Tag Archives: civil war

My Triple-Great Grandfather Owned Slaves* [OR What’s Under Your Fig Tree?] 

sermon image: Arrington James, 8, grabs the hand of a freed slave figure at the African-American history monument at the South Carolina Statehouse, in Columbia, South Carolina, on Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

* Many thanks to my colleague Roshan Bliss for his guidance on telling the story.

Pastor Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on January 14, 2018

[sermon begins after the Bible reading]

John 1:43-51 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” 47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” 49 Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 may be read at the end of the sermon

Psalm 139 may be read at the end of the sermon

[sermon begins]

I want to know what happened under that fig tree. Apparently, so do a lot of people throughout time.  Not surprisingly, Bishop Augustine of Hippo in 4th century Africa decided it was sin.[1] This was his go-to move for most things. He had epic struggles with his own sin. Take a look at his book Confessions some time. His point about the fig tree is well taken though. First he asks if the fig tree signifies anything.  Finding that Adam and Eve dressed themselves in fig leaves after doing what God had asked them not to do, St. Augustine concludes that Jesus knows Nathaniel’s sin.[2]  Thus exposed, Nathaniel comes to faith in the blink of an eye.  First he questions, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”[3]  Then, Jesus announces the fig tree sighting. “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”  Suddenly, Nathaniel goes all street preacher as he shouts, “You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”[4]

St. Augustine is arguably one of the most influential Christian thinkers through the last two millennia.  Martin Luther, from whom Lutheran Christians derive their name, was an Augustinian monk. His own challenges with sin are no secret. Now, I’m game to talk about sin along with the best of them.  I’m committed to calling a thing what it is and sometimes that means acknowledging our darker natures. But I also think that this makes for a quick turn to condemnation. Condemnation that takes shape in the church as finger-pointing and accusation.

Take today’s reading from 1 Corinthians, for example.  The word translated “fornication” comes from the Greek “porneia.”[5]  It’s also translated “sexual immorality.” The word is vague enough that interpreters throughout time tend to put their cultural spin on defining its meaning.[6] Paul’s explanation is his letter to the Corinthians points at the 1st Century practice of visiting prostitutes.[7]  He’s making a distinction between the behavior of Corinthian men who were not-Jesus-followers and men who were Jesus-followers. Jesus-followers who were free men of Corinth and slaves to Christ. Paul’s argument seems pretty straight forward. And yet, I grew up in a different Christian tradition that winged around the words “fornication” and “sexual immorality” as the end-all-be-all of whether or not Jesus had any other interest for me or other people. My experience of the church at that time was that it had its finger out in condemnation. We can see how this happens. Look at Augustine again. Fig tree equals sin. Therefore, Jesus knew Nathaniel’s sin. Therefore, the body of Christ on earth sees and identifies other people’s sin. Before you know it, the church is off and running as sexual-immorality-sin-sniffer-outers and no one measures up…even the church by the way.

Please hear me clearly.  There is sexual sin that hurts ourselves and each other. Absolutely.  Some of the individual confessions I hear in my office are about sexual sin and the hurt people inflict through them. Paul’s words to the Corinthians are important for us to hear.  It’s the distortion of that message by the church that is concerning. The distortion between what’s make or break for whether or not Jesus is for us or against us. It’s a distortion of the gospel. If there’s anything that the cross teaches us, it’s that Jesus finds us in those dark places and offers us a way out of them. Here’s a thought in that regard.  It’s possible that Nathaniel’s story under the fig tree, the one that Jesus knows about, is of a different nature entirely.  The story that God knows about our whole story.

