What Kind of Extremists? Living Letters from Birmingham Jail

I was honored to take part in this reading of Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham Jail, written in response to public criticisms of the nonviolent direct action of the Civil Rights Movement. I wrote about my experience participating in this reading last month; you can read my reflections here.

King wrote this letter from prison, without access to his library or research notes, so you get a sense from this letter the deep theological underpinnings of the movement. You also get a sense of the contemporary urgency of the "basic constitutional rights" still being fought throughout and beyond the United States. Thanks to Red Letter Christians for taking on this project, and to Micky ScottBey Jones for her leadership in bringing this special project together.

I try to read this letter once or twice a year: Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a good opportunity, as is the anniversary of King's death every April 4. Read it for yourself here.

More Like a Millennial: #FightBackwithJoy in 2015

The first time I met Margaret Feinberg, I knew I would like her. I knew because she gave me a candy bar. For free. And not one of those fun-sized ones; this was the whole enchilada, if you will, one of those candy bars you buy on impulse at check out. For free.

Margaret was leading a conversation about publishing with a millennial audience in mind when I met her. This is something she's particularly qualified to speak to, as she's published about a bazillion books and articles, and she's given herself to a millennial audience in each case. That's not to say that older (and now, sigh, younger) readers don't go for her stuff, because they do. But there's something in the Zeitgeist of the millennial generation that lends itself to freshness, hopefulness, a lightness of being that's not naive or simplistic. Reading millennial writing isn't always illuminating, in the sense of learning something new, but it is almost always enlightening, in the sense of easing your load and dispensing with darkness.

From left: Hershey, Margaret, Leif

So it's not surprising that a book - Margaret's latest, Fight Back with Joy - with so serious a subtext as cancer is nevertheless brisk and fun and defiant and lively. Margaret sent me some of the early chapters some time ago, which I was eager to read, as she tells her cancer story in the book. She does so with great vulnerability and courage; the anxiousness and suffering that attends to a cancer diagnosis is not neglected or minimized. But this isn't ultimately a book about cancer; it's a book about joy, and joy - not as a feeling but as a discipline, as a resource - permeates the book.

I doubt people who know me well would characterize me as "joyful." I do laugh a lot, and I crack a lot of jokes and enjoy a fair amount of playtime with my friends. But I think closer to the center of my life experience is cynicism, a jaded view of the world. Blame it on the music I listen to, if you want, or blame it on my generation: the X in "Generation X" likely stands for "Expect to be disappointed." In any case, when things get hard, I don't typically fight back with joy, as Margaret suggests; I more often fight back with snark.

I remember a time when I was editing a devotional, and I added the phrase "Yeah, right" to a mildly humorous entry - which was, I hasten to add, my right as editor of a work-for-hire writer. (See? Snark.) The writer demanded that I take the phrase out, with the condescending comment "I can't affirm that kind of sarcasm." You can perhaps imagine how eager I was to work with her again. I don't subscribe to the school of thought that sees sarcasm as a character flaw; I hear it in the voice of the Lord in the Sacred Scriptures, for God's sake:

"Go ahead! Cry out for help to the gods you’ve chosen—let them get you out of the mess you’re in!”

"Where were you when I created the earth? Tell me, since you know so much!"

The occasional sarcastic barb, I've come to understand, is one thing; a lifestyle grounded in cynicism is quite another. Sarcasm may punctuate a point, but cynicism is a kind of abdication of responsibility; it assumes that things that demand to be changed are unchangeable, and it consoles a person with the notion that at least you get it; at least you're not simplistic and naive enough to think change is possible. Cynicism as a lifestyle starts the human story with the fall of Adam and Eve and ends it with the latest bad day. It finds evidence of original sin everywhere it looks, because it expects to find it.

Cynicism is arguably chronic in our age, but it's no more inherent to our being than "original sin" is original to our existence. There's a story that predates the fall of Adam and Eve, a story that, as Margaret points out, is filled with joy.

A close inspection of the first chapter of Genesis describes the fabric of creation as knit together with divine affection and delight. Throughout the process of creation, God observes and celebrates the goodness of what he makes. The declaration “God saw that it was good” rings out like a holy chorus until God eyes all he has made and concludes, “It was very good.”

God’s repeated declaration of “good” suggests that God delighted in the outcome multiple times. God was so pleased and happy with the results that he percolated with joy. The rich imagery of Genesis 1 suggests the kind of creative high an artist experiences upon completion of a great work.

Another vivid illustration of the creation story is tucked into Proverbs. The personified voice of wisdom, one of God’s active attributes in creation, describes, “Then I was constantly at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.”

Joy is inherent to God's approach to the world. Joy is characteristic of wisdom. As Margaret observes, "We spring from joy," because we are made in the image of God, and God is joyful in his bones.

TWEET THIS: Joy is inherent to God's approach to the world. Joy is characteristic of wisdom.

We lack imagination when we lack joy. But more than that, we lack the resources we need to persevere through the hardships we inevitably face. "More than whimsy," Margaret writes, "joy is a weapon we use to fight life's battles.

Sure, the virtue of joy is an upbeat companion for life, but that is not the whole story. The true power of joy supersedes a chirpy disposition, candy-coated emotion, or saccharine fantasy. It’s far more tangible than any magical notion of clicking your heels and discovering your bliss. Joy serves a useful and mighty purpose.

TWEET THIS: We lack imagination when we lack joy.

