Turn Towards Hope

Hi all,

What follows is the text of a sermon I preached earlier this morning at Messiah Lutheran Church in Schenectady, New York where I'm incredibly blessed to serve as pastor. It was my best attempt to proclaim a message of hope as we begin the season of Advent while focusing on the first reading for this Sunday, Jeremiah 33: 14 - 16. Please, let me know what you think!

God's peace,

Dustin

Sisters and brothers,

It’s so heartening for me to be back with you, despite having had an awesome week away visiting loved ones and hiking in all sorts of beautiful places with Willy Bear all around New England. It was a great week for sure, filled with some much needed rest time, hours spent reading and reflecting about the past year and of course multiple courses of eating way too much turkey. That all said, both the best and most thought provoking parts of my week were the conversations I had with folks of a wide variety ages and backgrounds. I was blessed with the opportunity to hear what was going on in the life of my beloved Grandma Tinie for instance, who still cooked the most delicious Thanksgiving meal despite being in her late eighties. I also learned about the joys and challenges a close childhood friend of mine is facing as her and her husband begin their careers with a second child on the way. It was fantastic to talk with a high school student about how things were going with the hometown cross country team in my hometown of Manchester, Connecticut before the annual Thanksgiving Day Road Race. Now to the best of my understanding, there seemed to be one common thread though that bubbled up in a nearly all these conversations no matter what else was being talked about, a common thread that really informs what I’d like to speak to today… given everything going on in the world over especially the past year, wow, there is a huge amount of fear in our society, and worse yet, there is even more apathy about the possibility of things improving. There is a great amount of fear in our society, and worse yet, there is even more apathy about the possibility of things improving.

The reasons for this collective sense of fear and apathy are both incredibly complicated yet probably quite familiar to most of you. First of all, on a societal level, change, even when it’s mostly positive change, creates uncertainty, which in turns often instigates us to react in fear. And while it’s been increasingly a trend for a while now, over the past year especially we’ve heard stories about “the rise of the millennial generation,” folks roughly my age and bit younger, who as we’re at least often characterized have radically different views than the last few few generations of Americans. We’re increasingly interconnected on our iPhones, we greatly value racial and ethnic diversity, and comfortable with what some would consider nontraditional family structures, whether it be championing marriage equality, choosing to live with a partner before marriage or putting off having children until later in life. We also aren’t typically as interested in organized religion, although we are just about as spiritual as any other generation. While in my opinion most of these trends are quite positive and have been in the works for the at least the last fifty years anyway, the fact that we’re rapidly moving away from a “Leave It to Beaver” sort of society is understandably scary for many individuals.

On top of a rapidly changing society, we’ve been absolutely inundated over the past year with all sorts of horrific headlines that tend to breed nothing but fear and apathy… folks twisting the beautiful teachings of Islam into something that leads to beheadings and civil war and the despicable terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut a couple weeks ago. Every week it seems we hear news of another mass shooting, most recently this past Friday outside a women’s health clinic in Colorado. Affirming that black lives matter while also supporting the women and men who have sworn to keep us safe is a near daily task. With NATO allied Turkey shooting down a Russian fighter jet on Turkish/ Syrian border this past week, international tensions in some ways haven’t been this high since the end of the Cold War. And not to mention of course all the difficulties going on in our own lives… from talking to many of you privately in the week before I left for vacation, wow, there is a lot of tough stuff going on for many of us hear at Messiah… all sorts of things that might make us fearful, or lead us to apathetically believe things will never improve.

Today however my sisters and brothers, during the shortest days of the year, the prophet Jeremiah has a word for us that is not just of incredible, but in fact is audaciously good news amidst all that darkness, fear and apathy, as we begin a new church year and liturgical season this first Sunday of Advent… a message quite simply, of hope. I’ll read some of Jeremiah’s words for us again… The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. You see, Jeremiah wrote in some truly horrific times… right in the middle of the Siege of Jerusalem between 589-587 BCE by the forces of Nebuchadnezzar II. The elites of the city were being carted off to exile in Babylon, the city itself was burned and most importantly, the First Temple, the dwelling place of God on Earth was completely destroyed. I can’t stress more highly how this was a truly world shattering event for Jeremiah and his peers… to the point that most of Hebrew Bible we know today was compiled shortly thereafter in an attempt to figure out what to do next. Despite the horrors surrounding him, Jeremiah proclaims “the days are surely coming” where justice and righteousness will once again reign in the land. In other words, Jeremiah proclaimed a message of hope in the darkest, scariest, most apathetic of times… not just incredible but in fact audaciously good news that deeply reflects the sense of hope that our God calls us towards in Christ.

