I first posted this image back in March of 2016.
L.A. Times cartoonist David Horsey drew it in December 2015.
Here we are in June 2018. Don’t say we didn’t see it coming.
I first posted this image back in March of 2016.
L.A. Times cartoonist David Horsey drew it in December 2015.
Here we are in June 2018. Don’t say we didn’t see it coming.
*Note — This guest post is by the Rev. Daniel Lawson, priest-in-charge at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Romeo, MI. He preached this sermon on Sunday, and it is especially relevant in light of the ongoing scandal of immigrant children being separated from their parents at the US border, and Trump administration officials quoting the Bible to defend the policy. I publish it here with his permission.*
A sermon for the feast of SS Peter and Paul, my parish’s patron feast.
Our first lesson today was written during the Babylonian Exile. We don’t know much about the actual life of the prophet Ezekiel, but scripture tells us a lot about his contemporary, the prophet Daniel.
Daniel didn’t want to get political. All he was trying to do, while living as an exile from Israel in the heart of the Babylonian Empire, was to live his life in obedience to the commandments of his God. He wasn’t trying to make a statement. He just trying to live his life and say his prayers and do what his God commanded him to do. But when the empire tried to tell him not to do what God had commanded him to do, he resisted, and it got him thrown into a lion’s den.
In our Gospel lesson, we hear about St. Peter. Peter didn’t want to get political. All he was trying to do, while living as an exile from Israel in the heart Roman Empire was to follow the instructions Jesus gave him. Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. He wasn’t trying to make a statement. He just trying to live his life and care for God’s people and do what his God commanded him to do. But when the empire tried to tell him not to do what God had commanded him to do, he resisted, and it got him crucified.
In our epistle today, we hear from St. Paul. Now Paul really didn’t want to get political. All he was trying to do, while living as a Jew with Roman citizenship, was to proclaim the Good News. In the letter to Timothy, the writer from the Pauline school says to pray for those in authority, that we may live holy lives in peace. In Paul’s letter to the people in Rome, he urged the community of believers there to obey the civil authorities as far as they could while hating what is evil, holding fast to what is good, and loving one another with mutual affection and extending hospitality to strangers.
Paul desperately wanted to avoid rocking the imperial boat if he could possibly avoid it. And yet in today’s lesson, Paul writes from prison that “I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”
Yes, Paul, too, found that obedience to the law of faith brought him into conflict with the empire that led inevitably to his martyrdom: his death bearing witness to the Kingdom of God against the kingdoms of this world that would pretend to usurp God’s rightful place as Lord of all.
From the first story in Genesis, taught to help the people of Israel captive in Babylon resist the Babylonian Empire, through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at the hands of Pontius Pilate, to the last book of Revelation, written by John on Patmos to help the nacent Christian community resist the orders from the Roman Empire to cease and desist their way of life and worship, Holy Scripture is nothing if not a guide to the faithful of how to resist empire: how to keep the faith in the face of powers and principalities that demand that we obey them and not the commandments of our Lord. A guide for people who desperately want nothing more than to live our lives and tend our gardens and obey the commandments of our Lord, who don’t want to get drawn into the affairs of empire, but are unwilling to compromise obedience to God to appease an empire that makes competing claims on our allegiance.
Saints Peter and Paul, whose martyrdom we celebrate today, had no interest in getting drawn into the affairs of empire. But they were faithful to God’s call, and when it no longer was possible to both obey Caesar and obey God, their faith allowed them no other option but to resist the empire, and affirm their allegiance to the Kingdom of God. They fought the good fight. They finished the race. They kept the faith. And from now on, there is reserved for them the crown of righteousness.
Which leads us to today.
On the borders of the United States, the New York Times reports, hundreds of children are being forcibly separated from their parents, and locked in vast warehouse centers like a former Walmart in Brownsville, Texas that currently contains nearly 1,500 boys. Neither parents nor children know where each other are, nor when, how, or if they will be reunited. Detaining children and families who cross the border is not new; the previous administration did so in 2014, although courts ordered them to change their practices, but the current practice of systematically separating families is a new evil.
The moral leadership of the Episcopal, Catholic, Methodist, and a host of other churches has condemned this practice. The United Nations has condemned this as a violation of the rights of children. The American Psychological Association cautioned we are doing irreparable damage to the mental and physical health of these children.
And despite the Attorney General’s claims to the contrary, Holy Scripture is clear:
In Deuteronomy 6, the people of Israel are told that the land is theirs as a gift from God and they are to remember that they were once aliens. In Deuteronomy 10 the Lord reminds them that God loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing, and you shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. In Deuteronomy 27, the inverse is true: Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien of justice. Isaiah 16 commands God’s people to be a refuge to the outcasts of Moab. Jeremiah 7 promises that if you do not oppress the alien, then I will dwell with you in this place. Ezekiel 47 commands, along with Leviticus 19, that aliens shall be to us as citizens, and shall also be allotted an inheritance. Zechariah 7 similarly warns not to oppress the alien. Romans 12 describes the mark of a true Christian as one who extends hospitality to strangers. while Hebrews 13 reminds us that in obeying our order to show hospitality to strangers, some have entertained angels without knowing it.
