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LOVE your IMMIGRANT Neighbor: Practical steps to support undocumented citizens and build community, 4th Blog of 4

3/11/2025

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me" -Matthew 25:31-40

FOURTH OF FOUR BLOGS: Explain to your immigrant neighbor that they have rights regardless of their immigration status.
You are an advocate! You have created a relationship with an undocumented member of your community. You have even helped them organize their legal documents. Now it is time again to remind your undocumented neighbor that they do have rights, even though in this current political environment it feels like they do not. Teach them the following:

Know Your Rights: The ACLU emphasizes that regardless of immigration status, individuals have constitutional rights, including the right to due process, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and protection from discrimination.

Your rights:

You have the right to remain silent and do not have to discuss your immigration or citizenship status with police, immigration agents, or other officials. Anything you tell an officer can later be used against you in immigration court.
If you are not a U.S. citizen and an immigration agent requests your immigration papers, you must show them if you have them with you.
If an immigration agent asks if they can search you, you have the right to say no. Agents do not have the right to search you or your belongings without your consent or probable cause.
If you’re over 18, carry your papers with you at all times. If you don’t have them, tell the officer that you want to remain silent, or that you want to consult a lawyer before answering any questions.

Don't be afraid to exercise your rights: If you are approached by law enforcement, you have the right to remain silent, to ask for an attorney, and to refuse to answer questions that could incriminate you.

How to reduce risk to yourself if a law enforcement agent asks about your immigration status:

Stay calm. Don’t run, argue, resist, or obstruct the officer, even if you believe your rights are being violated. Keep your hands where the police can see them.
Don’t lie about your status or provide false documents.

If you are driving and are pulled over, the officer can require you to show your license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance, but you don’t have to answer questions about your immigration status.

Additional resources

If you need more information, contact your local ACLU affiliate.
National Immigration Law Center: Know Your Rights
A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Immigration Raids
Immigrant Legal Resource Center
American Immigration Lawyers Association
ACLU VIDEO: What to do if stopped by police or ICE

Together, we can confront this moment. We can defend our values. We can assert our power. We can protect our community. God, and time, are on our side.

LOVE your IMMIGRANT Neighbor: Practical steps to support undocumented citizens and build community, 3rd Blog of 4

3/5/2025

"God defends the cause of the orphan and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing." -Deuteronomy 10:18-19

THIRD OF FOUR BLOGS: Obtain Legal Documents and Organize Important Information

You have identified yourself as an advocate for immigrants and maybe blessedly you have built an unexpected and beautiful relationship with an undocumented person or an undocumented community. What next?

There are a number of legal documents that undocumented citizens should have in order. These documents do not require a lawyer. They require a notary. It is hard to know exactly what legal documents each individual immigrant should have. Here are a few that my research and practical experience suggest are essentials. If you need further information, please visit the ACLU site.

Children:
If you are assisting a family with children under 18 make sure the family has a notarized document indicating legal guardianship. The legal guardian must be a documented American citizen. Why is this necessary if the individual has lots of family around them who will of course take care of their child if they are deported? If an undocumented parent is deported, their child will in all likelihood be placed in a group foster home. It doesn’t matter if that child has many relatives. If these relatives are undocumented, they will not be granted the right to care for this child. This is heartbreakingly painful. Just writing these words makes tears spring to my eyes. It is essential that every child of an undocumented immigrant has a legal document clearly stating who their legal guardian (with citizenship) is. This is a painful topic that many parents cannot bear to speak about, but they must. A legal guardian can make sure a child is safely returned to their parents if deported to their country of origin, or that child can be placed with relatives in their community. Most importantly, a legal guardian can advocate for this child and communicate with this child’s parents.

Make sure all children have a copy of their legal guardianship and know who their guardian is. If the child is too young to be responsible for such paperwork, make sure another childcare provider has these documents. Include in this paper work the name and number of the child’s primary care doctor or any other important medical information, including a list of medications.

Finally, make sure children know how to contact you or another safe person in their community in case of emergency. Make sure the child has these names and numbers printed in a prominent place in their home and in a safe place in their backpack or with their child care provider.

Financial Access/Power of Attorney:
When undocumented citizens are deported they lose all access to the money they have saved in the U.S. if it is in a bank account. There are a few ways to ensure this does not happen. Many immigrants share bank accounts with a trusted friend or family member, ensuring that if they are deported someone will still have access to their account. Another way is for an undocumented citizen to grant a documented citizen power of attorney. A power of attorney (POA) is a legal document that allows someone (the "agent" or "attorney-in-fact") to act on behalf of another (the "principal") in certain matters, such as financial or healthcare decisions, if the principal is unable to do so themselves.

