwide Assembly actions on human sexuality we would be severing ourselves from ecumenical and global companions. If you were at the 2011 Churchwide Assembly, you saw that when ecumenical guests were introduced, the stage was full. In addition, we heard from Sayyid Sayeed of the Islamic Society of North America, the first greeting ever to the Churchwide Assembly by a representative of the Islamic community. No global or ecumenical partner has broken their relationship with the ELCA, save for the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod ceasing our cooperative ministries. I recognize that there have been tensions and difficult conversations with some of our partners. But Archbishop Gregory of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Atlanta said, in a sermon commemorating the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, that when our differences are greatest is when we need to move toward one another in deeper dialogue. While continuing to address these differences, we are still engaged in doing God’s work of healing and restoring community in the world. So today you are present in Haiti as a $3.5 million grant from ELCA World Hunger and Disaster Appeals is making possible a 200-unit housing project. You are present in Haiti because together with the Lutheran Church of Haiti, we have supported the development of a vocational training 6 school. As President Joseph Livenson Lauvanus told me as we walked across the rubble a year after the earthquake, “We will not be defined by rubble because we are a people of Christ’s resurrection engaged in God’s work of restoration.” We can accomplish things on a scale and scope we cannot do alone as individuals, congregations, synods or partner organizations. Because we are engaged in God’s work together, we are still present in Japan rebuilding communities after the tsunami. We partner with the Lutheran World Federation, which is administering the largest refugee camp in the world in Kenya with a grant from ELCA World Hunger. Because we are engaged in mission together, you are supporting the work of Bishop Ambrose Moyo. He and colleagues in Zimbabwe go from village to village teaching new ways of living in the midst of conflict that do not lead to further violence or repression but begin to realize the capacity people have for shared leadership, conflict management and building sustainable communities. Because we are engaged together, African partner churches are expecting that we will make good our commitment to provide $15 million for their work of education, treatment and prevention of malaria. Progress is being made. Now it is one child dying every 60 seconds from malaria. Not long ago, it was one child every 45 seconds. Still not acceptable. For our shared achievable goal is no child shall die of malaria. This is why we have the ELCA Malaria Campaign. This is who we are as a church. We will send 35,000 youth and adult leaders to New Orleans to accompany the people of New Orleans as they continue to restore lives and communities. Thirty-five thousand Lutherans praising Jesus, deepening lives of discipleship, working for justice and peace just as you are doing here. Oh yes, we do share a living, daring confidence in God’s grace! It frees us to be a Christ-centered, Spirit-filled, Gospel-proclaiming, creation-caring, community-restoring, neighbor-serving, peacemaking, justice-seeking church. For your prophetic leadership and faithful partnership in this church, I say thanks be to God. 7