Why I Protested and Where We Go From Here

My dear sisters and brothers,

I could call this entry, "Winners and Losers, Part II," since I know that people across the country feel that they fall into one of these two camps in the wake of a nasty and polarizing election. As I noted in my last post, I rarely express political opinions on social media or in the pulpit. In general, I try to be non-partisan, so that I can more easily be a pastor to all people, irrespective of their political views. I don't want to be a source of division within whatever parish I serve. Yet over the last couple of days, extraordinary circumstances have forced me to revisit and revise that position for the time being.

The reason I joined thousands of other people last night in my clerical collar and rainbow stole to protest and march was not because the Democrats lost and the Republicans won. After all, I spent eight years doing public policy quite effectively with the two Republican administrations of George W. Bush. I am quite used to and supportive of working--and often disagreeing--across disparate viewpoints. This disagreement can be a healthy check on my own narcissism, hubris, and self-righteousness. Partisanship is not what this is about.

It is about the election of a man who has said abusive and denigrating things about women, people of color, Muslims, immigrants, people with disabilities, veterans, LGBTQ folk, and many others. This is a man who has consistently lied. This is a man who has bragged on camera about sexually assaulting women. This is a man who has called Mexicans rapists. This is a man who has branded all Muslims as terrorists. This is a man who has stereotyped African Americans as living in hell. This is a man who has openly committed to rolling back civil liberties for LGBTQ people. Our President-elect's rhetoric has inspired and given permission to other citizens to engage in anti-Semitic, homophobic, Islamophobic, misogynistic, and generally bigoted behavior. That is intolerable.

We have not seen this degree of demagogic discourse in the public square for decades, and I believe it is the Church's responsibility to serve as a moral voice to oppose and correct these profoundly dehumanizing words and actions. To those people, who caution that we need to give Mr. Trump some breathing room to demonstrate how he will govern now that he is elected, I say this: Mr. Trump already has much to answer for, and there is nothing in his past behavior that would incline me to give him the benefit of the doubt. Quite the opposite. A relationship between President and people is based on trust; and frankly, I don't trust him. He's given me no reason to trust him. Just because Mr. Trump was a candidate until now doesn't mean that he is not accountable for what he said and did during the campaign. It is because he is now a position to make good on his threats to build a wall, or deport refugees, or rescind marriage equality, that we must gird our loins to resist those boasts and let him know we are being vigilant. These threats may no longer be hot air. They may become real very soon.

As I walked off the El last night toward the protest with my sign in hand and my stole over my shoulders, I made eye contact with a white, middle-aged woman, who became quite tearful and emotional when she saw my sign, which said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. - Matthew 5:6  PRAY FOR PEACE, JUSTICE, AND RESPECT." She nodded toward me and thanked me for being visible and present. I patted her arm and comforted her as best I could. I arrived at the protest in front of Trump International, where we shouted for about an hour, and then processed peacefully down State Street, gathering new marchers from curious onlookers as we passed. Of course, there was anger, mocking, and profanity; and I didn't agree with every message that was voiced. I'm not looking for revolution. I'm not seeking to dismantle the "system". I don't think shouting vulgarities helps the cause for peace and reconciliation. I hoped that my presence and that of Holy Scripture would offer an alternative to more extreme, vindictive messages. In any event, I did affirm the right of all of us to gather and participate in our democracy by peacefully protesting. That's why I was there. We continued all the way down the Magnificent Mile; and as the march turned from Michigan Avenue to Upper Wacker, I noticed a Muslim woman, her head wrapped in a scarf, quietly weeping, clearly moved by the show of solidarity. People were sticking up for her, and it mattered. Later, as I stood on the sidewalk on Wabash Street, a young millennial ran by, and then when he saw my sign, he stopped suddenly, and shouted out, "God bless you, Father, for being here and supporting us. Really, God bless you."

