What Now? Through Line of the Resurrection
Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67; Rev. 21:10-22:5; John 14:23-29
Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Pastor & Soul-Tender
The Blessing - PNWAwakening.com
In screenplays, a through line is the forward momentum of the plot as developed in the character of the protagonist. In other forms of writing you might use the word ‘thread’ although that connotes a more fixed object, something to grasp. Through line speaks to energy, or force, animation, power even, a vitality that captures the imagination and draws you in. We could say, ‘the psychic and physical energy’ of the story.
I’ve been thinking about this notion for a while in relation to what we formally call ‘Salvation History’, that is, how the formula - Creation, Fall, Redemption, Eternity - actually plays out in Scripture and our understanding of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
While lived out in the physicality of our daily lives, the ground on which we offer ourselves to Christ and to one another in blessing and hope, as we have been blessed.
The scope of God’s blessing, called the “Aaronic Blessing” begins in Numbers 6:22-27:
The Lord bless you and keep you
The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.
And verse 27: a first signal of baptism: So the priests shall put MY NAME on the Israelites and I will bless them.
Do you hear the echo in Psalm 67? A through line.
A question to ponder: What are the limits of God’s mercy? Who is not invited to praise God? (Pause)
What Now?
I draw a through line from this Psalm - let all the peoples praise You, let all the ends of the earth revere Him - to Paul’s vision of a person in Macedonia: a Roman province with Philippi at its center. A place filled with retired Roman Soldiers, who owe their allegiance to Caesar. This is where Paul hears, “Come, we need your gospel. We need to hear of Jesus Christ.” God opens Paul’s ears to hear the words of a stranger, a Gentile, a foreigner and eventually, a businesswoman!
There is this fundamental practice throughout the stories of Scripture - you have been blessed, so go be a blessing. You received the gospel? Then go give it away. You are loved? Then go love. Forgiven? Same thing. Heart to heart, connected, a deeply under-valued action in our individualistic culture. God created humanity out of love for community, interwoven in reciprocal relations of mutual regard and respect.
It is the damage of the Fall, the subsequent creation of patriarchy and hierarchy of value, now morphed into White so-called Christian Nationalists in this and other countries, of which we should be very concerned. For it is heresy, it goes against every word and action of our Savior, Jesus Christ!
And then there is our own desperate need for control that makes it almost impossible to imagine a world of finely tuned relationships which build off of the graciousness and blessing of the Divine, as the Psalmist writes, over and over and over again. Through Line.
The first European convert, Lydia. Stop and think about her for a moment. The first. European. Convert. Woman. She is how the gospel got to us here in the United States, in 2022. She is our patron saint, our through line!
What now? Seriously, what now? A woman, independent, not a piece of property who belongs to a man. She has her own means, she sells purple cloth, which can only be worn by wealthy people. She is at prayer, a God-fearer. She hears the good news of Jesus Christ - forgiven, His blood shed for her. His resurrection offers her whole life, shalom. She ‘prevails’ even with St. Paul - the theological giant trained at the best schools first in Judaism and then in Christianity! A formidable woman, you just don’t mess with her! Yet, notice, her whole household gets baptized, which you know includes slaves, now her sisters and brothers in Christ, maybe Greek, maybe Roman, maybe Gentile. Through Line.
I write sermons on Thursdays. This past Wednesday night, I really wrestled with what God wanted me to preach this Sunday, all night long.. You all were heavy on my heart. I so want you to hear Christ’s Word for you today, to lift you up, to encourage you, to give you strength for the holy, hard road you are walking. To counter the secular words and notions that thunder at you from your TV Screens, devices and the Internet.
At the same time, I could not let go of the murders of 10 African American fellow-citizens killed while grocery shopping on a Saturday afternoon. Killed by an 18 year old white boy/man, who believes the lies of Fox News and Tucker Carlson and other right-wing pundits. Honestly? The latest voices in a 300 year old screed: These immigrants, these Black People, these Jews, are going to take our place. Our = only white people, with roots in Europe and Scandavia. our white nation. A through line of hate: Straight up heresy, a message of the Anti-Christ.
Hear this testimony from our local newspaper, Marcus Harrison Green, publisher of the South Seattle Emerald: quote
Our blue state of Washington had the fifth largest distribution of white supremacist propaganda in the nation last year, more than California with five times our population, according to the Anti-Defamation League. We are home to at least 19 hate groups including the Northwest Front, which wishes to expel all people of color in favor of an all-white republic.
Today, there is nothing beyond luck keeping me, my mother, my sister and her grandchildren from walking into a South Seattle grocery and being murdered because of the deranged whims of an extremist with the gall to plead not guilty after livestreaming our executions.
That is not alarmist. That is a clear and present possibility we sit with.
And there is nothing anyone reading this can do about it.
Instead we can become. We can become people who condemn hatred, and find no understanding in its activation. We can become people who absorb the pain of others as our own, rather than separate it from our humanity.
We can become people who teach love, teach critical thinking, teach the value of every single life, teach that humans are neither good nor evil but can intentionally and unintentionally choose to do great good or great evil.
Our society’s thriving is dependent on our becoming. Otherwise our future will revisit tragedy.
I’m tired of mourning and moving on. I’d rather live a life without fear. Unquote. Sounds like the gospel to me.
