SHE Will Be Ordained

by Rev. Kelli

We a WWSIC are happy to announce that our co-founder Amanda Kersey has been approved for ordination by the Southern Association of the Southern California Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ!

We must say it was a historic day. Amanda presented her faith journey and theology to the gathered clergy and lay persons, and when the time came to question her so as to further examine her fitness for ministry….there was utter SILENCE!

No question about it, she is fit for ministry, she is called by God, and SHE will be ordained!

Congratulations Amanda!

UPDATE: Amanda’s Ordination service is set for 3pm, Sunday, July 22, 2011 and will be held at the Mission Hills United Church of Christ at 4070 Jackdaw Street in San Diego, California. Ya’ll come!

One Woman’s View on UMC General Council 2012

by sharonmccart

It’s been a trying day for progressive United Methodists. Once again, we watch General Conference and wait and pray for God’s grace to be reflected more fully in our Book of Discipline. Votes continue to show the fear of the progressive “agenda” on many issues. Talk of splitting the denomination once again flutters by, but we all love our church very much, and I doubt those thoughts will coalesce into action.

The sharpness of the division showed itself today, two days before debate begins on the legislation that addresses full inclusion for our LGBT brothers and sisters. An amendment to the preamble for our Social Principles was voted on. It was two sentences, reading something like, “We recognize that God’s grace is for all people. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” Simple. Scriptural.

It passed. 51% for, 49% against. While I am happy it passed, I am flabbergasted that 49% of our delegates would vote against such a theologically sound, Biblically-based statement! There is so much fear about an “agenda” that voting, much like in DC, is along party lines without thought or discernment or reason.

The wounds of Christ must be torn open and bleeding tonight. His Body is torn apart by the fear and ugliness in the United Methodist Church. And my heart breaks for this church I love and the LGBT members of it who are hurt over and over again by it. I pray for the Holy Spirit to move in a powerful way for the next three days, and bring healing and hope and reconciliation.

I am not your savior

by Pastor Mary Jo

I am not your savior.

I Thirst.

by Pastor Mary Jo

And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.”  —Matthew 8:20, RSV

I’m used to seeing people sorting through trash cans and dumpsters to find recyclable cans and bottles. I’m not used to seeing someone pull out discarded fast-food soda cups and drink whatever liquid is left inside, but I saw it yesterday. That, my friends, is the desperation of the homeless.

It isn’t easy to get a drink of water if you’re homeless. Those of us who have the luxury of a place to sleep and bathe and wash our clothes can usually walk into a McDonalds or Burger King and ask for a cup of water but homeless people, who are generally grimy and smelly, don’t expect a warm welcome. Michael Hubman has made it his mission to provide drinking water to the homeless population of Los Angeles’ “Skid Row.” He gets it.

Even before I saw the guy on the train platform drinking from someone’s discarded paper cups I was pondering the fact that so many homeless people drink beer, which is one of the reasons a lot of people don’t like to give them money when they see them on the streets. I realized that beer is cheap and filling. If you’re stomach hurts because you haven’t eaten it makes sense (in a heartbreakingly sad way) to buy a 40 ounce malt liquor. It isn’t nutritious but it does quench thirst and fill the belly.

A (not necessarily academic) study done in 2009 in Davis, California included these comments:

  • According to a study in the scientific journal Alcoholism, “[malt liquor] drinkers were more likely to be homeless, to receive public assistance for housing, and to be unemployed.”
  • Researchers at the Prevention Research Center reported in a 2003 study that “The findings of this study suggest that malt liquor use is associated with heavy and problem drinking, other drug use and behavioral problems among community college students.”

I don’t much care for bottled water. It’s wasteful, expensive, environmentally irresponsible and, in most places in the U.S., unnecessary. But I may start carrying it anyway… so I can give it away along with that handful of change.

via “I thirst.“

Does God Care About the City?

by Pastor Mary Jo

And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it.