Create a list of emergency contacts
Make sure this list of contacts is shared with family members and trusted individuals.

Create a folder with the following information:

Copies with everything mentioned above: guardianship, POA, bank account information, emergency contacts
Copies of passports, licenses, and birth certificates
Attorney information
Medical information, including a list of any medication and or serious medical conditions.

With permission from the undocumented citizen, make copies of all important documents and keep them in a safe place in your home for your immigrant neighbor. In fact, make a couple of copies. Depending on who the immigrant neighbor trusts, it's good to have a few people with access to this information, such as family members, trusted neighbors and friends, pastor, etc.

Further documents that our immigrant neighbors should ALWAYS carry with them:

Identification documents, such as a passport or driver's license.
If they have legal status, they should provide proof of their legal status, such as a green card or visa.
Don't carry falsified documents: Never carry or use fake documents, as this can lead to legal consequences.

LOVE your IMMIGRANT Neighbor: Practical steps to support undocumented citizens and build community, 2nd Blog of 4

2/27/2025

SECOND OF FOUR BLOGS: Build Individual Relationship with Immigrants
"Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels without realizing it." -Hebrews 13:2

You have made the choice to be an immigrant advocate. You believe building communities of love, welcome, and support are the only ways forward in this unrecognizable political landscape. You have reached out to folks in your community you believe might be undocumented. You have handed out lots of red cards. What next?

First: Re-check in with your undocumented neighbors and friends. Do not send them explicit texts stating their status, but you can send communications like this, “Just making sure you are okay. I can only imagine how exhausting this must all be.”

Second: Ask if there is something specific you can do to ease their life.
Here are some examples:

See if they want to place a pick-up order for their groceries. Offer to deliver to them. Often shopping is incredibly fear-inducing for undocumented immigrants.
See if there is a meeting at their child’s school they are nervous about going to alone. Offer to go with them.
Do they need any documents notarized? Offer to make an appointment at your local library (usually libraries offer this service) and go with them especially if they need another witness for their documents.
Offer to be a reference for them with any place of employment.
Share a list with them of service providers, from doctors to plumbers, who you know are safe.

Third: Find out their birthday. Yes, really. How will this keep them safe? It won’t, but it will bind up their broken hearts. Knowing someone’s birthday is almost a universal, cross-cultural way to express that an individual life matters. If they wonder why you are asking, simply explain you want to make sure that you remember that day. If they are concerned you might be fishing for personal information, assure them you don’t need the year, just the month and day. Write that day down in your calendar. Make sure you do not forget it. On that day do whatever feels right from sending a card to baking a cake. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you have indicated to this person that they matter and that you plan on celebrating their birthday in the future with them.

Fourth: Invite them to your home for pizza and games. Or lasagna and a movie. Or tea and biscuits. Why? This simple act of community will remind them they belong and there are places where they are safe and valued. Being in your home might feel like a mini-vacation from the fear they experience every day. You can not begin to imagine how this simple act will bind up their hearts.
This particular act might not feel like advocacy. It might not even feel like you are doing enough. You, like me, might want to start marching in the streets and screaming at the top of your lungs. I hear you. But remember, the only way forward is together. The only way to defeat hate is with love. This will be a long four years. We need to build as much loving-community in as many pockets of our life as we can. These four steps might be more important than marching. (BTW please still march with really, really big signs!)

LOVE your IMMIGRANT Neighbor: Practical steps to support undocumented citizens and build community, 1st Blog of 4

2/14/2025

FIRST OF FOUR BLOGS: Identify Yourself as an Advocate
"When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do mot mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." Leviticus 19:33-34

We have some clear choices before us: look away, hunker down and convince yourself and those you love that whatever the new administration is doing will not affect you. History tells us this is not a wise choice. An alternative choice is to build community wherever you are. In fact, I believe as a follower of Jesus, building community is our best choice as we boldly stand up to hate and fear.

Our undocumented neighbors need our protection. They are afraid. Those who once had protected status find their legal rights stripped. Recently documented citizens find themselves questioned because of their accents or brown skin. Undocumented migrants, desperately seeking work and fleeing unstable countries, have been categorized as dangerous criminals, even though they are less likely to commit crimes than native born citizens (according to the FBI).

We can do something. We can build a protective community around immigrants now.
Over the next few weeks, I will be posting in this blog simple things you can do to protect your undocumented neighbors.

FIRST OF FOUR BLOGS: Identify Yourself as an Advocate

Do you know someone who might be undocumented? This could be anyone: a mother in the school pickup line, an across the hall neighbor, the barista at your local coffee shop, a fellow classmate, or a co-worker. If you know nothing about their immigration status, that is fine. Now is not the time to be concerned you might offend someone. Have a conversation with this person. Be careful to do it privately. If having a private word with someone is not possible, skip ahead to my second set of suggestions.