So, what can we learn from Jeremiah’s message as we begin this Advent amidst the darkest season of the year, amidst of overwhelming sense of apathy and fear? Quite simply, turn away from such things towards hope. In the end, that’s what Jesus is all about, the only reason Jesus needed to be born at all, to turn us towards hope. Turn towards hope in Christ, and proclaim that message to everyone you know through word and deed, that in the end, the powers of darkness, and fear and apathy can never win next to the power of God’s love. Now what does an abstract phrase like “turn towards hope” mean for us practically in this time, this place, in twenty-first century Rotterdam? I have three distinct suggestions amongst many other possibilities. First, let us consider what and who we want to stand for as Christians. A couple weeks back, you might have heard the silliness coming out of some Christian quarters complaining about what those red holiday Starbucks cups look like… they no longer had a Santa or nativity or whatever other Christmas scene whatever… is that what’s truly important? Red coffee cups? Is that what it means to be Christian? Or can we radically take up the Biblical call to welcome in the stranger, the alien, the migrant and stand up for those well mean Syrian families seeking asylum in our country as refugees. What’s more important? Being fearful about our seemingly less Christian culture and complaining about red coffee cups or turning towards the hope that we can make the lives of a small number of Syrian refugees just a bit easier.

Second, do we want focus on our fears about the changing values of our young people? Only a couple weeks back I heard an ELCA Lutheran pastor referred to millennials as a “heathen generation,” I kid you not. Really? Or should turn towards hope in Christ? For example, did you know for the past few years, on the first day of every month thousands of young Lutherans around the world fast have fasted for justice ahead of a major climate change conference that will begin tomorrow in Paris? Lutheran young people are putting their into action all around the world and advocating that our leaders finally take action on what may be the defining issue of our time, and it’s acceptable to call us a heathen generation? Rather than reacting out of fear about changing and perhaps improving values, we can turn towards hope in Christ.

Finally, on a more personal and less global scale, should we continue to apathetically focus on old divisions and arguments with friends, family and members of our congregation, especially during this stressful time of the year or can we turns towards hope in Christ that reconciliation is possible? Can we turn towards hope in Christ that we can move forward together into a bright future as closely knit families, communities and as a congregation? Quite simply my sisters and brothers, through Jeremiah’s proclamation of the good news amidst the darkest of times over 2500 years ago, and through Christ coming into the world and triumphing over the worst of human sin a few hundred years later, we can turn away from all the darkness and fear and apathy towards hope. In the end, that’s what Jesus is all about, the only reason Jesus needed to be born at all, to turn us towards hope. Turn towards hope in Christ, and proclaim that message to everyone you know through word and deed, that in the end, the powers of darkness, and fear and apathy can never win next to the power of God’s love. Amen.

Dustin serves as pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church, a Spirit-filled church following Jesus Christ in Rotterdam, New York. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, he spends most of his professional time wrestling with God and proclaiming liberation in Christ. Otherwise, Dustin likes hiking, playing frisbee, hanging out with his amazing pup Willy Bear and pretending to know how to sing.

LWF Youth Desk: A Journey to Climate Justice

What follows is a video presentation on sustainable development and climate justice I recorded for the Lutheran World Federation Youth Desk's recent "A Youth Journey to Climate Justice" online quiz game. For more information and to play the entire game yourself, click here. "A Youth Journey to Climate Justice" is an AWESOME resource for helping your youth group or individual teen think about the intersection between climate change and faith. Presenters in the quiz game are young adult Lutherans from around the world.

Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. Recently approved for ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in faith communities seeking to translate the rich and ancient traditions of the Church to proclaim the good news of Christ in a post-modern world. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Faith, Global Development Goals, and Climate Justice

Hey folks! So I recently recorded a brief video presentation for folks at the Lutheran World Federation Youth Desk who are planning on global web conference on climate justice on 26 October. I highly recommend you participate in the event (more info forthcoming), but even if you're not available on the 26th, you can learn a little bit below about how faith, global development goals and climate justice relate to each other from the rough manuscript I wrote for my presentation below. I'll be sure to post the entire video following the web conference. Thanks so much and I'd love to hear what you think!

Hi, I’m Dustin Wright, a seminarian at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia and a candidate for ordination in the ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I also recently completed a year at the Lutheran Office for World Community, a joint ministry between the ELCA and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) that carries on advocacy work at the United Nations in New York City. One focus area throughout my last year in New York was the post-2015 development agenda, and thus folks at the LWF Youth Desk asked me to speak with you all today about how the post-2015 development agenda interfaces with the global climate justice movement. Thank you all so much for having me and taking the time to engage in the important ministry of advocating for climate justice.