~ John 19:41, RSV

If nothing else, God cares about the cities because they have people in them. That’s what makes them cities.

In 1994 Bruce Winter wrote a book he titled Seek the Welfare of the City, a title taken from Jeremiah 29: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”[1] Winter is writing about first century Christians, but the welfare of the city ought to be a real concern to Christians in this twenty-first century, too. Even in cities where it seems as if there is a church on every corner, we have problems: crime, pollution, traffic, unemployment, homelessness; the list goes on and on, and you probably have your own ideas about “what’s wrong with the city.”

Los Angeles is the city and context where I do ministry.  I can imagine Jesus here, stopping to pray with and heal a homeless man on Skid Row, or chatting with a prostitute on Santa Monica Boulevard, or sitting down to dinner with a high-powered Hollywood executive. I can imagine Jesus kneeling to pray in our little sanctuary in South Central or in the ostentatious but still holy Cathedral of the Angels.

God cares about the city – not just Los Angeles, but every city – and because God cares, I care.  I don’t care only because God cares, but also because this is where my own life unfolds, and because people are fun and fascinating, and because in every person I meet I see reflected some little piece of Jesus, or my own mother or father, sister or brother, son or daughter or grandchild. Sometimes I see a reflection of myself.  How could I not care?

I love the sometimes dirty and gritty but always interesting and diverse City of Angels with its Tower-of-Babel- and-Pentecost-all-rolled-together mix of languages and cultures and skin tones and traditions. (I also love my hometown city, Long Beach, twenty miles away from my church, a kind of mini-LA with its own history and culture.) I want to understand what works and what doesn’t work, the complex interaction of people and politics and systems, and I want to understand how we can make it all come together in a way that benefits the entire community – all the people who live and work and pass through this crazy pueblo known as Los Angeles.

[1] Jeremiah 29:7, RSV.

Hosana! The Time is Now!

by Rev. Kelli

The “Friendly Beasts” has always been one of my favorite Christmas hymns. If you have, or have had pets you know how important animals are to out lives. As a hospice chaplain I meet people for whom their animals are their last friend, another being they feel connected to and shows love and connection to them. Animals are amazing and sometimes I think our modern-world makes it to easy to separate ourselves from the animals around us.

In Jesus’s time animals were a necessary and important part of daily life. In today’s story–and we hear it every year–Jesus sends the disciples to find a donkey that Jesus later rides into Jerusalem to be met with people who wave palms and shout “Hosanna”! The donkey is not only part of the proof of Jesus’s divinity in that he told the disciples exactly where to find the donkey but the young donkey also becomes a key part of the social drama and guerrilla theater in which Jesus is  celebrated as King of Jews. Riding on a horse was symbolic of royalty in those days, so for Jesus to ride a donkey was not only conveying the message that there was divine royalty about Jesus, but it also one of the ways in which Jesus subverted the social symbology of the day. For Jesus to ride an animal into the city was a way to assert his authority, but using a donkey rather than a horse also poked fun at power structures of the time, particularly the Roman structure. In a not so subtle way this poking fun at the symbols of the power structure was a direct assault on the authority of the system itself. A way of saying ‘you think you are are so powerful on that horse, come down just a bit closer to the people and lets see how powerful you really are!’ It was a dare, and by the end of the week the powers that were, would respond to Jesus’ challenge. But is wasn’t only Jesus being subversive it was the crowd as well. By welcoming Jesus with palm fronds, a welcome reserved for entry of the victorious, the crowd proclaimed that Jesus had arrived as the victorious power in the city.