BEFORE you do anything, make sure to print off RED CARDS here. Red cards inform immigrants of their legal rights. Keep a few of these cards in your wallet, car, purse, back pack. Disseminating these cards is one of the most important things we can do to support our undocumented neighbors.

First: Clearly identify yourself as an advocate with any of the following statements:

“I want you to know whatever your status as an immigrant, you are welcome here.”
“I don’t know what you are facing right now, but please know if you need help, I am ready to support you.”

Remember: this person might be documented. It’s impossible to know who is and who isn’t. You would be surprised by the number of undocumented immigrants in our communities who are white and don’t look like the caricature “border-crossers” MAGA has demonized. Use whatever words feel comfortable to you; simply make it clear you are safe!

Second: If the individual responds with fear, verbally or physically, do not push. Quietly leave them a red card. If they do not have your contact information, leave that as well. Finally, before you leave, tell them again that you are grateful they are in your community.

Third: If the individual responds with hope and relief, hand them a red card and tell them their rights. The #1 most important thing we can tell undocumented immigrants is the following: You do not need to open your door for ICE ever. For now, (this could change quickly), ICE can only obtain warrants through a legal process. Tell them again: do not open your door. Instruct them only to open their door for people they know. If they do not have a way to identify who is on the other side of their door, tell them to have a code word for all their friends and family. Finally, tell them to keep their doors locked at all times.

Fourth: Make it clear that if for any reason ICE comes to their place of work or anywhere else, they do not have to speak with ICE. Encourage them to come up with plans for anywhere they frequent. For example, if they are at their workplace, where can they go to avoid ICE? If they are grocery shopping, do they know where the nearest bathroom is? Again, remind them that their constitutional rights protect them, even as undocumented citizens. They DO NOT have to speak with an ICE agent.

Fifth: Finish the conversation and ask if you can meet again. Acknowledge that everything you told them is a lot and you understand they might feel overwhelmed. Make sure they have your contact info.

Here is an ALTERNATIVE plan to identify yourself as an advocate to someone you can not have a private word with:
The last thing we want to do to an undocumented person is “out them” in a public setting. That said, we cannot let this fear keep us from getting them valuable information. Each situation will be different. Know your setting. The best thing you can do is make sure this individual receives a red card and your contact information. Perhaps hand them a card. Inside the card simply write that you are an advocate and concerned about their safety. Somehow, make contact. You might be the only advocate they know.

Learn more
https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/immigrants-rights
https://watsonimmigrationlaw.com/2025/01/22/know-your-rights-if-ice-visits-a-home-employer-or-public-space-english-and-spanish/

An Open Letter to Mothers Raising their Daughters in the Evangelical Church

1/9/2025

Dear Mothers,

I am writing this letter because I deeply care about your daughter’s future mental and spiritual health. Raising your daughters in churches in which women are not equal to men will have a detrimental effect on their future. As a pastor, I have counselled innumerable adult women, many of whom were raised in evangelical churches. From what I have witnessed, the effects of growing up female in a patriarchal church range from eating disorders, to low self-esteem, to depression, to a rejection of faith entirely.

I am aware that many who read this letter in the Evangelical church will be quick to point out that women are celebrated in the church and deeply valued. This may be true. Yet when women are not allowed to preach or hold the senior pastor position, when their sexual behavior and physical appearance are scrutinized, then girls are not equal to boys and women are not equal to men in that church. Period.

When women and girls hear messages from men about submission, obedience, and service as sacred behavior, then they are denied their equality. And when women are denied their equality to men, they hear a single message clearly: they are not valued.

It’s a subtle devaluing that they themselves may not even recognize until their teens, twenties, or thirties. By that point, the damage is done. Such wounds will then harm their own children, perpetuating the cycle of suffering.

There are two important things you should know about me. First, I was raised in the mainline (centrist, moderate) Protestant church. This religious culture was imperfect, but it taught me that women are equal to men in all aspects of religious life. I had a male pastor growing up, but this seemed incidental. I was very aware that there were female pastors at other churches. Our small Methodist Church just happened to hire a male pastor. There were women elders and deacons, women serving communion, women leading difficult conversations, and women leading the finance committee. I knew my spiritual life, and potential for religious leadership, had nothing to do with my gender from the very beginning of my spiritual journey.

Second, as an ordained minister, I have spent a surprising amount of time and energy bearing witness to the spiritual abuse endured by women raised in the Evangelical church. I have heard these women’s stories, held their pain, absorbed their anger, assisted in the deconstruction and reconstruction of their theology At times encouraged them to leave the Christian church completely because that was their only plausible path toward healing. I have often thought that I should be on the Evangelical church’s payroll since I have spent a great deal of my professional life cleaning up its messes.