I haven't faced something so soul-shattering as a cancer diagnosis. But if (or when) I do (maybe this will be the year), I hope I'll face it less like an Xer and more like a Millennial, like Margaret. I hope I'll remember that despair is accidental to our existence; it doesn't enter the picture till Genesis 3, and it doesn't survive past Revelation 21. Before and after and all the way through the Bible - before and after and all the way through life - there is joy available to us, joy bred into us, joy undergirding us and overseeing us. Maybe this will be the year we lean into that fact and discover just how powerful joy is.

***

You can get a copy of Margaret's Fight Back with Joy pretty much wherever you want: from Amazon, from Barnes & Noble, from Christian Book Distributors, from an independent bookseller, maybe even from a local church. Give it a read, by yourself or with a group of friends. (There's a companion video series to support group discussion.) I know you'll like it, and you may well find yourself better equipped for the next joy-testing event in your life.

Fight Back With Joy 6-Session DVD Bible Study Promo Video from Margaret Feinberg on Vimeo.

Art of McCartney, Hubris of Music Industry

I am the target audience of the recently released record The Art of McCartney. I see the word McCartney, I click "Add to cart." In this case, however, I clicked "Add to Christmas list" (thanks, Ginny!) which explains this late review of the album. Sorry.

Paul McCartney is, undoubtedly, one of the most prolific musicians/songwriters of the past fifty years. Indeed, he's been actively contributing to the canon for more than half a century now, and he shows no signs of slowing down, as evidenced by his even more recent collaboration with Kanye West. Based on output, consistent quality and global influence, McCartney is certainly a good candidate for a tribute album by "the world's greatest artists." If only there were such an album.

I was eager to get into The Art of McCartney, and I should probably admit at the outset that I've listened to little else beside it since I opened my Christmas presents. That said, the album is, on balance, disappointing. And it could hardly not be. The album is an odd marriage of incredible hubris and, in many cases, creative laziness.

We begin with the hubris, amply demonstrated in the album's subtitle: "The Songs of Paul McCartney Sung by the World's Greatest Artists." I will quibble over the relative greatness of various contributors later, but for now let's just consider what is being said by this statement.

1. When I, for one, see the word artists, I imagine a gathering far broader than music. I'm sure Terri Riches-Black (art director) and Stuart Crouch at Peacock (design) and David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images (cover photo) are great people and highly talented at what they do, but The Art of McCartney packaging is hardly on the fast-track to inclusion in the Louvre or the Smithsonian. It's text upon text upon text upon text, with a faint background photo of "Young Paul" behind the album's title and a centerfold of "signatures" from the "world's greatest artists" in an unimaginative script font.
   
   Would it have made the album prohibitively expensive to have commissioned some visual artists - really, one or two would have done it for me - to paint or sketch or otherwise produce an artistic representation of a few of McCartney's songs? Raccoons are hot right now, thanks to the enormous success of Guardians of the Galaxy (another Christmas present - thanks, Cheryl!); there's no artist out there in the world who could paint me a portrait of "Rocky Raccoon"? Or an embedded video of some interpretive dance based on "Silly Love Songs"? At the very least, scan the artists' actual signatures, rather than homogenizing them all in a font that comes standard in Microsoft Office.
2. Maybe it's unfair of me to expect art when I'm handed the word artists; this is, after all, a collection of songs. But that only buys the producers of The Art of McCartney a few nanoseconds before I notice that "the world's greatest artists" are all in the field of popular music. What, Yo Yo Ma wasn't available to try his hand at "My Brave Face"? Wynton Marsalis couldn't give three minutes of his time to "The Pipes of Peace"? Is pop music (with the lightest touch of blues and jazz) the best art the world has to offer?
3. And while we're at it, is the best pop music really dominated by white men from North America and Northern Europe? I mean, my collection of pop music surely is, but this is a collection of "the world's greatest artists" - 75 percent of whom are white and male, all of whom (with the possible exception of Toots Hibbert) are firmly ensconced in the First World. I thought pop rock was huge in Korea, but no Korean artists grace the album. I thought Paul loved Pussy Riot, but no love from Russia. I bet Ladysmith Black Mambazo would kill "Blackbird," but they, like "Blackbird," are nowhere to be found.
   There are, of course, artists closer to home who would have nicely diversified The Art of McCartney. Kanye is, apparently, a fan, and I for one would love to see what he could do with "Say, Say, Say." Stevie Wonder collaborated with Paul on "Ebony and Ivory" and "What's That You're Doing" and did a killer version of "We Can Work It Out" when Paul was awarded the Gershwin Prize a few years ago. But Stevie makes no appearance on this album. I count eight women and people of color combined on an album of thirty-six songs. The producers seem to think that, by and large, white men make the best music.
4. But wait: at least the white people represented are, in fact, the world's greatest white artists. Right? Let's see: KIss, Def Leppard, Cheap Trick, Owl City, Alice Cooper, Sammy Hagar ... No disrespect to Owl City - I actually like their rendition of "Listen to What the Man Said" - but including them on a collection of the world's greatest artists is like giving Tina Fey the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor two years before giving it to Carol Burnett, or like opening the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to Ringo Starr, Bill Withers and Green Day at the exact same time. I'm no enemy of the young, but there are some designations that only time can earn.
5. One last complaint: these songs are "sung," yes, but they're also performed. I like Billy Joel's singing as much as the next guy, but the appeal of Billy Joel on "Maybe I'm Amazed" and "Live and Let Die" is his talent as a pianist; same with Alan Toussaint on "Lady Madonna." Paul McCartney is distinguished from John Lennon most by his ambitious musicianship, so to reduce his songs to things that are sung is to fundamentally misapprehend why Paul is one of "the world's greatest artists."