If there’s one thing I’d like you to take away from my presentation it is that the next two years are an absolutely critical time for the climate justice movement when robust advocacy on behalf of God’s creation and those people most affected by its degradation is more important than ever. That’s because between today and September 2015, two global conversations that have been going on more or less separately for over a decade at the United Nations and elsewhere will merge: a conversation regarding the Millennium Development Goals and a conversation regarding sustainable development. In the remainder of this presentation I’ll summarize both of these conversations, outline the process of how they will merge over the next two years, and conclude with some brief suggestions about how you can get involved.

First, let’s discuss the Millennium Development Goals- frequently referred to as the MDGs. In 2000, world leaders gathered together to create the Millennium Development Goals, eight goals broken into twenty-one specific, measurable targets to be reach by 2015. In my opinion this was a world-changing event, the first time humanity collectively made specific promises about how it would develop over its next fifteen years.

The good news is that the world has been largely successful in reaching these goals: we’ve cut in half the number of folks living in extreme poverty, as defined as living on less than a $1.25 a day. We’ve moving toward a parity between the percentage of girls and boys attending primary school, and have made a great advances in combating diseases like HIV/ AIDS and malaria. On the other hand, progress towards achieving the MDGs hasn’t spread evenly across countries, and issues like inequalities and environmental degradation are getting worse. Every year, progress towards achieving the MDGs is evaluated by the United Nations, and now that the deadline year of 2015 is rapidly approaching, member states at the UN are beginning to discuss what will follow that deadline.

Alongside but somewhat separate from the Millennium Development Goals discussion has been the sustainable development discussion. It’s important to highlight here that “sustainable development” doesn’t just mean development that is environmentally sustainable. Since the first UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, sustainable development has been defined by the international community as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable development therefore is comprised of three specific and mutually reinforcing pillars: economic, sociopolitical, and environmental sustainability. Some individuals and groups, especially many indigenous communities, argue there should be a fourth pillar, cultural sustainability.

For instance, if your country were able to immediately convert 100% of its energy production to renewable resources, but that energy remained extremely expensive, it wouldn’t be economically viable and therefore could not be sustainable. Likewise, even in a country that does produce cheap renewable energy, if a quality education isn’t accessible to all individuals regardless of their sociopolitical background, many people may not be able to find jobs and afford to purchase even the cheapest renewable energy. Finally, if an extremely equitable society is sustained by cheap energy from the burning of dirty fossil fuels, the resulting climate change wouldn’t make that model of development sustainable either.

Recognizing that much of the progress under the Millennium Development Goals was not achieved in a sustainable manner, at the Rio +20 Conference in 2012, member states tasked the United Nations with creating a new set of Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs. While this process is ongoing and you can follow it via the UN’s Sustainable Knowledge Platform, it was recently announced at the opening of the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly that the SDGs will be combined with the wider post-2015 development agenda to create a one new definitive and sustainable set of targets for global development to be adopted by UN Member States at a high-level summit in September of 2015.

So, I know that may seem a bit a complicated, but in summary, a new plan for global development is being created over the next two years. Whether or not it can be a truly sustainable plan that helps lift people out of poverty while protecting God’s creation is in part, up to you! First, its essential that you help educate your friends and family about the Millennium Development Goals and the post-2015 development agenda that will succeed them. What you’re looking at are links to resources that can help you do just that. You can also participate in the MY World Global Survey and the World We Want 2015 platform to make sure leaders know that you and people in your community want a set of global development goals that protect God’s creation. Finally, its not just at UN headquarters in New York City where decisions are being made. In fact, what decisions are made by national governments in their own capitals is much more important. Therefore, make sure you let your national leaders know you care about God’s creation as well! Thanks so much for your listening. Advocating for climate justice is such an important ministry, and I’m very glad you’re taking part!

God's peace,
Dustin


Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Preaching on the End of the World, Pentecost 33B

What follows is a very rough draft of a sermon I'll be preaching at Saint Peter's Jazz Vespers service this Sunday.  It's on the lectionary text for the week, Mark 13: 1 - 8.  Would love to hear some input.

