Blog Archives

Advent Kicking

11/19/2015

She/he/ze won’t stop kicking me. Except when he/ze/she does; and then I freak out assuming something is wrong. But generally lately, daytime, nighttime, in meetings - whenever - my little baby won’t stop kicking me.
I have been sick. Exhausted. Weak. Short of breath. Unable to drink wine. Unable to sleep. Unable to help move things as we set up our church office. Unable to just be the tenacious get-shit-done kind of woman I usually am. And all of these things wear me thin. And sad. And weary. And frustrated.

And she/he/ze keeps on kicking me.

And palpably, I know all this pain, exhaustion, and discomfort is headed somewhere. Beautiful. Unimaginable. Somewhere with a literal life all its own. Somewhere that will make all things blessedly never the same. At all.

Advent is easily my favorite time of the year. Nothing could detract from that. But, let me add, as a pastor, Advent also kind of sucks.

It is a busy season. Family expects a lot of me. Family expects a lot of church members. Church members expect a lot of pastors. And it is a beautiful and important season when we want our work to be meaningful and unlock new ways of seeing the world and new hope even as despair often closes in on people around the holidays.

It is a cold season. Neighbors experiencing physical needs experience more need.

It is a taxing season.

Sort of like pregnancy, it depletes every resource us pastors have. It hurts. It is exhausting. We grow weary. As the whole world outside of us seems to be going into hibernation, we wonder why we have to kick things up a notch rather than curl up and let time pass emptily by.

And there is this new world breaking in. It is kicking us. Like my child, it refuses to go unnoticed.
Something new is happening. Something is being born. A new life is coming into being. It will change everything. Something is coming that will make all things blessedly never the same. At all.
Today I went to a prayer meeting of all male evangelical pastors. (I may be weaker than usual, but no less brave!)

We heard a story from a local social worker of a very young mother on the verge of terrible things stemming from her battle with meth. Miracles happened. The young woman is receiving generous, plush help, partnership, friendship. People in our city - not pastors - met her in the darkest corners and walked with her into blinding hope. It was impossible goodness coming from pain, discomfort, sickness...It was Advent.

So, of course, being the only woman in the room - and certainly the only pregnant person - I cried as I thanked the social worker for her unfathomable story of Advent.

As our meeting progressed, the male pastors were talking about how tiring and discouraging Advent season could be. And with every concern they shared, my child kicked me. My child said “I’m here. I’m coming. I’m the reason you are tired. I’m the reason you are sick. And I am so worth it!”

I shared a gift my male peers can never know in the way that I do this Advent: This exhaustion we feel is a birth pang. It is a new life taking all our resources to be born and change everything. This is advent. (PS Male pastors who aren’t into woman pastors, this is one of the reasons why you need us at your table. Just sayin’.)

As we prayed to close our time, my prayer for them - and my prayer for all of us - was this:
As I am palpably feeling the kicks of a new life who is tapping all my resources this Advent season, and who gloriously will not be ignored - will not be overlooked as a beautiful new in-breaking of God’s fingerprints on this world,
May we palpably feel God’s coming kicking us,
Even as we are weary
Utterly tapped
Keeping us up at night
Keeping us woke
When we’d rather sleep
Reminding us:
"I am coming.
And I will change everything.
You who are weary,
Rejoice!”

0 Comments

Confessions of a Troll Feeder

11/9/2015

0 Comments

I feed trolls. Like a sign at the zoo, Luke reminds me not to. But, like a kid who just won’t listen, I feed them anyway.

I have it in my relentlessly hopeful head that if we could all have rational conversation with genuine curiosity to understand one another and to understand the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures in their intent and context, the whole world could change. I truly believe that. But too often I truly believe that I might coax that desire for rationality, curiosity, and mutuality out of folks who clearly have no interest in it. And I feed trolls. And I get bit. And I mope. And, Luke knows better than to say it, but he could easily say “I told you so.”

A couple days ago, I re-posted a video celebrating the diversity of Canada’s new government. Jokingly, I suggested that Luke and I should head to Canada around the time our child is due to have our little “anchor baby” in Canada. (Side note: if any Canadian officials are reading this, it was a joke. We’re pastors in a neighborhood we love. Even if your diversity, gun restrictions, and universal health care are terribly enticing, we’re staying put. Besides, you don’t allow Happy Hour in Vancouver? What’s the deal with that? So...point being, you can let us in when we visit my brother in a couple of weeks. We promise we’ll leave well before the kiddo comes.)