I quibble. Forgive me. Despite the deep offense I've taken from the album's subtitle, I do enjoy listening to it - mainly, however, because it's a convenient collection of good songs by an artist I like. Most of the contributors stick pretty close to the original arrangements, which makes the songs easy to digest even if it doesn't mine the songs for their deepest meaning or inherent artistry. As much as I love Chrissie Hynde, her version of "Let It Be" casts no new light on the song. I can play it, or I can skip it, and I am neither better nor worse for it. The most egregious example is Hagar's "Birthday," which sounds like something he recorded at a karaoke kiosk at the mall. I seriously doubt he was in the same country as the house band behind him. (Note to Sammy Hagar: Repeatedly exhorting your listeners to "Come on!" does not a world's greatest artist make.)

There are, I think, three classes of contributors to The Art of McCartney: his appreciative contemporaries (e.g., Smokey Robinson, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan); those who appreciate him as a historical artifact (e.g., Owl City, The Airborne Toxic Event, Corinne Bailey Rae); and those who were directly influenced by or indebted to him (e.g., Paul Rodgers, Heart, Steve Miller). The older and the younger the contributors are, it seems to me, the less slavish their renditions of McCartney's songs. I actually love the strain in Smokey's voice as he sings "So Bad" and in that of Yusuf (Cat Stevens) as he takes on "The Long and Winding Road." Toots Hibbert (with Sly and Robbie, presumably of the Maytalls) does a great reggae version of "Come and Get It"; he doesn't seem too enthralled by McCartney to make a song his own, which I appreciate. And "Wanderlust" by Brian Wilson? Fantastic.

Similarly, the younger musicians on the album seem to retain their artistic objectivity and are able to both find the right McCartney song to perform and find the artistic core of it. Harry Connick Jr., who I acknowledge is not especially young but who beat the drum consistently on American Idol about song choice, reveals the excellent crooner qualities of "My Love," a nice contrast to Paul's higher-pitched, arena-sized rendition. Corinne Bailey Rae brings "Bluebird" out of the post-hippie basement and introduces us to the song's (and Paul's) jazz core. The Airborne Toxic Event strips down the cinematic "No More Lonely Nights" (a victim of 80s overproduction when Paul first put it out) and helps us tap into how it feels when you "can't wait another day until I call you." And Robert Smith makes "C Moon" sound exactly like a Cure song should.

That leaves the third category: the artists who in large ways or small owe their careers to Paul. These contributions work when the artists lean into the legacy. I was surprised to find that I most enjoy the rockers: Def Leppard, Cheap Trick, and of all things, Kiss?!? Paul, I think it's fair to say, was the founder and godfather of arena rock, which is the sweet spot of these folks. They aren't intimidated by big songs like "Helen Wheels," "Jet" and "Rock Show"; they dive into them and enjoy themselves in the performance. Steve Miller has a good time with "Junior's Farm" and, in contrast to Chrissie Hynde's overly self-conscious version of "Let It Be," makes the iconic "Hey Jude" sound like something he might have written himself.

That being said, the contributions that don't work, still work, because they're great songs by a great artist. The slavish arrangements of "Live and Let Die" and "Band on the Run" and "Eleanor Rigby" don't demonstrate the greatness of the artists performing them, but they do demonstrate the art of McCartney, who knows how to write and arrange and perform a song like nobody. It's nice to have this mix of singles and deep tracks all in one place, and even when I skip a song here and there now and then, I'm enjoying the overall experience on each listen. And while I am pretty offended by the hubris of the album's producers, for the reasons noted above, I do give them props: Paul has so many iconic ender songs, from "Hey Jude" and "Let It Be" to "Live and Let Die" and Hello Goodbye"; and yet they chose as their final track of thirty-six songs something soft and gentle, loving and lovely.

"Put it there
If it weighs a ton" -
That's what a father says to his younger son.
"I don't care if it weighs a ton.
As long as you and I are here, put it there."

You'll Probably Change the World: A New Year's Resolution from Martin Luther King Jr.

This past year I've reflected a lot on the Civil Rights Movement, in part because the-fifty-year anniversaries of seminal moments in the movement keep popping up on the calendar, but mostly because the news is filled with regular reminders that the fight for basic human rights is far from over. I find myself turning regularly to the writings of Martin Luther King, the movement's most public and prolific champion of nonviolent direct social action as a force for cultural change.

White memory of the Civil Rights Movement tends, I think, to focus on its emphasis on nonviolence. It's noble, poetic and, of course, absent of conflict. What's not to like? But this memory is selective at best, sentimental at worst. The notion of nonviolence divorced from direct action removes virtually all value from it; nonviolence becomes docility, meekness, impotence. Introduce direct action and white memory quickly becomes uncomfortable, because the nonviolence of demonstrators for civil rights was contrasted with the despicable violence of its opponents.

TWEET THIS: The notion of nonviolence divorced from direct action removes virtually all value from it.

The graphic novel March (volume two of three comes out in early 2015) does a great job of describing, in prose and pictures, the violent reactions to nonviolent direct action; more compellingly even, it portrays the discipline and spiritual preparation that came before every action.