I can specifically remember being a vulnerable, nervous little ten-year-old sitting at my grandma’s house and watching TV after dinner, when a program came on about the predictions of Nostradamus, the upcoming Y2K bug, and thus, the apocalypse described in the Bible… the end of the world. Scared nearly half to death, I quickly ran into the kitchen and offered to do the dishes for my grandmother… since it was 1996 and I only had four years to earn God’s favor and be chosen as one of His elect before the start of the new millennium, I figured I should get to work doing nice things for everyone right away. Luckily, my grandmother could sense I had something more than just being helpful on my mind, so instead of handing me the sponge and dish soap, she stooped down, wrapped me up in a big hug, and asked me what was wrong. Although she had never taken a Bible course on Revelation, Daniel, or the ‘little apocalypse’ that today’s text from Saint Mark is a part of, after finding out what I had been watching, she aptly told me not to worry, and that God, as she knew through Jesus, was a loving God.

While my grandma definitely helped me feel a bit better that night, for the next four years I was never entirely able to shake my fear of God’s impending judgment as the millennium turned. I greatly worried that every subsequent military confrontation… think the Kosovo War and expanding the no-fly zone over Iraq… would spiral into nuclear war. I read Biblical texts like the ‘little apocalypse’ from Mark 13 over and over again. I learned that Jesus gives similar discourses about the destruction of the temple, the coming of false messiahs and nations rising against nations in Saint Matthew and Saint Luke as well and eventually came to think that even if Jesus wasn’t talking about the new millennium in these texts, it sure sounded like God was a vengeful God, and thus that I needed to appease him with good behavior. The dawning of the new millennium came and went of course, and after four years I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.

With this background in mind you can imagine both my disappointment and laughter when while watching TV at a friend’s house this past summer, I swear the History Channel had cut out the same old footage of a “Bible expert” talking about the apocalypse that I saw back in 1996 and reused it in a similar program about predictions by Nostradamus, a Mayan calendar and other sources that the world would end not in 2000, but 2012. Of course, a fascination with the end times, as well as the prediction that they’re close at hand, is as old as humanity. We can’t help but question the eventual fate of our loved ones and ourselves… and much of the time we approach these questions with fear. We fear whether we’ll end up on God’s good side, whether heaven exists at all and we especially wonder what the “birth pangs” Jesus mentions in today’s text might look like. Throughout our Christian history, there have of course been many answers to these questions, but they’ve tended to fall into one of three camps.

There’s one view primarily based on what I’d consider an overly simplistic reading of texts like today’s “little apocalypse.” It argues a final day of judgment will be preceded by the removal or rapture of God’s few chosen people from Earth, a time of great chaos and suffering, the reign of an anti-Christ and maybe even an additional thousand year reign of Christ. All or some of these things may happen in a variety of different orders, depending on whom you talk to, and needless to say, this view has some problems. It leads us to believe that since God is just going to destroy the world anyway, we might as well take from and abuse her as much as we want, a belief that leads to things like climate change and thus perhaps the destruction wrought on our region by Hurricane Sandy. It also leads us to wonder whether we’re one of God’s chosen or not and thus we either end up like me as a ten year old, terrified and living in fear of God’s wrath, or instead believing we are the chosen ones and folks different from us are not.

Since it’s more common for fundamentalist groups or silly books like the Left Behind series to put forward this first view about the end of the world, more progressive Christians like me and I imagine many of the people here tonight find it easy to push aside such views aside as unenlightened or pessimistic. A second view however is something folks like us often fall victim to… it essential argues that through our human action we can build the kingdom of God on Earth. Once we collectively earn it and all learn how to live with Christian goodwill for each other, Jesus will come down from heaven, hang out with us, and we’ll all have a big party. It sounds really nice at first, but this view has problems as well. Over a hundred years ago as Christians optimistically joined together to spread the gospel around the globe through missionary activities, they often ended up supporting oppressive colonial empires and destroying indigenous cultures. The Second World War especially put a damper on this idea of a Christian utopia, but nowadays… and I’m often guilty of this… it’s easy to think that if we just focus a little more on social justice as the Church, everything will be fine and all the ills of society will be solved. Although we certainly are called to help our neighbor, critique systems of oppression and improve the lives of everyone, we can’t do it all on our own… You see, when you boil down the first and second views about the end of the world I’ve discussed so far this evening, they both share an even deeper problem… they’re primarily about what we’re doing, rather than the absolutely amazing things God is doing and will do through Christ.

A third view about the end of the world, and I believe the right one, doesn’t fall into that trap. It’s the view held by Augustine, a view held by many of the sixteenth century church reformers and certainly the view held by my grandmother, who told me as terrified boy clinging to her for comfort, exactly what I needed to hear… that God is a loving god. I believe this view of the end times is what Saint Mark puts forward as well. It’s a view that argues while we might not have the details, all that we truly need to know has already been revealed… that through Christ’s death and resurrection, the kindom of God is in-breaking.