Let us begin with professional research and undeniable facts:

Church attendance has declined among younger women far faster than young men. Just search the above phrase and you will come up with lots of results. Surveys of female “exvangelicals” (those who have left the Evangelical church) reveal that sexual abuse scandals, female disempowerment, and an ongoing insistence on the submission of women to men are driving women out of church, and frequently out of faith itself as well as into abusive relationships and marriages.

Multiple studies have found that self-esteem is highly correlated with lots of good things, and low self-esteem is correlated with lots of bad things. People with high self-esteem have better relationships, less anxiety, and more hope for the future. Numerous studies suggest that the presence of female clergy in a young woman's life can effectively eliminate the existing self-esteem gap observed between genders. UCA Insights

Girls raised in evangelical churches that restrict leadership roles to men may not experience the benefits of higher self-esteem, potentially due to the lack of female role models in positions of authority. This disparity highlights the significant impact that female clergy can have on the psychological and educational development of young women. Authentic Theology 2018

Churches that exclude women from meaningful religious leadership are facing the greatest number of sexual abuse criminal charges. There are too many articles to reference. Just search Southern Baptist Convention Sexual Abuse. Read for yourself.

HERE’S THE GOOD NEWS: Girls who had female clergy as role models during their upbringing exhibit higher self-esteem, better educational outcomes, and improved employment prospects compared to those who did not. This assertion is detailed in the 2018 book She Preached the Word: Women's Ordination in Modern America by political scientists Benjamin Knoll and Cammie Jo Bolin. Religion News

HERE’S MORE GOOD NEWS: Boys who had female clergy did not report lower self-esteem, possibly because churches that ordain women to leadership also include men in a variety of leadership positions.

Facts and research are important, but stories are compelling. If you do not find the above facts sufficient to change your mind about raising your daughters in the Evangelical church, please read the stories I have collected from former evangelical women over the years of my ministry. I have changed names and details to protect the anonymity of these women.

Angela endured years of marital rape because she was her husband’s God chosen help-mate. The only thing Angela knew about sex before she was married was that she shouldn’t have it. She found herself in a controlling marriage in which sex was not a mutual experience, but one that was demanded of her. Only after years of sexual abuse did Angela realize that sex should be consensual. As a result of marital rape, Angela struggled with years of anxiety. There is no question that Angela’s story exists outside of the evangelical church. What makes her story particularly “evangelical” is that she learned from her church that women were meant to submit to their husbands and endure everything in marriage. In addition, since she never received any sexual education, she knew nothing about consent.

Sarah struggled with an undiagnosed eating disorder and anxiety from the time she was 13. Sarah never received help until she was well into her 30s. At an early age Sarah remembers the overwhelming pressure she felt to be perfect: reserved and respectful, joyful when appropriate, demure when expected, modestly dressed, and receptive to the attentions of her father and male elders above all else. But the external controls were too much, so she controlled the only thing she could: her eating. To this day she does not know how she even survived as long as she did with such extreme anxiety and so little food. When finally she was no longer able to function, her family just prayed for her. Only when her life was in immediate danger did she receive the mental health care she needed.

Jane survived years of neglect and abuse as a child. In her teenage years, she discovered belonging in an evangelical church. In many ways, this belonging saved Jane. Yet when the real work of healing from childhood trauma and neglect was needed, the church abandoned her. Why? Because they didn’t understand why she needed medication or therapy or help beyond the scope of the church. Why wasn’t she simply happy to be in their community? Why was she seeking outside healing? Was she praying enough? Only after years of therapy did she come to understand that her church offered her belonging only when she conformed to their standards of womanhood.

Kyle did not want to become a mother. She never did. She wasn’t sure she was interested in marriage either. Her church told her again and again that there must be something wrong with her. Being an “Aunt” was not a calling. All women are called to marriage and motherhood, they said. Somehow she found her way out of the evangelical church before she crumpled under the social pressure to marry someone she did not want to spend her life with.

There are more dramatic stories than these four. Stories of childhood rape at the hands of the beloved pastor, an act that was swept under the rug. Meetings with church elders in which daughters listened as their beaten mother was scolded for causing her husband’s violence. Another story that still doesn’t seem possible but is true: when a young woman came out as a lesbian to her pastor, the pastor in her presence prayed that she would die before she would share her life with a woman.

These stories might be easy to dismiss, just like the facts and research I have shared. I can imagine how easy it is to say, “Not at my church. These things don’t happen.” Everyone always thinks “this won’t happen to me,” or “this won’t happen to my daughter.” And still shouldn’t we do things to protect ourselves against the possibility of these things happening, like we would with wearing seat belts or meeting a first date in a public place?