Jim Lawson trained college students in Nashville (including future U.S. congressman John Lewis, the narrator of March) to engage in sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. They prepared themselves to be spit on, cursed at, scalded with hot coffee, burned with cigarette butts, and otherwise physically attacked - all while maintaining their composure and commitment, all for the simple reward of sitting down to eat in a public place. Similar preparation was involved in marches in Birmingham and Selma, Alabama, where nonviolent demonstrators were attacked with dogs and firehoses by public officials. Nonviolence confronted violence - both the physical violence of reactionary racists and the insidious violence of institutionalized racism. Nonviolence won.

"In any nonviolent campaign," Dr. King wrote in his letter to critical white clergy from Birmingham Jail in the midst of a direct action in that city, "there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action." Those four steps undergird every nonviolent direct action of the Civil Rights Movement; they preceded the bus boycotts in Montgomery, Alabama, the march on Selma, Alabama, the citywide protests in Birmingham, Alabama, and the lunch-counter sit-ins throughout the South. In the warm glow of history we often lose sight of how much work goes in to social change. We picture George Washington and Thomas Jefferson happily pouring tea into a harbor; we picture Mohandas Gandhi waving goodbye to British troops as they finally let his people go; we picture Nelson Mandela smiling and shaking hands with the warden as he walks out of prison on Robben Island. We forget that even nonviolent campaigns for justice don't succeed without a fight.

TWEET THIS: Even nonviolent campaigns for justice don't succeed without a fight.

You prepare yourself for a fight. What follows, quoted from King's book Why We Can't Wait, is how the soldiers in the battle for civil rights in America prepared themselves for their fight.

It strikes me that these are not casual commitments; you don't just do them until they've gotten you what you want. These are lifestyle commitments, life-changing commitments. They lend themselves to far more than nonviolent direct action, actually: commit yourself to these things and you'll probably get into some trouble; but commit yourself to these things and you'll probably change the world.

I HEREBY PLEDGE MYSELF—MY PERSON AND BODY—TO THE NONVIOLENT MOVEMENT.

THEREFORE I WILL KEEP THE FOLLOWING TEN COMMANDMENTS:

1. MEDITATE daily on the teachings and life of Jesus.
2. REMEMBER always that the nonviolent movement ... seeks justice and reconciliation — not victory.
3. WALK and TALK in the manner of love, for God is love.
4. PRAY daily to be used by God in order that all men might be free.
5. SACRIFICE personal wishes in order that all men might be free.
6. OBSERVE with both friend and foe the ordinary rules of courtesy.
7. SEEK to perform regular service for others and for the world.
8. REFRAIN from the violence of fist, tongue, or heart.
9. STRIVE to be in good spiritual and bodily health.
10. FOLLOW the directions of the movement and of the captain on a demonstration.

I sign this pledge, having seriously considered what I do and with the determination and will to persevere.

TWEET THIS: Commit yourself to these things and you'll probably change the world.

Love Shall Be Our Token

Love came down at Christmas -
Love, all lovely; love divine.
Love was born on Christmas;
Stars and angels gave the sign.

Love shall be our token;
Love be yours, and love be mine.
Love to God and to all men -
Love for plea and gift and sign.

*** Merry Christmas from Loud Time.

SEND A CHRISTMAS TWEETING: Love came down at Christmas ... Love shall be our token. Happy holidays!

My Paragraph from Birmingham Jail

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to participate in a reading of Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham Jail. We recorded it; it'll eventually be made available at Red Letter Christians. This was the letter King wrote, on scraps of paper snuck in and out of prison by his lawyer and other visitors, in response to white moderate clergy who had criticized the nonviolent direct action King and others had conducted against the city's segregationist policies. In addition to putting people in prison, Birmingham police and fire fighters attacked protesters, including children, with dogs and fire hoses.

The letter is one of the most significant moral documents of the twentieth century and is especially poignant in the wake of recent acts of violence by police against black men and children in various precincts throughout the country, and the failures of the justice system to properly prosecute the deaths of black men like Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York.

We read this document in the context of a larger conversation about race, institutional bias and violence, and the role of white allies in the cause of racial justice. There are, of course, other racially tinged conversations taking place in the United States these days, principally related to immigration reform. Our group was relatively ethnically diverse, made up mainly of activists and community organizers of various stripes, with a progressive bent. It was still hard to talk about race, and especially to talk about the role of white people in the pursuit of what King called the beloved community. We didn't resolve anything in particular, and I suspect more conversations were started than wrapped up. But we sat together, and in ways small and large we stood together.

I mostly operated the video camera for the reading of the letter, which was profound for me in and of itself. Tony Campolo, a decades-long champion of justice and racial healing, spoke with his typical passion. Urban hippie Shane Claiborne was powerful in his soft voice; new monastic Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove read slowly and deliberately, letting every word count. Seminarian Micky ScottBey Jones and organizer-scholar Alexie Torres-Fleming read with the passion of a mother and a prophet; pastor and blogger Anthony Smith delivered the opening and closing paragraphs of the letter with the same delicate balance of vision and cynicism that I see reflected in King's text. And there were many, many others, people of all stripes, giving voice to King's words, reminding us that though we've come a long, long way, we have terribly far still to go.

In addition to recording the letter, I also got to read a portion of it. I actually requested the paragraph I read; it references my wife's great-uncle, Ralph McGill, at the time the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, who I'm proud-slash-relieved to say was on the right side of history. I think of Ralph often, as our work overlaps: he, the editor of a historic newspaper in a major city; I, an editor of books. That's about where the similarities end, but I like to think about how hard it must have been for him to have a public voice, to curate messages and stories for a divided public, at a seminal and painful moment in American history:

• How do you bring hard news to the hard-hearted?
• How do you give voice to the voiceless?
• How do you hold up justice while holding out for peace and restoration?
• How do you mediate and moderate conversations that are packed with rage and loaded with the weight of history?