Mark, as the earliest of the canonical gospels, was written for a community in the midst of great turmoil. Not just the temple, but in fact much of Jerusalem had recently been leveled by Roman legions. Civil war had broken out during the Year of Four Emperors. People were living under a highly oppressive patriarchal system. No wonder they thought the end of the world was near. But into this community would come the story of the Son of God who not only healed the sick, fed the hungry and cast out demons, but even more amazingly rose again after being crucified by that very same system of violent oppression. At the moment Christ breathes his last, the temple curtain that secludes the dwelling place of God is torn in two… God no longer is in just that space, but is with all of us… the kindom of God, while not fully realized, is in breaking. And through Christ, we already know what that kindom is like, and what it will be. In Christ’s resurrection we know that the forces of sin, of violence and death can never win, that God will be there again and again and again, to comfort us, to wrap us in a warm embrace, and let us know that we are loved.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Climate Changed

A couple weeks back I had the pleasure of attending PennFuture's annual Southeastern PA climate conference at the The Franklin Institute in Philly as part of my fieldwork with Lutheran Advocacy Ministries of PA.  It was a tough but informative experience for me... as a person of faith I'm glad to have learned more about how climate change is already affecting God's creation, but some of what I learned was difficult to bear.  PennFuture is an organization dedicated to "creating a just future where nature, communities and the economy thrive" through advocacy, organizing, legal services and public policy analysis.  The theme for this year's conference was "Climate, Changed: Extreme Weather and the Need to Take Action."  After some opening remarks, Katherine Gayewski began the evening by discussing Philadelphia's local efforts to both curb climate change and prepare for it's inevitable consequences.  As Director of Sustainability for Philadelphia, Katherine's work centers around implementation of Mayor Nutter's ambitious Greenworks initiative to make Philly "the number one green city in America by 2015."  It seems like a far fetched idea, but of the program's fifteen specific goals, some were already 60% to 70% met after only a year.  Katherine stated that climate change is already well underway, and our focus must shift from prevention to adaptation and minimization.  For instance, through the Greenworks program, Philadelphia is working to adapt for increased storm water runoff but is also moving reduce the city's emission of green house gases by 20%.

Dr. Howard Kunreuther, professor and director of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at UPenn's Wharton School of Business, discussed long-term strategies to mitigate the financial risks associated with climate change.  "Business folks" are unfortunately somewhat unpopular in green circles yet Dr. Kunreuther presented a very enlightening perspective on climate change that can hopefully change that mindset.  There's over $10 trillion of risk from the coast of Northern Maine to Texas, most of which is largely uninsured against an increase of extreme weather events like floods and hurricanes.  Unfortunately, only 20% of people who buy flood insurance keep it after eight years, largely due to human psychology.  Dr. Kunreuther made a number of public policy proposals that could better fit flood insurance to the short time frames people think in.

The highlight of the event though was Dr. Heidi Cullen's presentation on the science and public perception of climate change.  Unfortunately, things haven't gone too well in recent years.  While media coverage of climate changed increased greatly after the release of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in 2008 and 2009, coverage has greatly dropped off since the beginning of our recent recession.  After recent campaigns to falsely challenge the validity of science and the last Congress's failure to pass cap and trade legislation, the climate change community has largely been scrambling to find a next move.  Since most advocacy organizations put all their effort into passing national cap and trade legislation, it's been only recently that the focus has shifty to more local efforts like Philly's Greenworks program.  The Earth's average temperature has already risen well over one degree and in that same period the Northeast US has experienced a 67% increase in extreme weather events.  Unfortunately, the climate has already changed and our focus must shift from prevention to adaptation and minimization.

Wow, that was a whole lot of doom and gloom huh?  What's a faith leader to make of all this, and what role does the faith community have when dealing with climate change anyway?  The church  course should be serving as a moral conscience for the world and to do this faith leaders first need to help their parishioners reconnect with God's creation... only then will folks become more invested in the issue.  Knowing the magic and beauty that is in God's gift of creation, people will respond.  Then, begin thinking about how your own faith community can begin not only minimizing it's carbon footprint but also modelling good adaptation practices for parishioners... does your church have proper flood insurance and storm-water management systems for instance.  Being a prophetic witness by leading parishioners in advocating for local and federal public policies that curb climate change is also important.  God's creation is certainly groaning, but boy, there's a whole lot that we as people of faith can do to help.

God's peace,
Dustin