Aaaanyway, I posted that video and someone I don’t know, who I only have one “friend” in common with, posted a knee jerk anti-diversity response without even watching the video. The someone was, as you might imagine, white. So I tried to engage. She dug her heels in and posted again. I, and several friends, tried to engage again - citing example after example of how diversity is actually best for us and how being intentional about diversity tends to lead to the best hires anyway because we are biased toward people like ourselves - who are not always the best people for the job. She continued. And finally admitted she had not even watched the video.

I feel as though we’ve all seen this story unfold at least a few times. This is why most people know not to feed the trolls.

Then, still convinced this could end well, I private messaged her trying to take it off the feed and figure out why she was so entrenched in being anti-diversity on a post from a stranger of a video she hadn’t watched. She played the overplayed white privilege card - claiming censorship where there is no censorship: “I guess you don’t appreciate diversity of opinion.” Because leaving her comment up and engaging her time after time is a form of censorship. (Note to fellow privileged people: People disagreeing with you and offering point after point of counter evidence to your opinion is not censorship. It is not a lack of diversity. But, anyway, this person didn’t think diversity was a good thing in the first place.)

Not giving up on this woman’s ability to see the world differently, I suggested she research white privilege and learn to listen before speaking.

So, naturally, the troll was ready for full attack. She looked at my FB page and came back with: “I just saw that you are a pastor. I am shocked! Do you preach sociology instead of the Gospel?”

And this is why you don’t feed the trolls. And this is where Luke’s eyes but not his mouth say “I told you so.”

I asked her one last time to actually get to know me and listen to what I’m saying. I invited her curiosity and maturity one last time. Who knows if she’ll muster it. I invited more conversation off of Facebook if she genuinely wants to engage. I’d be happy to hear from her if that is the case. (And probably happy not to if it is not).

And I said: “Yes. I preach the Gospel. And, yes, I preach what you are calling sociology. I preach the Good News of Jesus Christ that is liberating love and justice for all people. It is a place at the table for those who are marginalized. It is a voice in the conversation for those who have been silenced. It is equality for those who have been harmed by western white supremacy in the name of Jesus which we have too too often taken in vain on this soil. It is equality. It is a concrete and tangible love of all our neighbors.”

If you stop by our church on a Sunday night, you will hear me preach the story of a Jesus who came to give us eternal life that starts today. You will hear me preach the story of a Jesus who dined with outcasts. You will hear me preach the story of a faith whose first missionary was a person who was despised for her nationality, gender, and life choices (that were probably not choices but attempts at survival in a broken system of patriarchy run-wild) by the people in power in Jesus’ community. You will hear me preach a Gospel that includes diversity because that is the only Gospel I know. It is the only Gospel I see in the Christian Scriptures. I wouldn’t know what else to preach.

...And I am so in love with this holistic Gospel of God’s present liberating love and justice for all people - and all of creation - that I imagine I will continue feeding trolls. I’ll keep feeding them because I just can’t imagine how they wouldn’t also fall in love with this Gospel if we could just slow down and listen to each other and to God’s word and works for good in this broken world.

I will feed the trolls. I will get bit. I will mope. And then I’ll feed them again. Because I believe one day, we’ll all sit at Jesus’ table where we’ll all be fed and the world will change.

0 Comments

Loving My Divided City & Hoping For More From/For Us

11/1/2015

2 Comments

Recently, my city passed an ordinance against aggressive panhandling. Immediately after that ordinance passed, a local company put these signs up.

I am bothered by both of these developments. It’s taken me some time to process through why. Aggressive panhandling is not a good thing. Most of my friends experiencing houselessness and poverty from other cities I’ve lived in don’t panhandle and don’t actually like panhandlers. I’m not a proponent of panhandling. But these two developments in my city have deeply bothered me.

Luke will probably post something better informed and to the point than I can. (Also, he will be posting a few things about something related, new, and exciting that we're up to here. So read what I have to say, but there's lots more goodness coming!) But when I realized the heart of my discomfort with this, I wanted to share.

There are really four reasons. The first three, I’ll gloss over because they are addendums to the fourth.

