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The Rev. David Black is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. On September 19, he was standing outside an ICE detention facility in Chicago, praying and preaching, when an ICE agent who was on the roof shot Rev. Black in the face with a pepper ball – essentially a ball of pepper spray that explodes on impact. Someone recorded it on their phone, and there was no warning shot at his feet, nor any verbal warning. As Rev. Black was imploring the ICE agents to give their lives to Christ, they shot him.

Later in the day, he was praying on his knees outside the facility and was pepper-sprayed in the face and shot multiple times with nonlethal rounds. I can’t get these images of my fellow pastor being violently assaulted out of my mind. The official DHS/ICE response is that the Rev. Black was impeding operations and had been told multiple times to move, and he refused to comply.

The comments I’ve read have fallen into two groups: one group says how evil ICE is, and the other says how Rev. Black needed to stay in his lane and not get involved in politics, as if it’s that simple. I don’t know Rev. Black, but I admire his courage to witness to those ICE agents and call them to repentance.

I don’t know the ICE agents either, and I am deeply saddened and bothered that they responded the way they did. What leads a person to the point in his or her life where s/he decides the best course of action is extreme violence? What leads a person to carry out the brutal acts of violence that they’ve been recorded doing? I’ve seen people express care and concern for one group or the other, but not for both. Jesus loves all of the people involved in that tragic incident and calls all of us to repentance, as no one has a corner on the need for it.

It’s hard to say what bothers me most about this, but it breaks my heart that people readily defend the actions of the ICE agents. Intentionally harming an unarmed person is evil. Rev. Black wrote, “I extended my arms, palms outstretched toward the ICE officers, in a traditional Christian posture of prayer and blessing. Without any warning, and without any order or request that I and others disperse, I was suddenly fired upon by ICE officers. In rapid fire, I was hit seven times on my arms, face, and torso with exploding pellets that contained some kind of chemical agent. It was clear to me that the officers were aiming for my head, which they struck twice.”

Excusing their actions as necessary is evil, as is blaming Rev. Black for being there. Yes, we pray for those who hate us, but we don’t condone their hate. Jesus loves all people, but he stands with the oppressed, not the oppressor.

—Fr. Jason

Last week’s gospel was difficult and meant to make us feel uncomfortable. The gospel about the rich man and Lazarus is not a feel-good story of love and redemption; it is a warning against pride, arrogance, and putting our faith in anything other than God.

When he was alive, the rich man put all of his faith in his wealth, and his wealth was for him alone; he was the center of his universe, and everyone else was there to serve him. As I said on Sunday, wealth is not inherently evil or bad; it’s how we use it that gets us into trouble. And sometimes it’s how we don’t use it that gets us into trouble, as the rich man didn’t do anything to help Lazarus when they were alive.

Much of Jesus’ ministry was supported by wealthy people (nearly all of them women), as was the ministry of the early church. It’s how we use what we are given from God that matters.

As I said, the story of Lazarus and the rich man is meant to make us feel uncomfortable. Much of what we read in scripture is meant to make us feel uncomfortable. Our story of salvation can be distilled down to this: we are taught how to live in a way that both glorifies God and makes us feel wanted and loved; choose not to live the way we’ve been taught, things go wrong, and we turn away from God.

God gets angry, sends a prophet to tell us how to act, we promise we’ll do better, we don’t do better, and we suffer the consequences. This happens until Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, when we are taught that Jesus suffered the consequences for all people for all time. Now, what we need to do is confess our sins to ourselves and God, repent, and ask for forgiveness. And this is something we will repeat at varying frequencies for all of our lives.

So much of the discomfort I feel in reading scripture comes from knowing my sin, knowing and feeling that I’m forgiven, and knowing that I will sin again. I don’t know how many times I’ve ignored Lazarus, though it’s become far more frequent since moving to Los Angeles. I also know that if I helped every Lazarus that crossed my path, I would be as penniless as they are.

But there is a middle way, and as an Episcopalian, I am honor-bound to pursue it. I may not be able to financially support every unhoused person I meet, but I can certainly guide them to places where they can get a hot meal and a place to sleep for the night; I can pray for them, either with them or as I pass them. I can do the hard work that the gospel calls us to do.

It’s not easy work, and as I said last week, striking up conversations with strangers takes me right out of my comfort zone. But we are not meant to be comfortable all the time. When we do physical exercise, we have to experience discomfort if we want to make progress. When we want to strengthen our bond to Christ, we must exercise our souls; we must wrestle with the Word, as Jacob wrestled with God in the desert.

We must acknowledge our sin and distance from Christ, but in so doing, we also welcome the grace and love that enfolds us when we give ourselves completely to God. I don’t want to go to church and hear about all the ways I’m failing and falling short; I am all too aware of my sins. But I also don’t want to go and hear that everything is great and we’re all great and there’s nothing we need to do differently.

Because everything isn’t great, and there are lots of things I could do differently. I want to hear about the struggle. I want to hear that we are seen, forgiven, and loved. I want to be reassured that God’s grace covers all of us.

Jesus didn’t come to tell us we’re all going to hell, nor did he say keep up the good work; he came to show us how to live and gave all people the perfect example of selfless love. Love takes work, and at times it is deeply uncomfortable, but it is the best work we will ever do.

—Fr. Jason

From Jesus’ Touch to Our Hello: Building Relationships That Heal
Jesus taught us to love one another as we are loved and as we wish to be loved. When Jesus wasn’t praying by himself in the pre-dawn morning or asleep on the cushion, he was constantly forming relationships with the people he met.

