Chain of Events

by Duane Clinker

Here's some reflection on the season. (Remember, for followers of Jesus the Christmas season ISN'T over on Dec. 25, - although thanks be to God most of the cultural madness is!)

Chain of Events # 1

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock."
-Jesus in Revelation 3:20

(After reading the Epiphany story in Matthew 2:13-18)

We celebrate Advent
No. More than that. We celebrate hope, all because
a young girl, faced insurmountable obstacles and
got a call, saw a vision;
responded with a simple "yes"

What about us?

That "yes" set up a chain of events that ends in our hope
But, "yes" is not the only chain builder
"no" does the same
in another more evil way
It plays itself out and soon troops descend on a little town
as wise men go home another way and
in the night, children are lost;
families are split

"Yes" and "no" are such powerful words
they never stand alone
Chains of events follow them like shadows
Souls are made, and also come undone
And there is always a knock at that door of
our insurmountable obstacles
an unthinkable call, a vision; a hope,
a chain of events waiting to be born

What about us?

Chain of Events # 2

Christmas - and I don’t have the spirit. I am praying about that. It is hard.

The phone rings and it is Laura (not her real name). I can immediately hear the tension in her determined, pleading voice. "I don’t know what to do. I came to the church once before and you helped us. I am disabled and sick and my husband has a medical condition that has left him unable to care for himself." Laura explains that the home health care has ended and she must care for, bathe and dress her invalid husband herself, but that she also has a serious heart and lung condition that prevents her from working or leaving the house for any length of time. They have a four year old child. "We have both always worked," she says, "but now I don’t know what to do." They live in Warwick, not too far from the church. Upon questioning, Laura says they have $884 in disability income per month. I promise that the church and Project Outreach will do something to help.

She is praying for help.

The phone rings again and this time it is Socorro. She is full of joy. One of the new small groups of the church has been trying to try to find a house for Luz who is an immigrant single mom with three kids who also now disabled and who is homeless. Like Mary and Joseph the small group members have been knocking on a lot of doors. It feels like they have gone to every potential agency in the state. They keep praying and walking. Finally, on a street in the southside they have seen a "for rent" sign. They stop, explain that they are from the Open Table of Christ and reveal the situation. The owner’s heart is open. "I will rent to you. You write up the terms of the lease and bring it to me and I’ll sign it!" The rent for this two bedroom apartment is $550 per/month.

A prayer is answered.

A few days later, after Sunday morning worship in Providence, a group from the church crowds into the newly painted and furnished apartment to pray for God’s blessing. We pray in each room. Luz’s thirteen year old son asks to speak. It was he who first approached the members of the Open Table of Christ to explain that his family was homeless. He stands straight and tall and thanks everyone in the room for being an answer to prayer for them. We pray together that this house will be an outpost of ministry in the community and that this family of three will be ministers in this place.

Before I leave, I tell the family about the phone call from Laura in Warwick. "It’s a family different from yours, but they are in need too. I will go see them next. I’ve got some food and Christmas gifts in the car, but now that you have a place, what can you give them to help?" Luz looks at me. "I will give them my oven," she says. Without hesitation she unplugs a new donated toaster oven from the wall and hand it to me. Her children run into the living room and pull three ornaments off the new Christmas tree to give too.

The prayer goes on.

I pull up at Hillsgrove in Warwick. Laura is already there. Her face is flushed red with embarassment and blood pressure. I open the trunk and pull out boxes of food and stuff for her child donated through Project Outreach. She is thankful. "Wait," I say, "there is something more." I go to the back seat and pull out the oven and the ornaments. "There’s this Latino woman in the South Side who is involved with the Open Table who has been homeless. She just got an apartment through the prayer and action of her small group. I told her about you and she and her children wanted you and your husband to have this oven and these ornaments. We are praying for you. Can you use a toaster oven?"

It is a rare moment. It is not charity, it is solidarity.

The chain of "yes" is unbroken. Advent has come and love has no boundaries.

- Duane

The church is a boat

This is a writing I did for our newsletter. Some people felt it was right, some felt it was too hard. What do you think?

"Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go. . . "
Matthew 14:22

The church is often described as a boat. A boat exists for a purpose - in this case to go somewhere on a mission with Christ.

We use many different words to describe the process of getting into the boat: "conversion," "new birth," "being saved," or simply, "deciding to follow Jesus." But however it comes to us, however our life changes, become real Christians means that we choose to become participants in Christ’s mission to the world.

There are many things masquerading as Christianity that are not real, but because they make us feel good, we may be led to believe we have the real thing. The real thing means that we let God change us and we actually follow the Way of Christ.

So we join the church. We get into the boat that is docked along the shore with a lot of other people. We get to know each other. We support each other. If we are lucky, we experience love in the community that we have never experienced before. The people in the boat become like a family to us.

It is so pleasant in the boat that it is easy to think that it is easy to confuse the boat with the mission of the boat. Sometimes we even confuse the boat with the Christ that calls us. Sometimes, in practice, we begin to serve the church-boat so much that we forget about the purpose of the boat. Sometime we even carry it farther and actually substitute the church for God in our worship.