I have no idea how Ralph carried this burden - he died well before I met his great-niece - but I think of him when I think about the weight of history I sometimes find landing in my in box.

Here's what I read from King's letter:

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need [the need for intervention in the oppression of blacks in the segregated American South]. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some - such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle - have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as "dirty nigger-lovers." Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful "action" antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.

I wanted to read this paragraph for the video because I thought it would honor Ralph's memory. It was, nevertheless, a hard paragraph to read. There are words in it that I am loathe to say. More than even that, however, was the challenge underlying these words.

Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden, Sarah Patton Boyle and the other unnamed white allies in King's letter are not characterized as "radicals" or even "progressives." They're certainly honored as "brothers" (and, presumably, "sisters"), but brothers and sisters "of the oppressor race." Moreover, their acts of moral courage - to write to a white audience in favor of integration and the civil rights of black people, to march with blacks in hostile towns, to endure imprisonment, to experience official violence in solidarity with their black neighbors - these acts of moral courage are merely, in King's vision, "moderate."

It is not in the least bit radical, King demonstrates methodically throughout the letter, to acknowledge the basic human rights of another human being. It's hardly progressive to recognize the difference between a just law and an unjust law, to obey the one and defy the other. We are not saints when we stand with people who are persecuted and oppressed. We are doing the basic thing, the only right thing.

TWEET THIS: It is not in the least bit radical to acknowledge the basic human rights of another human being.

When we fail to do these things, we fall short of even moderation; when we fail to stand for and with those whose rights are being violated, who are suffering violence in service to an unjust system, we have fallen into sin.

TWEET THIS: We are not saints when we stand with people who are oppressed. We are doing the basic thing, the only right thing.

The burning question, I think, for most white people, especially white people of good will, when it comes to race relations, is "How much is enough?" That elusive "enough" will ease our white conscience, but it will not serve the cause of justice; it will not settle the matter of racial inequality. King addressed the elusive enough in another historic paragraph, delivered only a few months after Birmingham:

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. ... We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. ... We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream." ... I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

That day is slow in coming. But it is coming. And we who are white would be wise to be at least moderate enough to stand on the right side of history with our neighbors of color who have waited long enough.

Black Lives Have Always Mattered

I've just made my first ever visit to Birmingham, Alabama, where fifty-one-and-a-half years ago Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed for his role in organizing nonviolent protests by black Alabamans against the unfair, inhumane and fundamentally unjust policies of their city. While King was in prison, men, women and children of color were attacked on the streets of Birmingham with dogs and fire hoses. Their attackers were police and fire fighters; the attacks were sanctioned by the commissioner of public safety.

These things happen. I like to think they don’t. I like to think that they used to happen but we know better now; that we’re wiser and more enlightened than the people who decided fifty-one-and-a-half years ago that attacking children was the right thing to do. We like to think that, unlike those silly old Southern racists, we always handle power and authority responsibly, that our motives are more pure, that we are always acting for the greater good.

But history bears out that at least some of the time - certainly more of the time than we'd like to be true about ourselves - we’re not. Sometimes we participate in (or we affirm or we tacitly endorse by our silence) things that are horrific and fundamentally unjust.

• Things like a pervasive and persistent disparity in how laws are enforced on black people as compared to white people.
• Things like a legal and cultural predisposition that official acts of violence are above suspicion.
• Things like the execution of young black men for such crimes as walking through the wrong neighborhood or listening to the wrong music or not showing enough deference to the powers that be.

TWEET THIS: Sometimes we participate in (or affirm or tacitly endorse by our silence) things that are fundamentally unjust.

Black lives matter just as much now as they did fifty-one-and-a-half years ago when white moderate clergy were complaining that Martin Luther King was stirring up trouble. Those well-intended white folks back then encouraged black people that their inherent dignity as human beings was a matter to be deferred till white people were more ready for it. They counseled black people to be patient and understanding toward white racists who were actively, in legal and insidious ways, cultivating a permanent race-based underclass. Black lives mattered back then; those of us who are white just didn’t fully appreciate that fact. It seems so silly now.

Black lives matter just as much now as they did twenty-five years ago when South African whites finally agreed to stop secretly executing black dissidents and officially oppressing the 90 percent of the country who were not white. Black lives mattered back then, even if in every meaningful way, their government demonstrated that they did not. It seems so silly that they didn’t see the fundamental injustice of what they were doing and allowing to be done.

Black lives matter: it seems so silly to say in the abstract. But we say it now as much to ourselves as to everyone else because we as much as anyone, black and white and otherwise, need to be reminded on a regular basis that it’s true. Because in the absence of such reminders, a much quieter system continues to function as though black lives don’t matter that much at all. And the consequences of that system are not silly; they are in fact sobering and solemn: daily injustices and indignities regularly punctuated with the violent deaths of young men — children, more often than not — at the hands of people of power and privilege.

Future generations will read the stories of our time and think us silly; with time the absurdity of it will obscure the bloodiness of it, the inhumanity of it.

TWEET THIS: Future generations will read of our time and think us silly. The absurdity of it will obscure the inhumanity of it.

***

Read Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from Birmingham Jail here. Read it out loud; read it in a group.

A People's Commentary on the New Testament: Matthew 2

For all the Reformation-yelping about sola Scriptura and the priesthood of all believers, the Bible is, by and large, mediated to the masses through an elite few - through scholars who write commentaries, through trained (and untrained) clergy who interpret the text in their sermons, through Sunday school teachers who direct the learning of their students, through publishers with fallen and finite editors such as myself. Nothing wrong with that - except that, like everyone, the elite have blind spots.