As the Psalm reading from today describes what God knows:

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.”[8]

I’ve been wondering lately about how our story fits into God’s call to us. Not just because of Nathaniel’s leap to faith – although his story has given me a way to think about it. It makes me wonder how the different parts of our story work into the call. Many of you know my religious background and church refugee status that led to my call to the pulpit. Added to this call is Martin Luther King Jr. Day tomorrow and my experience of call as a person of faith to work in the breach between Black and White people in this country. There’s a lot in the mix there for me.  When I moved to California from D.C. at 9 years old, my very first friend Kim Gammel was Black and so was my fourth grade teacher Mrs. Gaines.  In sixth grade, my teacher Mrs. Lake – an amazing, strong Black woman – assigned the novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry about racism in America during the Great Depression.[9]  I spent four years at John Muir High School in Pasadena. It was 10% White kids and predominantly Black and Latino kids with an additional minority of first and second generation Asian and Armenian kids.

Running in parallel to those details of upbringing is the picture of the South Carolina governor’s mansion hanging in my grandparents’ home because my Great-Great Grandfather, Hugh Thompson, was the governor of South Carolina.[10]  He led a battalion of Citadel cadets to fire some of the first shots of the Civil War against the North’s Star of the West as it entered Charleston Harbor.  And, on top of that infamy is my Great-Great-Great Grandfather, Thomas B. Clarkson, Plantation man and owner of 300 slaves – men, women, and children.[11]

About a year and a half ago, my mother gave me a letter written by an abolitionist to my triple-great grandfather.  The letter congratulated him on his good care of the slaves. I suppose it’s good to know that he treated his slaves with some kindness. The bottom line for me is that he owned people. The odd thing is that I’ve known for many years that he was a plantation owner and it never once occurred to me that he owned slaves. Of course I’m not responsible for his choices but I am affected by them…and so are all of us here. There is always something to be learned. The legacy of slavery for all of us in this country, but especially for our Black brothers and sisters, is part of how I understand my call to the ministry of reconciliation in the second letter to the Corinthians.[12] Reconciliation understood as repairing our broken relationships between God and neighbors.

Last week, Pastor Ann asked the question, “Who do you think you are?” Through the story of Jesus’ baptism, she announced the good news that we are beloved children of God.[13]   So when I hear Jesus say to Nathaniel, “I saw you underneath the fig tree,” that opens up the question of Nathaniel’s whole story, not only his sin but everything that makes him him and ready for telling the story of Jesus though his own story.

Somehow, Nathaniel’s story moved him from the skepticism and contempt of his original question, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathaniel had a story under that fig tree. Jesus knew that story about Nathaniel and called him through it to faith. Apparently something good does come out of Nazareth…and from under fig trees. In the same way, Jesus calls us through our stories – whether the story is one of sin and darkness or one of family heritage or something else entirely or a combination of all those.  His call is an opportunity to get curious about our own stories and other people stories and how Jesus calls us through them…accepting us for who we are, what we’ve done, who our family was, what they’ve done, who our country is, and what we’ve done and drawing us to faith. Drawing us to faith and setting us free to tell Jesus’ story through the truth of our own story by the grace of God. Alleluia and amen.

______________________________________________

[1] Augustine of Hippo (354-430 C.E.). Tractate VII, Chapter 1 vv 34-51, Section 20. Homilies on the Gospel of John. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iii.viii.html

[2] Geneses 3:1-7 [verse 7 is the moment of fig leaf couture.]

[3] John 1:46

[4] John 1:49

[5] Peter Liethart. “Porneia.” January 14, 2015. Patheos. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/leithart/2015/01/porneia/

[6] Ibid.

[7] Valerie Nicolet-Anderson, Maître de Conférence (Assistant Professor), Faculté Libre de Théologie Protestante, Paris, France.  Commentary on 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 for January 18, 2015 on Working Preacher from Luther Seminary.  https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2338

[8] Psalm 139:1-2

[9] Mildred D. Taylor. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1976).

[10] Hugh Smith Thompson (1836-1904). 51st Governor of South Carolina (1882-1886).  http://www.carolana.com/SC/Governors/hsthompson.html

[11] Suellen Clarkson Delahunty (my mother’s cousin). Information About Thomas B. Clarkson, Col. http://www.genealogy.com/ftm/d/e/l/Suellen-Clarkson-Delahunty-NC/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0001.html

[12] 2 Corinthians 5:11-21

[13] Jesus baptism by John is told earlier in the first chapter of the Gospel of John.