Or the Taiwanese gathered for lunch at a sister Presbyterian Church in California to celebrate the return of a former pastor, gunned down by a Chinese American who ‘hates’ Taiwan and its people. What Now?
As I sat at my desk early Thursday morning, coffee in hand, and re-read the Aaron Blessing:
The Lord bless you and keep you
The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.
I pondered what word could I possibly bring?
I remembered the song, “The Blessing”. Choirs all over the world created versions during the pandemic, an offering of hope in the midst of such loss and sorrow and darkness. I went searching on YouTube and found this particular version set in our own backyard, the beautiful Pacific Northwest. For reasons that remain somewhat mysterious to me, a vision? I never tire of this song and its varied presentations.
I offer it in humble recognition of the deep and abiding pain, fear and sorrow in Buffalo, New York and Laguna Woods, Cal. And so many other places across the country. And to our African-American siblings right here in Seattle who are scared they too have a bigger target on their backs. And to our Asian-American siblings who are also scared, uncertain if its safe to go to the grocery store or Walmart or a bar or a cafe, or now, church.
There is a through line for hate. We must recognize it and do everything in the power the Holy Spirit gives us to stand up, speak out, sit with, listen to, exam our own lives.
We must root ourselves in the through line of Jesus Christ, Lord & Savior of the world. His great mercy and grace overflowing, washing over us.
What Now? Through Line of the Resurrection. Amen
Instead of Christian nationalism, Stewart prefers the use of “religious nationalism,” which she describes as
a reactionary, authoritarian ideology that centers its grievances on a narrative of lost national greatness and believes in the indispensability of the “right” religion in recovering that lost greatness. This mind-set always involves a narrative of unjust persecution at the hands of alien or “un-American” groups. The specific targets may shift. Some focus their fears on the “homosexual agenda”; others target Americans of color or nonwhite immigrant groups; still others identify the menace with religious minorities such as Muslims, Jews and secular “elites” or perceived threats against gender hierarchy and sexual order. And of course, many take an all-of-the-above approach.
Why have Christian nationalism and replacement theory moved so quickly to center stage? Robert Jones of P.R.R.I. suggested it was “twin shocks to the system” delivered during the first two decades of this century: “the election and re-election of our first Black president and the sea change of no longer being a majority-white Christian nation.” Both of these developments, Jones wrote,
happened simultaneously between 2008 and 2016. White Christians went from 54 percent to 47 percent in that period, down to 44 percent today. This set the stage for Trump and the emergence of full-throated white Christian nationalism. Trump exchanged the dog whistle for the megaphone.
Racial and ethnic resentment has grown far beyond the political fringes, Jones argued, citing levels of agreement in P.R.R.I. polling with this statement: “Immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background.” Among all voters, according to Jones, 29 percent believe that immigrants are invading our country; among Republicans, it’s 60 percent; among Democrats, 11 percent; among QAnon believers, 65 percent; among white evangelicals, 50 percent; and among white noncollege voters, as pollsters put it, 43 percent.
In their January 2022 paper, “Christian Nationalism and Political Violence: Victimhood, Racial Identity, Conspiracy, and Support for the Capitol Attacks,” Miles T. Armaly of the University of Mississippi and David T. Buckley and Adam M. Enders, both of the University of Louisville, argue: “Religious ideologies like Christian nationalism should be associated with support for violence, conditional on several individual characteristics that can be inflamed by elite cues.” Those characteristics are “perceived victimhood, reinforcing racial and religious identities and support for conspiratorial information sources.”
“It’s unlikely that a single orientation or one belief was promoting the type of violent action we witnessed in Buffalo or the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” Enders wrote by email. “It’s a toxic blend of extremist orientations, such as Christian nationalism, racism, some expressions of populism and conspiracism, for example, that edges individuals closer to supporting violence.”
Enders went on:
Christian nationalism, racism, sexism, homophobia are all about identity conflict — who is morally virtuous and more deserving, who’s “normal” and even what it means to be an American. Each of these orientations is also characterized by an extreme disdain or fear of the “other.” One might look to Christianity for deeper ties between the orientations, but I think the reality is that conspiracy-minded individuals, like the accused Buffalo shooter, can find connections between anything. He saw America as a white, heterosexual, Christian country that was becoming less white, heterosexual and Christian, thereby threatening (his perception of) the American way of life, which was his way of life. But racism, sexism, etc. do not have any inherent connection to a desire to build a Christian nation-state.
In a separate paper, Enders wrote that he and other scholars have found that
conspiracy theories, of which great replacement theory is an example, are oftentimes undergirded by antisocial personality traits, such as the dark triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) and a predisposition toward conflict. If you combine all of these dispositions and traits and dial them up to 10, that’s when you’re most likely to find support for violence, which is correlated with (but not determinative of) behavioral violence.
Armaly wrote by email that “between 25 to 32 percent of white Americans support some Christian nationalist ideas. We use six questions to assess the degree to which one supports Christian nationalist ideals,” including agreement or disagreement with “the federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation” and “the success of the United States is part of God’s plan.” Around 32 percent of respondents endorse at least four statements, Armaly wrote, “and 25 percent endorse at least five statements.”
Armaly noted that of “the major predictors of support for violence — perceived victimhood, attachment to one’s whiteness, racial animus toward Blacks, support for authoritarianism, support for populism and past or current military service — all, save for military service, are present in the accused Buffalo shooter’s written statement.”