As a priest, there were some opportunities for me to offer pastoral care; and there was actually some healing in all of this. Many young people cautiously asked what church and denomination I represented. We talked about religion and Christianity. I was offered hugs. I was asked to take selfies. A student reporter interviewed me for the school paper. A young woman said cheerfully that she liked my stole. Countless people stopped to read my sign--some obviously, but many surreptitiously out of the corner of their eyes as they passed me. I saw the message register on their faces. Many even read the words from Matthew's Gospel, smiled, and nodded. Finally, after three hours, my back was killing me, so I called it an evening and made my way to the El station at Lake and State, still carrying my sign. Several homeless men stopped me to talk and asked me to pray, and I asked them to do the same. When I boarded the El train, three millennials who had been at the protest--an Asian man, a black man, and a white woman--drew me into their conversation. We debated and shared our experiences. I commended them for their commitment and encouraged them to continue to take their civil responsibilities and our democracy seriously.

That leads me to what I believe the Church and all concerned people need to do next. Be a moral force. Speak out against hate and violence. Seek reconciliation and unity, while respecting diversity. Write letters to your legislators. Vote on election day. March and protest if you have to. I have never really identified as a radical or an activist; but I do identify as a committed Christian. I believe in the words of the prophet, Micah (the message on the other side of my sign): "He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." There is so much fear and distress that the Church needs to offer protection and solidarity to those who stand to lose much, including their liberty, maybe even their lives. Those like me who respect the democratic process, including the peaceful transition of power and the will of the electorate, are still bidden to admonish our government when it threatens to violate the principles on which we are built. Donald Trump will be our next President, and the best way to help him and our nation to succeed is to assume some moral responsibility for shaping the next four years.

May God bless you all.

Fr. Ethan+

A Tale of Knives and Nunchucks

An audio recording of this sermon is available by clicking here.

The letter to the Ephesians commands its hearers to, “put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” In this day and age, this sort of language seems out of place, whether for its militaristic overtones or the medieval worldview that it invokes. The image of Christian soldiers has often made me very uneasy, reminding me of shameful chapters in our history, like the Crusades and the Inquisition, when people have been oppressed and killed in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Talk of the devil and evil forces, moreover, seems superstitious and outmoded, calling forth visions of damned beings with horns and tails, inhabiting a realm of eternal suffering and unquenchable fire. And yet, I am here to tell you that these images are still compelling and relevant, even to postmodern people who think they have evolved beyond conventional understandings of angels and demons, of heaven and hell.

A brawl breaks out at Starbucks.

On Tuesday, I sat at a table at the Starbucks on Bryn Mawr in Edgewater, waiting for a parishioner to join me to plan adult forums for the rest of the year. As I sat in front of my laptop leisurely sipping my latte, a commotion erupted, and three men ran past me, swearing and knocking over chairs. At one point, one of these chairs became airborne as one man tried to shield himself from the blows of the other two, who were clearly enraged and bent on inflicting verbal abuse and physical violence. The shop’s patrons were alarmed, and so I packed up my stuff, and dashed outside to find a police officer. By the time I came back a few minutes later, a policeman was leading one of the men out of Starbucks in handcuffs. Over the course of the next several minutes, four more squad cars pulled up to offer backup, and the other two men were taken into custody, as well. The anxiety in the room quickly dissipated, and people returned to their drinks, conversations, and mobile devices. But my story doesn’t end there.

After my meeting, I jumped on the Red Line for my usual commute to Grace. When the trained pulled into the Jackson station, we interrupted another altercation already underway. As the platform came into view, I witnessed a woman attempting to defend herself with nunchucks against a man wielding a knife. The doors opened, and an officer in plain clothes whipped out his badge and shouted, “CPD!”  He exited the train and attempted to separate the two combatants and calm them down. Aided by another police officer in plain clothes, he apprehended the man with the knife, who had attempted to seek refuge on the train, all the while spouting obscenities. I thought about how frightened the German couple standing in front of me must’ve been, their school-age daughter in a wheelchair, facing the door where all of this turmoil was occurring. The two officers managed to subdue the aggressor, remove him from the train, and put him in cuffs. The woman, still holding her nunchucks, thanked the police officers, and announced, “he had the devil in him. He had the devil in him, and he showed his true colors.” I’m not making it up; she really said that.