There remains so much social injustice in the world that I wonder what Jesus would focus on if he were teaching in the flesh among us today. No doubt Jesus would focus on teaching on the reality of God and kindom of all people, but I wonder what other issues of justice he would speak out on. Likely, as in Jesus’s day, one foci would be the systematic injustice and oppression of the poor and outcasts of society. That’s a nice neat concise sentence, but truly addressing systematic injustice is messy and unpredictable and certainly requires calling into question the authority of those with the power to oppress–those collecting the taxes and those with the political connections to keep the Roman legions at bay. Where, I wonder, is our donkey today? What has Jesus sent us into the cities to find that will assist us in subverting the authorities who allow and perpetuate injustice? When we can answer that and start to see it in our streets then we too will shout Hosanna in the streets!

WHAT?!?

by Rev. Kelli

This blog is about women in ministry and what is real for them. THIS, may seem petty but it is a very real issue for me professional, personally, culturally, and spiritually.

So I’ll make this to the point….

What the heck do i do with this recent article? Plus–mainstream media pays attention to efforts to end the R word. Minus, aka ‘I need to scream loudly’–the media equates cerebral palsy, which is actually a physical disability (occasionally coupled with intellectual disability which would also be a separate diagnosis), as being solely an intellectual disability which makes my efforts to be an ‘out’ professional with CP more difficult by creating a false stigma I now have to dismantle on an individual basis, without media assistance….So, I ask, what am I to do with this that does not throw my ID brothers and sisters under the short bus? “Thanks CNN” for trying to shove me back in the freak closet, and ‘thanks’ for using your media power to create false stigmas about disability! I think we REALLY need anti-discrimination laws about this; journalists should not have the right to spread blatant falsehoods about disability in an age where a quick internet search would clarify effects of specific disabilities–if one bothered to pay attention to what one was writing for general consumption !!!!!

Questionable article about PWD     http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/07/living/end-r-word/index.html?iref=obnetwork

Bearing Witness

by Rev. Kelli

Sometimes I feel like I live on the road. I commute, I travel to people’s homes to do chaplaincy. My car is my office. I live in southern California–traffic is horrible! While I have thought of getting a catchy licence plate or clergy bumper sticker I have hesitated to do so. Why? Because I drive 500-700 miles a week on southern California freeways…and people do stupid things on the road… and I, well, I like to use my horn! I try to be polite on the road. I know that the time I arrive is not as important as how safely I arrive. I do drive through some beautiful areas and I try to enjoy the scenery. That being said I have seen road rage, perhaps I have even felt rage on the roads at times. I do not like driving as much as I do. Yet this is a necessary part of the work that God seems to want me to do right now–and that’s a whole ‘nother blog!

What annoys me most are those big traffic slow downs. You know the type. Traffic just slows down and seems to come to a halt; and then you realize that all this is due to some looky-loos staring at an accident on the side of the road rather than driving like they should. These slow downs annoy me because they seem completely unnecessary and all they do is slow me down when I already have too little time for the important stuff.

Recently I found myself stuck in one of these slow downs as I drove home from work. It was the dark side of dusk and I saw in the distance the red and blue flashing lights of a police personnel on the side the road with more than one car, a sure tip off that it was an accident and not a traffic stop. Come on people, you can do nothing about it. Keep moving. Mind your own business. I want to get home already. I thought as I approached the scene. And then as I passed the scene, I looked over and saw the people on the side of the road with the bumpers torn off their cars and a new wave of compassion came over me. And I realized, what if the other drivers slowing me down are not just annoying looky-loos looking to peer onto another person’s misery, or looking for a bloody scene? What if they are bearing witness to the trauma and pain of the people on the side of the road who had had an accident?

Now that’s a thought. As I reflected on this idea of looky-loos bearing witness to the troubles of others even as they are keeping me away from home longer on an already too long day it became apparent to me that there is some theology going on here, some moral and ethical working of the post-modern age taking place right before my eyes. Its true there was. Even in this age (are we still in the post-modern age or is it post-post-modern? well what ever age it is), even in this age when we are so seemingly glued to our individual experiences and mediating relationships through cell phones, text messages, smart phones, and ipods, it seems that we still respond to the misfortunes of others. And, that is hopeful. For here it was before my eyes, four our five lanes of bumper to bumper traffic slowing down as if in acknowledgement of the pain being experienced, in that moment, by the stranger they were in the process if passing by. And is not the call to bear witness to our fellow human begins not central to core of our biblical teachings? I mean bearing witness is the first step in “doing unto others”, to helping those with need, being the good Samaritan, to being our bothers’ and sisters’ keeper. Wow, I thought. That, thought. That’s something. Maybe, just maybe there is still hope that we have not, even in this technological and individualistic age, driven to far off track.