1) Everett doesn’t have much panhandling. (Especially in downtown which is the specific area I understand the ordinance to apply to). We have a lot of houselessness and poverty. But we don’t have a lot of panhandling compared to every other city I’ve been in. (I invite any Everett neighbors to take a field trip to Belltown, Pioneer Square, the International District, the University District, Ballard etc. to verify this. In fact, if there’s enough interest, we’d love to host a field trip with neighbors in Everett wanting to take a look at how Seattleites interact with neighbors in poverty) I can count the times I’ve seen aggressive panhandling in downtown Everett in the last year on one finger. And I spend a good deal of time out in the community. In Portland, Seattle, Boston, and Sacramento, I doubt I could count the incidences of aggressive panhandling I saw in one day on one finger. Everett doesn’t need this ordinance. So it seems like it is just degrading to our neighbors experiencing houselessness and poverty for no good reason. Ok, maybe not no good reason. But certainly not a good enough reason.

2) This sign urges people not to encourage panhandling or enable addictions. And maybe I’m being overly sensitive, but, to me, that “or” establishes an assumption that those who ask neighbors for help on the street are addicts. Some are. More per capita in Everett than other cities I’ve lived in. But many are not. Or they are in recovery and trying to make ends meet. And it is just painful for people already humiliated by need to have signs up that suggest their need is their fault because they are addicts - a sign that subtly invites (on purpose or not) the rest of us to assume this of our neighbors. And, again, maybe “or” does create enough distance between addiction and panhandling to clarify. But I really don’t think it does. At all.

3) I have tremendous respect for the three agencies listed on that sign. Like, Everett doesn’t have a lot of resources for folks experiencing poverty - but those three are stellar! I love them. Deeply! But those three agencies DO NOT meet all the needs of our neighbors in Everett experiencing poverty. More to the point: they do not INTEND to meet all those needs. My educated guess is that, for many of the folks asking for help, if it was as simple as walking up to one of those three agencies and have their needs met, they wouldn’t be asking strangers for money.

4) And this is really the biggest for me, comes from a story:
A little while ago, I went to an ATM machine in downtown Everett to get money out. There was no one on the street except me and a couple of men hanging out at one of the public pianos that were placed all around downtown Everett in the late summer. There’s always a bit of an erie, vulnerable feeling for me when my city appears vacant. And, I’ll admit to added fear as a woman with only two unknown men in the vicinity.
As I stood at the ATM, the two men began panhandling to me. Aggressively. I said “No, I don’t have cash for you.” And they continued: “You could get some out of the ATM.” This was too much. I was angry and I didn’t want to be angry at neighbors in need. I was scared and I didn’t want to be scared of male neighbors. But there I was scared and angry.
So I called back to them with a little edge in my voice: “Look, I am really uncomfortable with you asking me for money while I am at the ATM. I would appreciate if you would leave me alone.” Not my most pastoral words ever. But upon reflection, maybe that was the most loving and therefore most pastoral response.
And guess what: They apologized. Sincerely. Profusely. And they did, in response to my petition, leave me alone.

I didn’t need an ordinance.
I needed to muster the scant courage to name how I was feeling and ask two neighbors to behave differently in response. It was a humanizing encounter for all of us. I, a neighbor, spoke to other neighbors about my experience of them and how they were affecting me. I, a neighbor, established with those neighbors how I would like to be treated. And they were given - and gladly received - the opportunity to behave in a more neighborly way towards me.
Had I called the police to report them in violation of an ordinance, we would have lost all of that. Had I told them: “You know, what you are doing is illegal.” That would have been...okay? I guess? But there is something more human - and therefore more holy - in, instead of appealing to laws, appealing to our shared desire to love and feel safe in the place we live.

If I am never accosted at the ATM in downtown again, I will be glad of it. All the same, this ordinance has taken away more chances for humanizing, direct, honest, neighborly communication between myself and neighbors in need as equals who live and love in this place. And - in addition to the needlessness of the ordinance, the often false connection between poverty and addiction in the signs, and the fact that giving to three agencies won’t solve houselessness and poverty in Everett - this breaks my heart.

And so I pray:
Lord of love, Creator of all people - of me, of the business owners who put up those signs, of the neighbors who aggressively panhandled to me, of neighbors experiencing poverty, mental illness, and addiction,
Have mercy on Everett. Grant us humanizing interactions. Grant us mutual understanding. Lead us in ways of neighborliness. Lead us in your ways of liberation and equality. Bring us into renewed and renewing unity as those who live and love in Everett.
This I pray in the name of your Son who dined with those experiencing wealth and those experiencing poverty at one common table. May we, the daughters and sons of You and of Everett, do the same.
Amen.

2 Comments

Advent Kicking

Confessions of a Troll Feeder

Loving My Divided City & Hoping For More From/For Us

Lead pastor at Our Common Table: A Christian Community of Welcome and Justice in North Everett

Rebecca Joy Sumner

Archives

Categories