Day Four.
1.
There may come a time when people look back and try to discern the exact day when the Presbyterian Church (USA), like the Lost Son in Jesus’ parable, came to itself, and turned its face towards the household of God, and began the journey home. June 19, 2018, could be that day. For that was when 800 participants in a PCUSA General Assembly took to the streets and delivered 47 thousand dollars to people languishing in the local jail awaiting bail. Having attended about 10 General Assemblies, I can say that something like this was almost unimaginable before yesterday. We never engaged with the city hosting us. Indeed, four years ago, it was not until we got back home that we learned about the water crisis in Detroit, which was going on while the General Assembly was meeting in that city!
It was an astonishing and exhilarating experience to be with so many Presbyterians engaged in a direct action like this. I have been in many demonstrations over the decades, but never in one that was so explicitly Presbyterian. My dad attended the March on Washington in 1963 and heard Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech live. I could not help thinking how proud he would have been to see engaged Presbyterians.
This is a different denomination than the one I was ordained into in 1981. Heck, it’s a different denomination from last Thursday.
2.
The day began with a Bible Study time, this time by Professor Naj Nedella: “The Imperial Paradox and the Kindom of God in Matthew’s Gospel.” He started with a focus on Herod’s banquet in Matthew 14, which ends with the beheading of John the Baptizer. John’s crime was the criticism of economic injustice and preaching a repentance that turned away from the practices of empire. Empire demands, in spite of its own propaganda, a two tiered system in which the mass of people at the bottom support the comfort and privilege of the few people at the top. In order for wealth to accrue there has to be war and poverty in the colonies. This is the imperial paradox. These economic structures were sanctioned and sanctified by the gods.
In Matthew 15, Jesus presents a different kind of banquet in feeding 5000 people on a hillside, in deliberate contrast with Herod’s banquet. Jesus goes into the wilderness — John’s base — and inherits the same anti-imperialist agenda.
Later in the chapter, Jesus has his encounter with a Canaanite woman in which he initially responds from a zero-sum worldview, mimicking the exclusive, racist views of his own people. Against the Roman strategy of pitting oppressed groups against each other for “scarce” resources, It is the woman herself who witnesses to the gospel of sharing that Jesus himself is enacting in the feeding events which happen both before and after this encounter.
So against false and oppressive scarcity, Jesus redefines family, saying “Yes, ma’am” to this “enemy” woman. The bread in these stories stands for Jesus’ mission, which culminates in chapter 26 with the institution of the eucharist.
3.
The luncheon sponsored by Presbyterians for Earth Care featured an address by Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, who heads the PCUSA Washington Office. He talked about the “Reclaiming Jesus” statement from a group of Christian leaders, as well as the Poor People’s Campaign now happening across the country. To follow Jesus means participating in his healing, teaching, and preaching ministry. Both the Hebrew Bible in Exodus and the New Testament with Jesus started as poor peoples’ campaigns.
4.
Then we marched. Nearly a thousand Presbyterians took to the streets and walked about a mile to the jail where we gave money to folks who will use it to pay the bail of people awaiting trial. The cash bail system is a brick in the wall of oppression of poor people. These people are picked up on various misdemeanors and left to languish in jail for a long time for want of bail money. They lose their jobs; their families suffer; and the conditions in the “work house” to which they are sent are horrendous.
But the real miracle is that this happened at all.
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