When this happens the change is often so gradual that we never notice it happening. To us, we are still converted, still worshiping God. But we are actually serving the boat and have forgotten about the mission.

The boat, with all our friends and history in it becomes the most real to us. As a result we naturally act to protect the boat. The problem is that we still haven’t taken the boat out into the water.

When someone suggests taking the boat for a sail it threatens us. Why would we want to risk our boat or its safety on rough seas? Why would we ever want to do that when we can be a happy community that studies sailing in the safety of the harbor?

We don’t like people that "rock the boat." We not only don’t like them, we feel betrayed by them. They upset our safe place. They have betrayed the boat and therefore betrayed our "family."

In our anger and threat we forget the original purpose of the boat - to go on a mission to the world. It’s safer in the harbor where the boat is tied up, awaiting its journey. All our friends are there and the seas are calm. Anyone willing to join us (on shore) is welcome.

We have substituted the boat for both our mission. Woe be to the one who threatens our little boat. We will worship God, but only from inside the safety of our boat in the harbor.

The problem is that faith isn’t a material thing that doesn’t move or grow. Faith is an action. It is not something to be possessed, but something that acts. The church is not called to just be. The church is called to be a group of people on a mission.

That’s why real faith is often both dangerous and controversial. On the other hand, all the boats in the harbor never experience the joy of the seas. And scripture promises, when the seas get stormy, even then, we will find Christ among us in the boat of mission.

- Duane, with thanks to William Sloan Coffin Jr. and the friends in the congregation that have helped me see.

The baby Jesus was an undocumented immigrant

It's true: Jesus, Mary and Joseph crossed borders shortly after the Christ child's birth to escape Herod's slaughter of the innocents. But it looks like the U.S. Immigration department lacks the ability to see Christ in its neighbors. Last week, immigration agents raided meat processing plants in 6 states, lined people up according to their country of origin, put them on buses and locked them up awaiting deportation. To be thrown from the country, ripped from their children, because they lack a small piece of paper that would make them "legal" in the eyes of the State.
I visited workers from one of those plants (in Iowa) a couple of years ago, to do a training on their rights. They were making $5.15 an hour and supervisors threw animal entrails at them to get the workers to move faster. The plant was the only job opportunity for many in the town, and usually whole families worked there.
On Tuesday, children of these 1,200 folks sat home waiting and wondering when there parents would come back. Many of the children, born here, are US citizens and so can't be deported with their parents. So in a couple of hours, I.N.S. produced thousands of orphans, who are currently sleeping on cots in churches in the midwest. Right before Christmas.
Below I''m posting Duane's write-up of a Christmas action we did a few years ago. What action are we willing to take now? Will we stand up?


A SOCIAL HOLINESS PRAYER ACTION
CHRISTMAS AT THE I.N.S.

There are only a few of us present. After all it is almost Christmas and in the middle of a night time snowstorm in a now deserted part of the city. We haven't called the press. Its not press we want, its worship. We are caught in society's Christmas pageantry of consumer gluttony with (at best), an occasional mention of the cute, meek, and mild pink baby Jesus. But we are hungry for something more. Something beyond the shopping malls and Christmas specials has broken into our world. Our church now includes immigrants.

Those of us born here are aware of their hard stories and they are increasingly aware of ours. They have awakened in us some of the forgotten stories of our own past. Once we were two communities, but now we know each other. We know, or are learning, about the midnight knocks on doors and sudden deportations in our state. As a result we are hearing those original Christmas stories with new ears.

So here we are on a Sunday night before Christmas in Providence, Rhode Island in front of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. With the snow it is beautiful and quiet. There is both peace and desire in the air along with the snow. Someone of our small number has brought a large sheet which says: "The baby Jesus was an illegal immigrant." Someone has made a wooden manger which we have filled with straw. We have laid strips of cloth across the straw in preparation for the baby. Someone else has brought a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine which we rest in the manger.

The body. The blood. The redeemer.

We clump together and pull up our collars against the weather. We read the story again: how they were forced to move by the economic policies of the Empire, how Mary agreed to the pregnancy though unwed, how Joseph tried to stand with her. We read about the feeding trough in which he was laid and the despised shepherds who heard the words in the sky that a new time had come. We take the bread and wine and bless it, confess our sins, accept God's forgiveness, and ask for power. We break the bread, pour the wine and pass a cup. We hold hands and pray for the workers at the Immigration who might see these symbols tomorrow as they enter work. We pray for those of us who are immigrant and living in fear, and for those many beyond our little circle who are also hungry for justice and mercy. We pray for ourselves, and for courage. We pray in thanksgiving and joy. We sing something, hug each other, and walk away in the snow.

For the INS, we leave the empty manger there in front of the door as a sign of Christmas

Jamie releases a video

Open Table member Jamie Laurie (currently in Denver, Colorado) is an incredible social justice rapper, who'll do a workshop and concert for Open Table in the new year. He and his band the Flobots just put out a video for their song "Handlebars."
Watch it here:
"Handlebars"

Welcome!

Welcome to the Open Table of Christ "blog" (weblog). This is a way we can share thoughts, ideas, needs, prayers with each other. Anyone can make comments on entries by clicking on the "comments" line beneath each post. Listen to: A Welcome Message from Pastor Duane