When you are told as a girl directly or indirectly by your church that you are not equal to men, that deeply abusive and controlling narrative will come out in a multitude of ways in your adult life. Sometimes it is mental or physical health, sometimes an empty or abusive marriage, other times it has more tangible results such as poverty as a result of fewer educational and professional opportunities. Only a few escape unscathed. And everyone of those unscathed “happy” evangelical women will tell you how wonderful the church is. The women who have left will remain silent and afraid.

There is one final result of raising your daughter in the Evangelical church that few people seem to note: your daughter will most likely not attend church as an adult. She will live a life outside of a faith community because it will be the only option she believes is possible for her freedom.

In closing, why am I writing to you? Why not write to the male leaders of these patriarchal and often abusive churches? The answer is simple: most of them won’t listen but you might.
Do what is best for your daughters. Do not be paralyzed by shame or guilt. Do not let your own evangelical church control you or keep you from freeing your daughter. Don’t worry about letting down the members of your church who will call you every week after you stop attending or demand a “biblical” reasoning for why you are leaving. Do what is best for your daughters, especially because no one ever did it for you.

Be brave. Do not be afraid. Say ‘no more’ to this oppressive culture, because you want better for your daughter(s). And if the church rejects you, if you lose friendships, doesn’t that in itself speak to the kind of people they are? Did Jesus teach us that God is control, or did Jesus teach us that God is Love?

And if ultimately you feel isolated and scared, reach out to me. I can put you in touch with lots of amazing women who will keep you company through this painful but ultimately liberating process. Healing and wholeness await. God wants them for you, and a good, progressive church--one that treats all genders equally--can help you get there. Let it be.

National ASK IF WE CAN ENTER DAY

10/8/2024

National Coming Out Day is this Friday, October 11th. It’s a pretty great day.

In my lifetime this day has changed. In college it was a crucial day of activism and expression. Now it feels more like one of many days to celebrate LGBTQ+ lives. At both churches I serve, PRIDE is a big Sunday in June. We celebrate with rainbow communion and special music. National Coming Out day comes and goes without much church attention. I’ve been wondering why?

Is it because the new generation doesn’t really come out anymore? I have plenty of LGBTQ+ youth and young adults in both churches I serve and they have never “come out” to me. They just are. They talk to me openly about their relationships, regardless of gender “status.” (I don’t even know what to write here!) Status? Orientation? They ask me for relationship advice and they school me in things I have never considered in the false binary world of my youth. But they do not come out to me. They just tell me about who they are in love with. Sometimes I don’t even know if they are LGBTQ+ and it doesn’t matter.

Or does our community skip right by national coming out day because we’ve discovered it is our job to reach out in love, not expect someone to “come out” to us. I didn’t really have the language for this inkling until I saw the below post:

I’m not suggesting we get rid of National Coming Out Day. But I am also wondering if straight folk, and especially religious folk, should stop expecting the queer community to explain who they are to us. It must be exhausting to explain again and again that you do not fit neatly into a binary, heteronormative world.

Maybe we need to knock on LGBTQ+ identifying folks’ doors and ask if they would be willing to let us in so we can learn about their lives and their loves and their identities and their experiences. Maybe we need another day--National ASK IF WE CAN ENTER DAY.

We must create safe spaces in which LGBTQ+ individuals feel welcome to “come out,” but maybe we also need to ensure LGBTQ+ individuals feel safe letting us in. The Christian community has to ask the hard question, do you trust us to enter into your life? And if the answer is no (which it may very well be, because the church has done some horrible things to LGBTQ+ folk), we must ask, “What do we need to do? How can we change?” And we have to listen and take to heart the responses we receive.

This isn’t always easy or comfortable work. I have a nonbinary parishioner. They are a parent, a spouse, and a bright, deep thinker. I love having conversations with them, because I am always learning about our shared and differing experiences. We compare notes on parenting children. As a mother of teens, I affirm their parenting of their magnificent little one. In turn, they affirm my struggle to raise teenagers to be good, compassionate humans. In this safe relationship, I am expanding my understanding of what it means to be a nonbinary person/parent/spouse. They correct me when I mess up their pronouns for the tenth time. I feel ashamed of my messing up, but that is not for me to lay at their feet. It's for me to work on. But mostly I am deeply grateful I have been invited in to learn and grow even if it requires clumsy work on my part.

This National Coming Out Day, knock on the door of someone you love who identifies as LGBTQ+ and ask simply and open heartedly, “What can I do better? What can we do better?” I pray their response is honest. I pray you/we/all of us can hear it. I pray that we can all form one community. I pray that one day there will be no more closets to walk into or come out of.