The Wisdom of Women

by Rev. Kelli

I must confess, Epiphany is my favorite day of the Christian year. It is ripe with possibilities that often go overlooked. It also has deep personal meaning to me because of the tradition my family of origin created to celebrate the arrival of the “kings.”

The three kings, found in only one gospel, add a mysticism to the Christmas story that I venture to say we find no place else in the entire Advent-Christmas-Epiphany story. It is the kind of mysticism that may only exist in one other place in Christianity, namely the Resurrection.

Epiphany—realization. It’s the story of the arrival of the “kings” into the presence of the babe called Jesus, and his parents. It’s a story not only of realization but one of being equipped for the holy journey. Here we have the three “kings,” scholars from afar, arriving to welcome the child of a young and unknown Mary and Joseph. Mary and Joseph we know had been told in visitations and dreams that there was something of celestial destiny associated with their child. But the then there was the arrival of these strange kings who had held audience with the local ruler in their search for Jesus. It does not seem strange to me that scholars, kings, paying attention to the signs of their time and heeding the leading of the divine in their own lives would seek Jesus out. Indeed, I think the grown Jesus once spoke of the need to heed the signs of our own time.

We too, I believe, are each in some way to be equipped for the journey ahead of us, be it a journey we anticipate or not. There are signs of our coming reality that we may not always see for what they are. Perhaps one of the reasons I love Epiphany so much is that each January 6th of my school age years, I would awake to find three wrapped gifts at the foot of my bed. They were not Christmas gifts, and although they were wrapped, they were never shiny toys designed to delight. No, they were shoes, socks, a shirt…usually things that needed to be replaced at that time of the school year. I looked forward to these gifts sometimes more than gifts from Santa, and often I was allowed to discover what lay inside the wrapping in the privacy of my own room—no family snapping photos, no requests to model what might lay inside. Simple gifts designed to equip me for the journey ahead. It would be some where in my twenties that I would realize one of the reasons behind my visits from the wise men was the fact that—living paycheck to paycheck—my mother could not always buy what she wanted to get me for Christmas at one time and this was her way of “making up” for what seemed to her—not me—as meager Christmas mornings. Mother’s wisdom.

As I think about the story of the three kings, it really is strange that they would give Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. What strange gifts. Yes, we get that they were valuable, but what is a baby from a poor family to do with those? Ah, yes, the family was soon to flee into Egypt to escape from Herod. Gifts of wealthy to empower refugees fleeing for their lives. The gifts the wise men gave equipped Jesus’ family for the journey but the gifts were also over-the-top extravagant. They were gifts in the ancient tradition; gifts of tribute given to a king—a person of great power in the world. And in this sense the gifts were ones of recognition of the arrival of the person come in the form of a babe to live among the marginalized in an occupied land.

—A babe whose ultimate omnipresence in the world we just celebrated at Christmas. Wait, what? Usually we think of God as omnipresent in the world, not Jesus. Yes, I hear the theologians among you complaining. And I protest. My thought for Epiphany 2012 is this: the gift we received in Jesus’s birth was Jesus bringing God to us and showing us how to bring out the recognition of the Holy Spirit into the world in return. It was the gospel and work of the grown Jesus to invite in the poor, the disabled, the women, the children, those who had no voice in society into the conversation, to demand that they be heard and that they be fed both literally and with justice. Christmas is the beginning of that, Epiphany the recognition of it, and the rest of the church year is a discussion on how to live into and out of the babe recognized by kings.