The Scriptures are, by and large, set in a context of oppression and marginalization. Sometimes the audience is the oppressed; sometimes it's the oppressors. Sometimes both audiences are, for all intents and purposes, one and the same. We overlook stuff when we forget that about the Scriptures, and when we forget that those of us who are comfortable are not necessarily the ones to whom God is speaking words of comfort.

TWEET THIS: Those of us who are comfortable are not necessarily the ones to whom God is speaking words of comfort.

Hence the project I'm now thinking of:

A People's Commentary on the New Testament

This ongoing experiment is an attempt to notice in the Scriptures a running theme of "striving" (in the words of people's historian Howard Zinn) "against corporate robber barons and war makers, to make ideals [professed in public] a reality — and all of us, of whatever age, can find immense satisfaction in becoming part of that."

I fully expect to add confusion alongside insight to the popular conversation about the Scriptures. In other words, I see the folly in this undertaking. But I'm still going to undertake it. :) I invite you to undertake it as well, because otherwise it's not a people's commentary, it's a person's commentary. If you're game,

1. Pick a chapter of the New Testament and interpret it online.
2. As you write, think about people you know (or see, or imagine) who are not sitting in the halls of power.
3. Think of the author of your particular scripture text not as someone with an advance on royalties in the bank and a Macbook Pro on their lap but as someone with no place to lay their head.
4. Use the hashtag #PeoplesCommentary so the rest of us can find it, and so eventually we can sync the whole thing together.

You can see an example of what I'm proposing in this commentary on Matthew 1.

And now, without further ado, a people's commentary on Matthew 2.

***

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem village, Judah territory— this was during Herod’s kingship ... Matthew 2 begins with a study in contrasts: Jesus ("God saves"), the "Christ" (anointed one) and "Immanuel" (God with us) as declared in Matthew 1, is born in Bethlehem during Herod's kingship in Jerusalem. Bethlehem is mocked in the Old Testament as "bringing up the rear" of the Israelite empire (as Micah is quoted in verses 5-6); meanwhile, Jerusalem is the home of Israel's king, the center of Israel's political and religious life (or so it would seem, as Jerusalem is where Israel's kings have built its temples and their palaces). The fact that Jerusalem is currently under occupation by the Roman empire, and Herod's reign over Israel is subject to Rome's jurisdiction, is ironic: God's people have been looking for salvation in the wrong place, and scorning those marginalized places which God has actually promised to bless. It takes "a band of scholars ... from the East," beyond the reach of both Herod and his Caesar, to look past the marks of power and privilege to see where Israel's actual power resides

Herod ... was terrified — and not Herod alone, but most of Jerusalem as well. Why would the people of Jerusalem be terrified by the fulfillment of their God's promises? We can only speculate, but our speculation is informed by the balances that had been struck by Rome. Jerusalem retained its cultural and religious influence over the rest of Israel, even if it was in effect controlled by Rome. The political and religious authorities allowed to remain in place functioned similarly to the bread and circuses of Roman rule. It was enough, for Herod and Jerusalem, to be seen as powerful, however empty that perception actually was. And in fact Herod did have power, as we will see in the slaughter of innocents to come. But Herod and Jerusalem only had power over those below them, and now here are signs that it is from those below them that a new power is rising up.

Herod offers the scholars from the East aid in tracking down the child. But for all his claims of piety - he offers to "join you at once in your worship" - his real agenda is one of violence, of self-protection. "Herod is on the hunt for this child," Jesus' father Joseph is warned in a dream, "and wants to kill him."

They entered the house and ... kneeled and worshiped him. It is no small thing for citizens of one empire to kneel before the child of another. This is an act of treason, seen in one light; seen in another, it is an acknowledgment that there is power and authority beyond the reach of any earthly empire, and - given the modest and marginalized location of this particular king - this power and authority is exercised in ways that will confound the powers that be.

In a dream, they were warned not to report back to Herod. So they ... left the territory without being seen, and returned to their own country. Like the scouts of ancient Israel who snuck in and out of Jericho, these scholars have been given an advance look at a new world order. The rest of the world will be made aware soon enough.

“Get up. Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt. Stay until further notice." Egypt's destiny has never not been interwoven with Israel's destiny. It has been the temporary home of God's people before, but Israel's reliance on God's provision quickly degraded into reliance on Egypt's might. We worship power before we worship false gods, but the one leads inevitably to the other, and false gods always betray us. Israel learned these lessons the hard way, with enslavement; Jesus will retain his allegiance to God during his time in Egypt, rejecting the allure of force until he fulfills Hosea's prophecy that God "called my son out of Egypt."

TWEET THIS: We worship power before we worship false gods, but the one leads inevitably to the other.

Herod ... commanded the murder of every little boy two years old and under who lived in Bethlehem and its surrounding hills. Here Herod embraces the way of violence practiced throughout history, most infamously by Pharaoh, who tried to defy the work of God through the people of Israel by killing a generation of Israelites. This is not genocide but fratricide; Herod is killing his own people in a vain attempt to shore up his own power and privilege. No wonder we are reminded of Jeremiah's lament about "Rachel weeping for her children, Rachel refusing all solace." Rachel represents Israel under God's promise: she is the miracle mother, the one who couldn't have children until she suddenly could, the one who carried forward God's promise to Abraham not through his firstborn but through his miracle child, the one who gave birth to a child, Joseph, who would be exiled to Egypt and who would ultimately deliver God's people from devastation. If we kill the children of promise, we reject the promise of God. If we kill the children of promise, we kill ourselves.