Embracing My Irrational Faith in LOVE & the RESURRECTION

3/21/2024

I am a rational person who embraces science and I believe in the resurrection.

Let’s start again. I AM a rational person. I can hear my husband laughing right now as I type these words, because he’s seen me lose my cool once or twice. Ignore his laughter; I am rational! Example: when I worry about my kids contracting some horrible childhood illness, I look up the statistical likelihood of someone actually getting that illness. Then, I embrace the rational numbers and move on with my day.

When it comes to my faith, I also tend to be level headed. I don’t get hung up on virgin births or single miracle stories. Jesus walking on water? Powerful metaphor, but I am not concerned if it happened or not. I’m the first person to admit I think the Bible is riddled with mistakes and even some blatant mistruths. There are no biblical handbooks with statistics to reference there are for childhood illnesses, but I try to embrace the large sweep of love present in the Bible as my rational guide to faith.

And I believe in the resurrection. In fact, I believe in the resurrection hook, line, and sinker. Literally. From a 21st century scientific perspective this is utterly irrational. Perhaps this is just faith. Perhaps this is just hopeful thinking. I’m not sure. But there it is. The belief that Jesus was dead and three days later walked out of the grave, appeared to the women, stuck out his bloody hands to Thomas to reassure him, and then ate fish beside the sea shore with the other disciples who had fled and gone back to business as usual. Yes, I believe it all.

A faithful companion along the journey commented: “Sorry, Abby, I can’t worship a zombie.” I respect that and even find the comment comically accurate. So why do I believe in the resurrection? I don’t have an answer. At least not a good answer. I can only offer the following:

I believe in God and for this reason, I believe in hope, even when realistic people tell me to be hopeless. I gave up believing that God could single-handedly rescue starving orphans, Haitians from earthquakes, mothers with debilitating depression, victims of violence, struggling families, or trauma survivors tormented by nightmares. So if I believe in a powerless God and every day I encounter the utter brokenness of this world, then what’s the point? I am left with no choice than to believe in a God who does something!

I believe in a God who loves.

I believe in a God whose love is more powerful, more healing, and more creative than anything we broken humans can imagine.

I believe in a God who invites us into a dance of co-creating love.

I believe in a God whose love is active in this world through this dance of co-creation.

I believe in a God who grants hope to the hopeless. Real hope.

What does this have to do with the resurrection? The resurrection is the ultimate expression of God’s co-creating love.

God did not possess the sort of military power that could defeat the systematically violent Roman Empire. Hence Jesus died a brutal death on the cross. But God did possess the power of co-creating love that sprang Jesus from the grave. Together, Jesus and God defeated suffering and death with this co-creating love. The resurrection, the defeat of the grave, continues to offer today the final word: Love!

This final word gives me hope for the starving orphan, the depressed parent, the individual facing PTSD after a childhood filled with violence, the cancer patient, the Palestinian and Israeli leaders trying to rebuild their communities in peace. The resurrection calls me to dance with love on my darkest days, when I am sure there is only suffering to be found. The resurrection calls me to co-create in this world, instead of sitting and weeping. The resurrection calls me to roll up my sleeves, to pull out my checkbook, to fall to my knees, to utter a prayer, to hold on. The resurrection is God’s final proof that love is more powerful than anything else, even evil, even death.

I know that what I believe can be questioned. Pure rationalists can poke holes in my truth. I don’t care. It’s what I believe. It’s the faith of one broken disciple, a 21st century pastor following Jesus, placing one foot in front of the other on the journey, and feeling powerlessness yield to an even greater power—love.

The Violence of the Cross is NOT Sacred and it shouldn't be taught to children as such!

3/19/2024

There’s nothing like a bloody, anguished Jesus to ruin your religious experience as a child. Did I just say that out loud? Yes I did. If you need to read the above sentence again, please do.

On the cusp of Bad Friday (you might refer to it as Good Friday, but no day a human dies on a cross should be remembered as a good day), I would like to share a very powerful and haunting story from a childhood trauma survivor. This survivor describes their parent as a monster. As a child, they remember peering at the wretched crucifix in their church, Sunday after Sunday. They remember vividly kneeling beneath Jesus’ bloodied body and asking, why would they let this happen to you? Soon the violence of their home was mirrored each Sunday in church as they peered up at the crucifix hanging above the altar. As an adult, even after years of therapy, they have been unable to separate the domestic violence they survived from the vision of Jesus crucified.

Imagine the imprint the crucifixion has on young minds. If our salvation comes from Jesus’s crucifixion, then the crucifix teaches children that violence is good. Worse, it teaches them that violence is sacred. For two millennia, the church has blessed violence and elevated it to the sacred. And we have exposed generations of children to this unholy endorsement of unholy violence.