When the woman touched the hem of his robe and was healed, he could have kept walking. Instead, he stopped and said, “Who touched me?” His disciples were incredulous. How could he say such a thing when people surrounded them? But he wasn’t asking to find out who it was, because of course he knew who touched him – he’s Jesus. It was an invitation to conversation – to a relationship – to communion.

For Jesus, it was a 30-second encounter, but for the woman he cured it was a pivotal moment in her life, one she remembered and spoke about forever. I imagine her family grew tired of her saying, “Did I ever tell you about the time I touched the master’s robe?” And her family replying, “Yes, Aunt Rebecca, a bazillion times!”

I’ve often preached and written about striking up conversations with people at the Costco gas pumps, but it is hard for me to take my own advice. I genuinely want to do this, and I eventually will. Over time, it will become second nature, and I’ll embarrass my kids because I’m the weirdo saying hello to strangers wherever I go (among the other multiple ways I’ll embarrass them).

We are taught to be in relationship with one another – to be in communion with each other, in a community. The first step to this is making a simple connection and acknowledging that another person exists. Why is this so difficult for me? There are two things: one, the possibility that I will be ignored or rebuffed, and on the opposite side, that someone will try to pull me into their messy life, when I have more than enough mess of my own.

But do I like it when strangers say hello to me? Absolutely! So, in loving my neighbor as myself, saying hello to a person I don’t know is a very small thing I can do to help my brethren in Christ feel seen. Which I believe is what we all want: to feel seen, wanted, and loved.

As a society, we acknowledge that the lack of connection in our lives is making us depressed, anxious, and angry, but we won’t make even the smallest move to change it. When we say hello to a person, we aren’t creating a life-long friendship; we’re simply establishing that they exist and that we acknowledge their existence.

My default mode is to have my guard up, so that when a stranger says hello, I immediately think to myself, “Great, what do they want?” So even though I like it when strangers say hello, I’m also wary of what may follow. It’s ok to be wary – and when I’m wary, I do well to remember to ask Jesus for help.

We are meant to be connected—none of us is an island unto ourselves. And while there is only one Jesus, we never know when 30 seconds of our life could change another’s life for the better, forever.

—Fr. Jason

I have an Iron Man watch made by Timex. I have no plans to become an Iron Man, but I do like the watch. It shows me not only the time but the date as well, and there’s a button in the top right corner that my son loves to push—it lights up the watch face, allowing us to see what time it is in the dark. It does some other things, and there are other buttons, but I don’t know what they do or how to use them, so I leave them alone. I just need the time and the date, and from time to time to amuse my four-year-old.

People are enamored with their smart watches, phones, and tablets, and talk about how they have more computing power in their hands than all of NASA did for the moon landing. We love to congratulate ourselves on our technological advancements. But the reality is that our smart watches, phones, and computers are powered by the same technology that powered the room-sized computers at M.I.T. in the fifties, player pianos in the 1800s, and music boxes in the Middle Ages: it’s all based on zeroes and ones, bumps/no bumps, hole/no hole. We’ve been using the same basic technology for well over five hundred years, though the same principle has been in place for all of human existence. Yes or no, good or bad, black or white, zero or one, dead or alive.

In today’s world, everything is measured. We measure ourselves against one another, constantly comparing ourselves and working to get ahead of our neighbors. How many degrees do you have? How many homes do you own, what kind of home do you own, how many hours do you work in a week, what kind of car do you drive, clothes do you wear, and where do you vacation? How many trophies has your child won, and did she get into the right school? What kind of grades did your grandson get—and they had better be A’s because anything less is unacceptable. Everything is zeroes and ones; if you’re not number one, you’re a zero. If you’re not the best, you’re the worst. As the bumper stickers say, “If you’re not first, you’re last,” and “Second place is first loser.” We live in a world where we are judging and being judged as zeroes or ones, haves/have-nots, good/bad…dead or alive.

When Jesus sent out His disciples to heal and spread the good news, he didn’t give them a quota to fulfill. He didn’t say to Peter, “Peter, I want you to heal at least 40 people and cast out 7 demons. On second thought, make that 7 x 77.” When Jesus moved from town to town, He was never on a timetable or schedule; when He and the disciples were discovered by the crowds, Jesus didn’t yell, “You crowds! Leave us alone, we’re on break!” He tended to them, healed, taught, and loved them. And he continued to move among them. Jesus went right down the middle of our earthly binary pattern, and didn’t measure progress by the number of people He saw or healed. He loved all those who came to Him, and moved at a pace that allowed Him to spend time with people in a real and meaningful way.

St. Paul writes in several of his epistles that we are no longer divided into two people, Gentile and Jew, or into several groups of people, but that we are all now called to be one in Christ. When Jesus died on the cross, He died for all people. It was to be the last sacrifice, the last death…one death for all of humanity, for all time. God does not love us for what we do or own; God, the creator of the universe, Lord of all, does not base our worth on our accomplishments. God loves us because we are. Because we exist, God loves us. There’s nothing we can do to make God love us more or less; God loves us more than we will ever know this side of the veil. None of us is a zero in the eyes of God. We are all ones, called to be One, called to One God, One Faith, One baptism. Imagine the freedom that comes from realizing that we need no longer measure ourselves against one another; that competition doesn’t matter, that there is no better or worse because we all are. Our math is broken; a simple glance at any point in history shows it clearly. We need to embrace the code God has given us, to live, laugh, and love as One people, to view one another through the eyes of God, never seeing zeroes, but only seeing one, one child of God, loved by God, called to be loved by us.

—Fr. Jason