"All those out to murder the child are dead.” Joseph hears from God that he is free to leave Egypt. He does, as an act of faith, but fear is still a present and pressing problem among God's people. Joseph fears Archelaus, the successor to Herod, so he is afraid to go home. God meets this moment of faithlessness not with punishment but with grace: is it really, after all, any surprise that those who live in darkness, under violent oppression, with no assurance of self-determination, might look for ways to hedge their bets? God redirects Joseph to Nazareth, another town of no reputation, far removed from the halls of power. In so doing he fulfills another prophecy and makes another statement about the nature of divine power and authority as opposed to the powers of this world: "He shall be called a Nazarene."

***

OK. That's the latest entry in A People's Commentary on the New Testament. I hope you'll join me on this experiment. Remember, mark any entries with the hashtag #PeoplesCommentary so the rest of us can find what you've written. And do me a favor and message me on Facebook to let me know when you've posted. I'll do my part and spread the word.

Short People: An Advent Reflection

For the first Sunday of Advent, a throwback post from 2010.

***

My first creative writing assignment (at least first in my memory) was a short story, a wildly meta fantasy in which the protagonist (whose name was, most likely, "Dave"--or perhaps "Danny," which as a kid I considered an objectively better name than "Dave" and thus a better name for myself) was soooo much smarter than his peers that he kept being advanced into later grades. Eventually his precociousness took him to high school, where he could no longer reach the handle to his locker. So he returned to the hoi polloi of his age-appropriate class. Poor Dave/Daniel: the one thing he lacked on his rocket to success was a growth spurt.

I was as proud of that story as I was of my presumed advanced intelligence. I wrote songs, short stories, book reviews--you name it--all before adolescence. Even as I shifted my self-concept to "musician," I kept writing. I was proud of the essays I wrote for my college applications, proud of the essays I wrote in my literature class (I very nearly failed that class), proud of the one-liners I'd come up with on the fly to defy my teacher and entertain my French class. I bragged about my wit and mastery of language during a parent-teacher conference, to which my eighth-grade Basic English teacher responded, "Well, I suppose you have to be clever when you're small."

Ouch. In the narrative arc of the hero's journey, this moment might be considered my passage through the first threshold, "which is crossed in such a way that it appears to be death."

That's really the way it works, though, isn't it? Our fantasies about ourselves (which likely have some base in reality) clash with the more common perceptions of us among our peers:

* "I am smart," despite the fact that I had not qualified for advanced English and was stuck in a remedial English course with an insensitive teacher.

* "I am known as witty," despite the more immediately obvious designator for me as "small."

I find myself identifying with another short but otherwise impressive fellow, Zacchaeus. A tax collector in first-century Palestine, he gets nine verses in Luke's Gospel--not enough to really know him, but we get quite a sense of him, because in meeting Zacchaeus we once again encounter Jesus.

Jesus always drew a crowd, and Luke 19 is no different. Everyone in Jericho wanted to get a good look at him, including Zacchaeus. We learn two things about Zac right off the bat:

1. He's the chief tax collector.
2. He's rich.

So in matters of wealth and accomplishment, he's a big deal. Bully for him. But one more detail colors our perception of Zacchaeus*:

3. He's short--so short "he could not see over the crowd."

I imagine the citizens of Jericho begrudgingly paying their taxes to Zac and then consoling themselves by ridiculing him for being tiny. Zac has, conceivably, a Napoleon complex, aggressively and myopically chasing success as a way of compensating for being small. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that Napoleon had a Zacchaeus complex. Maybe I have a Zacchaeus complex. Maybe all of us "fun-size" (to borrow a term from my friends the Heuertzes) humor the taller among us with reaches that exceed our grasp.

Anyway, Zac didn't get rich and accomplished by giving up, so he climbs a tree, at which point Jesus sees him and invites himself over to Zac's house for dinner. This audacious act by Jericho's newest big thing must frustrate the townspeople. Wee Zac comes out on top again. To quote the band Midnight Oil: "The rich get richer, the poor get the picture. The bombs never hit you when you're down so low." Zac's neighbors give us another description of who Zac is:

4. He's a lowdown sinner.

But Jesus knows there's more to Zac than what his neighbors think; there's even more to Zac than what Zac thinks.

In a move that nobody saw coming, Zac offers restitution for his unjust (though not illegal) practices in collecting taxes, in keeping with the commands of Torah.** Beyond that, he publicly pledges half his wealth to the poor folks in Jericho, again honoring the spirit of Torah. This is so out of keeping with who Zac knows himself to be, who the townspeople know Zac to be, that it can only be thought of as a miracle. But in the eyes of Jesus, this miraculous Zac has simply returned to normal, because Jesus knows a fifth thing about Zac:

5. He's a child of Abraham.

Zac is a child of Abraham just like all his neighbors, which means he is a beneficiary of the promises of God, a member of a covenant community that, according to God its head, takes care of the poor and treats one another justly. The children of Abraham, the scriptures tell us, love God and love their neighbors as themselves. Jesus tells us that these two rules sum up all of Torah. So this is who Zac is, who his neighbors are--or, more accurately, who they would be if they lived like they were born to live.