Christianity is so often associated with wholesomeness and a sanitary innocence. Children raised in “Christian homes” would never watch an R-rated movie. Instead, they are introduced to clean images of faith: pristine children running through sunny fields to attend church, happy families praying before bed, and all problems neatly resolved at the end of the movie.

It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it? Such sanitary images of Jesus and wholesome images of living--- in a faith tradition that divinizes violence. Do you disagree? If you are adamant that the church does not divinize violence, can you please explain why churches are filled with 14 different venerations of the cross that depict every step of the horrifying crucifixion?

The worship of the cross idolizes violence.

I have a friend who wears a “lethal injection Jesus” instead of a cross around her neck. Yes, you read that correctly. She refuses to pretend the cross is sacred. By offering an alternative image of Jesus' death, not by crucifixion but by lethal injection, this alarming necklace states the truth: Jesus died by state sponsored execution. There is nothing sacred, nothing holy, nothing acceptable about such a violent death.

Then how are we to mark this significant day in the Holy Week story? Simply with the truth. Jesus died a terrible death at the hands of unjust power. That death cannot and should not be venerated as holy. It should be remembered for what it was: horrifyingly cruel. Recognizing the truth of the crucifixion makes God’s resurrecting and transformative love on Easter morn even more powerful.

What should we do with our children on Bad Friday? First, please don’t tell them that a loving prophet was tortured to death to save us from our sins. Second, without question, throw out all of the bloody images of Jesus please! Yes! I would rather destroy thousands of crucifixes than have one more child learn from an early age that violence is sacred. I would also encourage families and religious leaders/educators to teach children the entire story of Holy Week. When it is time to teach children about Friday, name the horror of the cross, making sure children understand that Jesus’ death was awful and wrong. Tell them that God had a different idea about power; that God used God’s power for love. This love is the answer to the violence of the cross, and this love is infinitely more powerful than the cross.

That’s where we will find our healing---not in the violence of the cross, but in the miracle of the resurrection; not in useless suffering, but in creative hope; not in the power of empire, but in a community of love. We cannot celebrate the death of an innocent, beautiful man, but we can celebrate God’s victory over the machinations of evil. Please join me in changing the way we tell the story this Friday.

Getting Dusty with God: Deconstruction, Legos, & Our Collective Call to RECONSTRUCT

2/7/2024

There is a new word I’m hearing a lot these days: deconstruction. As in, I am deconstructing my faith. I’m working with my therapist to deconstruct my past. My favorite, that you might only hear on campuses: I’ve been reading a lot about the impact of colonialism and trying to deconstruct the history I was taught. Try that line at a dinner party and see what happens!

Deconstruction feels like a big word. But it’s not really a complicated word. It simply means to break something down. Think of it in terms of Legos. You probably built a Lego creation as a kid. Years passed and you no longer need that Lego-creation collecting dust on your shelf. So you deconstruct the Lego creation, piece by piece, and even get dusty in the process. After deconstruction, you can either reconstruct a new Lego creation (with the doors locked so no one knows you still play with Legos). Or, you can pass on those interesting Lego blocks to someone else while getting rid of all the broken and damaged ones.

Deconstructing our past, cultural norms, and even our faith is really the same as deconstructing an old Lego creation. It’s just an internal project. Sadly, in most Christian traditions, deconstruction and reconstruction is not only discouraged, it is prohibited. Many Christian communities hand over a stale, dusty, pre-made Lego creation (dogma, traditions, and a prescribed faith) and demand that not one block be changed.

Sounds pretty miserable. These churches should have a sign out front that reads: CREATIVE ENGAGEMENT NOT WELCOMED.

I never liked to follow the prescribed Lego directions. And although my eldest loved getting Legos sets for his birthday, he equally enjoyed making new Lego creations out of old sets.

When it comes to faith, I’m a lot like my son with his Legos. I am grateful for the traditions that have been passed down to me as a member of a local church and the larger worldwide Christian faith. I also enjoy creating new religious practices in my own personal life that nod to the past while also re-imagining the present. I am simultaneously grateful for the centuries of Biblical scholarship that I depend on as I study the text in preparation for each Sunday’s sermons, even as I flatly reject much of that patriarchal scholarship. I love the rhythm of the Christian calendar, embracing Advent and Lent and Pentecost, while also adding things to the liturgical calendar such as Pride Sunday.

Deconstruction & Reconstruction. Taking apart and building up. This is a fundamental practice in our spiritual lives individually and collectively. It’s not scary! It’s life giving. It’s also biblical.