This is hard work. It is being shaken to the core, ceased by the spirit, and acting upon completion. As I write this, I am returning from a denominational meeting in which the discussion of diversity and inclusion not only left out but further marginalized people with disabilities. In the meeting, I was sitting and processing how to respond. But then a lone woman stood up, interrupted the meeting, spoke out for justice, and sat down. Then I stood up and spoke on the same topic. Then a third. And the church was silenced into the realization that Jesus is still present and calling for the inclusion of the marginalized, and the Spirit is still moving within the church with an overpowering wind when necessary. Woman-Spirit in partnership with wisdom.

As we close this devotional season at Women Who Speak in Church, I invite you to take this realization of the omnipresence of Jesus calling for liberation of the marginalized, and the knowledge that the Spirit is still blowing the winds of God’s justice with you into this new year. May we all live fully, knowing that we have been somehow equipped for journey ahead.

Amen for Epiphany!

Observing Epiphany (When Epiphany Wasn’t Cool)

by Amanda

I’m sorry, but the Lectionary readings just aren’t doing it for me. And to be honest, I am just not interested in parsing some verbs or offering some kind of literary criticism or insight of scripture at the moment. I am, however, into fun. So let’s try something different.

At the risk of sounding a little like Sophia from the Golden Girls, picture it: we’re in Marietta, Georgia, maybe in the late 80s. It’s Christmas, which is the only holiday my mother would decorate for. After all, everyone knows that Halloween is “the Devil’s Holiday” (I am being sarcastic). My dad has managed once again to string the 15 foot Santa and reindeer replica between the two trees in our front yard. The Christmas tree with all its different colored lights and icicles is sparkling in the living room. It’s late. My parents are in bed and I am sneaking down the hallway with my Rainbow Bright in hand, quiet as a mouse. (Don’t act like you don’t know what Rainbow Bright is.) I get to the living room, now crawling across the burnt orange shag carpet, past the wood paneling that would really mess with you now. Finally, there it is! The Nativity. For some reason I was fascinated with the figurines. I am not really sure if it was the real hay or the fact that I played with them like dolls, but I remember spending hours on the living room floor playing with the nativity pieces.

Having some 20-plus years to think about this childhood experience I think I have made some conclusions. I think I was fascinated because the traditional nativity scene just throws everyone together and when you think about it… what a bunch! There are angels, a young mother, a carpenter, shepherds, and Magi—all of which are hovering around a little baby in a feeding trough. Even with this kind of diversity, the Magi stood out for me. I remember thinking they were a tad overdressed and that their presents weren’t really practical for a baby, but as a kid that is about as far as it went. As an adult I can see why I was intrigued back then, because even now I am still intrigued. There is just so much we don’t know about them. For example, do we really know how many there were? We don’t know at what time in Jesus life they visited. We don’t really even know what they did in life even though some scholars have suggested they were astrologers. There are more questions than answers. What we do know is that they are the proverbial Other. They represent the Gentile, the foreigner, the outsider, and yet they were beckoned to come and see about Jesus, a Jew.

Even with all the mystery that surrounds them we do know two things. Scripture records the Magi as having brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh. There are those who ascribe symbolism to the gifts and that may be the case; it is interesting to note that such descriptions are given about the gifts and not the givers. Scripture also states that through a dream the Magi were warned about Herod, thus making them protectors of the Christ child. The Magi, whoever they were, journeyed together, brought gifts, and eventually become the saviors of the child. I love it! For me it is the quintessential expression of inclusion.

Those many years ago as a child I was celebrating Epiphany when Epiphany wasn’t cool, and I didn’t know it. I was observing the power and importance of Emmanuel. I recognized that God beckons all ranging from shepherd to Magi to come and see what God has done. Perhaps it is a lesson I had forgotten as an adult and needed to be reminded of through the eyes of child that with God, all are welcome!