Jesus doesn't demand that we be something other than what we are--he didn't lay hands on Zac and make him tall; he didn't take his ill-gotten gains from him by force or expel him from the covenant community for violating usury laws. Jesus called it as he saw it, and he saw more clearly than anyone what needed to happen and indeed what had happened for Zac:

6. He's saved.

Today, then, as Advent begins, let us wait together with joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who will deliver us from the prisons of our reputations and the cells of our self-concepts, and restore us to our original identity as children of a loving God--with all that entails for us, and all that demands of us.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

* My friend Ruth tells me that some scholars speculate that it's actually Jesus who is short--so short that Zacchaeus has to climb a tree to look down enough to see him. That's cold.

** My friend Sean tells me that this text in the original language suggests that Zacchaeus isn't announcing that he will offer restitution but that he already is regularly directing his profits from collecting taxes to the betterment of his society. According to this interpretation, Zacchaeus isn't a lowdown sinner; he's a child of Abraham the "righteous" people of Jericho have decided they don't have to accept. In that respect, they're the sinners, not Zacchaeus.

Thanksgiving (For Every Wrong Move)

Somehow I find myself far out of line
from the ones I had drawn.
Wasn't the best of paths -
you could attest to that -
but I'm keeping on.

Giving thanks is sometimes an act of faith.

There was no pot of gold,
hardly a rainbow lighting my way.
But I will be true to the red, black and blues
that colored those days.

To all of you who are acting on faith this year ...

I owe my soul to each fork in the road,
each misleading sign.
'Cause even in solitude, no bitter attitude
can dissolve my sweetest find.

Would our paths cross if every great loss
had turned out our gain?
Would our paths cross if the pain it had cost us
was paid in vain?

Thanksgiving for every wrong move
that made it right.

Happy Thanksgiving from Loud Time.

Shazam! Hallelujah!

My wife recently introduced a friend to the most important mobile-platform application ever devised. With this app you can instantly identify any recorded music overheard in any environment. No more "What is this song?!? I know I know this!" No more "Note to self: Remember to purchase this song hours after having heard it." No more delayed gratification or missed opportunity. Now there is only ... Shazam!

Shazam! Hallelujah!

Our friend was awestruck by the Shazam app. And rightly so. It is truly awesome. The world of sound, right there at your fingertips. You may be thankful for your friends or your family; me, I'm thankful for my app.*

There are some limitations though - or, to be fair, some limitations on the devices where this precious app is stored. Shazam! works by listening to broadcast music and comparing what it hears to a digital music database; if it can't hear the music, it can't make the match. So if your device is too far from the music source, or the volume on the music source is set too low, or if there are other ambient noises overwhelming the song, Shazam! can't identify it. When that happens your best bet is to lift your device up to the music.

This limitation can lead to some awkwardness. For example, imagine that you're in your favorite local coffee shop, and you hear an unfamiliar song piping through the PA. You don't know the song, but you like it, so you Shazam! it. Unfortunately, you're sitting right next to one of those ubiquitous men's Bible study groups crowding every coffee house. They're all "Bro" this and "I just wanna" that, with their big macho Bible study voices, and Shazam! can't hear the music. So you raise your hands in the air, as you might in an act of worship, and you try again.

Shazam! "The HIV Song." You just worshiped Ween.

Not really, of course, but it does strike me as funny how the songs we invest ourselves in carry messages that, in another context, we would never admit to believing. If songs of the people (which is, essentially, what pop songs are) mirror the moment in which they're written, then they do in fact reflect what we're preoccupied with. And frankly it's not a big leap from preoccupation to idolatry. In these ways, the pop songs we find ourselves humming to, find ourselves laying down money for, tell the truth about us in uncomfortable ways. Who can deny what we learn about ourselves when we learn what song has burrowed its way into our brain? Shazam! "I wanna be a billionaire so freakin' bad ..."

TWEET THIS: It's not a big leap from preoccupation to idolatry.

Our money, our power, our prestige, our friends, our family, our Bible studies, our Bibles, our coffee, our apps, ourselves - all of these have the capacity to lead us into idolatry. We bend our knees before all of them without stopping to consider the cost; we close our eyes to their shortcomings, their incapacity to do what we expect idols to do - to save us from ruin and misery and worse. All of these are songworthy; none of these is worship-worthy. Sometimes it takes Shazam! to catch us in the act.

I'm not freaking out about idolatry, for what it's worth. If everybody does it all the time, it's hardly worth freaking out about. But still, being reminded that we're doing it is a gift: it's an opportunity to redirect our focus, to let our idols off the hook and let them be simply human - or simply things, as the case may be. Idolatry is silly; the Bible demonstrates just how silly it is:

The carpenter ... makes an idol
and bows down to it.
Half of the wood he burns in the fire;
over it he prepares his meal,
he roasts his meat and eats his fill.
He also warms himself and says,
“Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”
From the rest he makes a god, his idol;
he bows down to it and worships.
He prays to it and says,
“Save me! You are my god!” ...
No one stops to think,
no one has the knowledge or understanding to say,
“Half of it I used for fuel;
I even baked bread over its coals,
I roasted meat and I ate. ...
Shall I bow down to a block of wood?” (Isaiah 44)

If it's silly, we can laugh at it. And if we can laugh at it, it loses its power.

TWEET THIS: If it's silly, we can laugh at it. And if we can laugh at it, it loses its power.

So I'm not complaining; I'm just pointing out something funny. I'll leave you with my most recent accidental act of idolatry, a song I discovered via Shazam! when I lifted my iPhone up to the heavens. Hope you like it.

*For the record, I'm thankful for friends and family too. Relax.