In Genesis, Jacob, the son of Isaac, and the grandson of Abraham, wrestles with God (or an angel or a stranger--we are not sure). The Hebrew word we translate as wrestle, literally means to kick up dust. After Jacob’s encounter, his wrestling partner renames him Israel--the one who wrestles with God. This name, this shared identity of the Hebrew people, is one of great honor. The Israelites are those who wrestle with God.

Later, another Isrealite named Jesus wrestled with his faith. For 4o days and nights Jesus retreated to the wilderness. There he wrestled with his own demons, his faith, and his doubts before he began his public ministry. Lent begins with this story as we begin our own 40 days of wrestling.

Kicking up Dust. Wrestling. Deconstructing. Taking apart. Whatever word we use, this is what it means to be engaged deeply with our faith. Faith engagement kicks up questions, misgivings, doubts, and even sometimes traumas. The answer to these encounters is to stand our ground and wrestle with God. We cannot run away. We must deconstruct, so we can REconstruct. In the process, we will discover God. Not the God others might want us to embrace, but the God who offers healing, not the God who demands certain behavior, but the God who loves us, not the God who judges, but the God who runs to us with open arms.

This Lent, at the churches I serve, we will look at passages in which Jesus, the wrestler-disrupter, has dust-ups with religious authorities, economic powers, cultural norms, institutional powers, and ultimately with life itself. Jesus got dusty for the well-being of the world and invites us to do the same. As we examine these dusty Jesus encounters, we will get dust all over our spirits. At times it might be exhausting. We must travel to the hard places and get dusty if we are to discover life-giving faith. To be God’s people is to wrestle and enter the wilderness. We will emerge emboldened and ready to reconstruct an authentic spiritual life that brings wholeness not only for ourselves, but for others.

Deconstruction and Reconstruction is THE process of faith. This Lent go head and get dusty with Jesus as he wrestled and healed, struggled and envisioned, and ultimately offered us a new way of being, the kin-dom.

No Room

12/22/2023

No Room.

Every Christmas Eve service we heard: because there was no room for them at the inn.

Flashing hotel signs filled our minds as children. We might have imagined an overcrowded city or no place for Joseph and Mary because back then there were no call ahead reservations. For goodness sakes they rode to Bethlehem on a donkey; of course there were no phones.

We were misled. The New Revised Standard Version has updated their translation; now Luke 2:7 reads: because there was no place in the guest room.

Joseph’s extended family was from Bethlehemn. They could have slept in someone’s home. The truth is his family wouldn't make room for them. They were unwanted. They were unmarried and expecting a child. They were a nuisance. A burden. An embarrassment.

No Room for family like that. No Room.

2,000 years later in cities and towns and villages across America there is still No Room.

Let me be clear: There is physically PLENTY of room. The average size of a single family home in the U.S. is 2,273 square feet. There is more than enough physical room in America for everyone to have a place to call home.

It’s not really about square footage, which we have. Instead we won’t make room. We won’t make room in our hearts, our calendars, our legislation, our lives, or so many other pockets of our communities for those who need room.

I witnessed first hand this week that there is No Room for an abuse survivor trying their best to raise their family on an income less than their rent. Nothing in our city of Boston makes this possible. Instead it is a daily grind, a soul-depleting battle, an exhausting and unending trial.

I discovered early as a teenager that there was No Room for an outspoken young woman who called out sexual violence. We might congratulate ourselves these days for making room since the hashtag #metoo spread across social media in a week, but do not be deceived. Sexual violence remains rampant. We do not make room for the endless stories of sexual violence from date rape to incest that leave women less than whole.

In MOST churches across America No Room is made for LGBTQ+ people, women who desire ordination, teenagers transitioning, noisy children, doubters and questioners or God forbid someone who challenges authority.

At the church I serve in West Roxbury we are reminded weekly that many are unwilling to make room for food insecure neighbors parking on the streets waiting for their trunks to be filled with healthy food. Neighbors call the police regularly on our food pantry. There just is No Room for the hungry.

I learned first hand how our country makes No Room for undocumented immigrants. My dear friend killed himself after years and years of isolation and hiding, too afraid to drive a car, hoarding cash in his wallet for fear that at any moment ICE would rip him away from his family. Our country's Immigration and Naturalization Services had No Room for Carlos. The world lost a generous and truly kind man.

Sadly the list continues. There is No Room for refugees. No Room for the supposedly unpatriotic. No Room for educationally expensive children. No Room for returning citizens who have served their time and are trying to put their best foot forward. No Room for those struggling with addiction. No Room for the visibly poor.

The question we must ask ourselves this Christmas is a difficult one. Is there really No Room? Or are we unwilling to make room?

Let us all resolve to make room for all of God’s beloved people, and to be surprised by the new life that appears in that very big room.