And vitally, Matthew 25 makes is abundantly clear: the status of our souls on the day of judgment will depend, in the judgment of the nations, on how we welcome the stranger and care for the vulnerable.
God is love. If we claim to love God but are unmoved by the plight of the vulnerable, we lie when we claim to love God.
In ordinary times, when our prayers are answered that those in authority leave us in peace to live Godly lives, we obey our mandate to love the stranger through our lives of service. We tend our garden and grow food for the hungry. We care for the sick and those in need. We hold coat drives for refugees and repair homes for those afflicted by poverty and raise money for the victims of disasters. We do our work for the spread of the kingdom of God. This is what we do.
But how do we welcome the asylum seeker when our government, acting in our names, no less, tears families apart before those fleeing danger even get a hearing on whether they are legally entitled to refugee status? How do we care for the vulnerable when our government locks them in abandoned warehouses? What can we do in the face of an empire that choses to inflict such evil on the world?
We must cry out. We must resist. We must name the evil we face, and do what we can to stop it. I don’t know where this resistance leads. For the prophet Daniel, it led to a lion’s den. For SS Peter and Paul, it led to their execution. We don’t want to get political. We just want to be faithful to the gospel. But when Caesar makes claims that stand in the way of our obedience to our God, God has to win, or our faith is empty.
As we resist, the message of faith is this, as one wise mentor of mine said: “Don’t worry about your life. Just do what Jesus sent you to do. All shall be well.”
Brothers and sisters, this is not easy stuff. This is not comfortable territory. I don’t know what it looks like to try to stop this. All I know is that God is love, and forcibly separating children from their parents is not of love, and not of God, and we have to do something about it.
And we give thanks for the witness of SS Peter and Paul, who bore witness to the love of God in the face of empire. Praise God for those in every generation in whom Christ has been honored. Pray that we may have grace to glorify Christ in our own day.
So, Trump didn’t lose the farm in Singapore yesterday, but he did leave the summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un a few prize cows short.
When I wrote about the Trump-Kim summit last month, it was on the heels of the news that Trump had backed out of the planned meeting after raising impossible-to-meet expectations of what he could accomplish. Having dealt himself an incredibly weak hand, Trump announced he would walk.
And then he came slinking back to the table just eight days later, having discarded demands for rapid North Korean denuclearization and relaxing the US posture of “maximum pressure” on the Kim regime. With expectations lowered to, in the president’s own words, a more modest “getting-to-know-you meeting, plus,” the summit was back on.
Now that it’s over, how what did the meeting produce? Let’s just say that Donald Trump, self-proclaimed master negotiator and deal maker, gave away a lot more than he got. Actually, that doesn’t quite capture it. Trump made all the concessions and got nothing new in return. Let’s break it down:
What did Trump get in exchange for all of these giveaways? A joint communique repeating the vague pledge to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” which had been made back in April. That, and a stated desire to work toward warmer relations. And that’s all.
No clarification of what each side means by denuclearization. No mention of timetables for moving forward. No mention of verification.
And not a single concession from Kim Jong Un. In fact nearly identical pledges were made by the North Korean regime back in 2005 and 1993. You see how closely those were honored.
Don’t get me wrong, granting unilateral concessions to your counterpart is an absolutely legitimate negotiating strategy, especially if the intention is to build goodwill and trust that will lead, down to road, to the other side reciprocating with some compromises of its own. But nothing in the long history of US-North Korea diplomacy leads me to believe such compromise will be forthcoming.
So in the end, all Donald Trump may have achieved in Singapore was a dramatic photo op. Of course, maybe that’s what he really wanted.
In what may be the least surprising development in Trump-era foreign policy, the president has backed out of his upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Having impulsively agreed to meet with North Korean dictator, without preconditions, raising ridiculously high expectations for the outcome by giving in to his habitual hucksterism, declaring himself a shoe-in for the Nobel Peace Prize, then making impossible-to-meet demands on the Kim regime while offering no concessions, this was probably inevitable.
As I told the host of a local news radio program more than a week ago, I would believe the summit was going to happen when I saw the two leaders sitting down at the table together. Now the big question is what will the Trump administration going to do with all those commemorative coins they had made?
The United States was never going to get from the North Koreans what we said we wanted: immediate, complete, and independently verifiable denuclearization. And we had already gone a long way toward giving the Kim regime what it has long sought: Recognition as nuclear equals. That it has also forged closer ties with a South Korea spooked by the beating of war drums in Washington is just gravy.
When I teach negotiation, one of the cardinal rules I try to convey to my students is the need for negotiators to always have an eye on what’s called their “BATNA” — their best alternative to a negotiated agreement. It’s a simple idea. If any deal you could get would constitute a worse outcome then what happens if you walk away from the table, then you should walk. Even at the cost of what looks and feels like humiliation.
I wrote in this space last week that President Trump, due to all of those points raised at the top of this post, and more, had dealt himself an impossibly bad hand to play in a diplomatic game with incredibly high stakes. So rather than play out the hand, Trump did the only thing he could.
Having carelessly built the pot while holding a losing hand, he folded.
We’ll have to wait to see if that really was the best alternative.