Jesus' temptation in the wilderness.

It was harrowing to watch both of these scenes unfold before me, and to feel powerless to intervene. I was grateful that the police were responsive and professional during these incidents of unexpected violence that endangered so many innocent bystanders. It was fortunate that an officer just happened to be standing in front of the door -- in my train car -- at that precise moment. I don’t know if it was divine grace or dumb luck, and I frankly didn’t care.  But when I become complacent, feeling that the world is safe, moments like this remind me that human beings can still be agents of great suffering and violence, that evil really exists. I am not saying, of course, that the perpetrators of this violence are evil or are somehow not loved by God, but rather, that human beings—and that includes all of us—are susceptible to the lure of all kinds of sins, to selfish motives and evil urges.  We may not all act on these temptations, but they prod and goad us, encouraging us to give in to our baser impulses. This is what the reading from the Ephesians is all about. The devil is all around you, he’s crafty and powerful, so be on your guard and protect yourself, the reading tells us.  You’re kidding yourself if you think you’re immune. After all, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, who offered our Lord wealth and power, if only he would bow down and worship him. 

I know that in the twenty-first century, sin is a topic that is out of fashion, and out of sync with contemporary sensibilities. Nobody wants to hear about it. As Jesus’s disciples say to him in this morning’s Gospel, while our Lord is teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum, “this teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”  Sin seems like a topic for fire-and-brimstone sermons from the seventeenth century. Besides, the Church has done so much to make us feel bad about ourselves, because of our sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity, or for using birth control or getting divorced, and a host of other things, that we’ve consigned sin to the theological dustheap. But I’m bringing back Old Time Religion this morning just for a moment, because I think we’ve overlooked something. There is a reason that we make our confession every Sunday before receiving Jesus’s body and blood at the altar: sin is real. It is not only the sin we commit as individuals against each other for which we ask for forgiveness, but it is also for our participation in institutionalized sins, such as racism, misogyny, ecological devastation, and rampant consumerism. We have a lot of sin to repent for.

Jesus's Baptism in the Jordan.

Ephesians offers us jarring language that chafes against our inclination to think of ourselves as just fine the way we are. I have always subscribed to the concept of original blessing, rather than original sin. When God said on the sixth day that everything that she had created was very good, I take God at her word. We ARE very good, but that doesn’t mean we can do without God, that we are self-sufficiently moral without God’s help. Even as good as we are, “the spiritual forces of evil” are formidable, and so we need to be vigilant and disciplined, because sin could crop up anywhere, at Starbucks or on the Red Line. To “take the shield of faith, to “fasten the belt of truth,” and to “put on the breastplate of righteousness” expresses the human aspiration to overcome the temptation to give in to sin. “As shoes for your feet,” Ephesians counsels, “put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.” In the face of sin and evil, we wrap ourselves in God, who shelters and protects us like armor.

This topic comes up most poignantly whenever I prepare new Christians, or their parents and godparents, for baptism. “Don’t be put off by the old-timey language,” I tell them. “Your child will face all kinds of evil in her life: human cruelty, apathy to the suffering of others, violence, greed, selfishness, and many other things that will divide her from God and her neighbor. In baptism, we are asking for God’s protection and guidance in such moments.” Indeed, the Baptismal Covenant in the Book of Common Prayer asks the person or sponsor, “will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.” The response is, “I will, with God’s help.” The Prayer Book suggests that the avoidance of sin is impossible, and so we just plug away as best we can and rely on God’s help to set us back on to the path of peace. As the disciples asked Jesus, I now ask you, “this teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”