_____________________________________________________

1 Corinthians 6:12-20  “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. 13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.” 17 But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18  O Lord, you have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. 3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you.

Eating Is A Radical Act [OR The Lord’s Prayer: Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread] Luke 12:22-34, Isaiah 58:6-11a, Psalm 107:1-9, 1 Corinthians 10:16-17

Pastor Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on August 6, 2017

[sermon begins after two Bible readings; other two readings are at end of sermon]

Luke 12:22-34  He said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. 23For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!25And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?26If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? 27Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 28But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! 29And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. 30For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. 32 ‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

 

Isaiah 58:6-11a

[The Lord says,] Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke? 
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin? 
8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator* shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard. 
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.


If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, 
10 if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday. 
11 The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.

[sermon begins]

Thursday morning, Rob and I met our niece and her family of six for an early breakfast on their airport layover.  The kids range from small to school-aged.  We are named to be their legal guardians in the event of tragedy.  This legal reality deepens our times together over the muffin crumb carnage on the floor.  We shared stories, time, and food. In the language of the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, we were given ‘this day our daily bread.’[1]

Later that morning, a radio interview with Judith Jones was re-aired, commemorating her death the day before at the age of 93.[2] She was a long-time book editor for the likes of Ann Frank’s diary, John Updike, Anne Tyler, and Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  Ms. Jones also published her own memoir cookbook after her husband of 45 years died – The Pleasures of Cooking for One.  In the interview, she talked about the pleasure of smelling garlic cooking, things sizzling, feeling at home again in her own kitchen, pouring a glass of wine, lighting candles, listening to music, honoring her past with her husband, feeling “happy, special, grateful.”  Again, because I was sermon writing in my head, my thoughts turned to ‘our daily bread.’

In the same news radio line-up was an update on the Venezuelan political crisis.  Towards the end of the report, a man was interviewed about the lack of meat available. Recently plentiful, nourishing meals have become rice and a few beans in the course of just a few years.[3] Again, my thoughts turned to ‘our daily bread.’

In my Facebook feed on Thursday morning were two different articles about food.  One was about the life-long challenges one author faces with food, body-acceptance, and health.[4]  Not too long later in the newsfeed was an article about the famine in South Sudan caused by drought and civil war.[5]  Again, my thoughts turned to ‘our daily bread” and the different ways food comes up in the day-to-day.

These experiences and information about food came through in one morning.  I wasn’t looking for them.  Although, thinking about ‘Our daily bread’ helped me hear them all differently.  All have bits and pieces of the big picture of food. The big picture?  There’s enough food for everyone in the whole world. Today. Right now.[6]  ‘Our daily bread’ for everyone is available if not for drought, war, and politics.

With real concerns about how to connect available food with hungry people we hear from the Gospel of Luke:

“And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.”[7]

In light of hunger concerns, the Luke reading and Judith Jones’ food stories can first come off a bit like the princess who declared of the starving peasants, “Let them eat cake!”[8]  Telling someone who’s hungry that the Bible tells them not to worry about food is obscene.  This Luke reading is not part of the regular three-year lectionary cycle of Bible readings for Sundays. It follows Jesus’ parable – a cautionary tale of greed about a farmer with a bumper crop who builds bigger barns to store the crop rather than distributing it.[9]

In the Luke reading today, Jesus’ teaching moves beyond worrying to living, moves beyond greed to kingdom generosity.  The math is simple. People living generously means their neighbor lives with less need.  Living generously don’t mean only giving charitably, although, it does mean that too; it also means paying a living wage. Living generously means that we may go without something so that others may live.  Living generously means praying for our daily bread to include all people while shattering the cycle of generational poverty…working with people caught in that cycle…seeing dignity in all the children of God with whom we pray for ‘our daily bread.’

Martin Luther writes a thing or two about what we mean when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”  In the style of the Small Catechism, we ask the question, “What then does daily bread mean?”  Here’s what Martin Luther taught in the 16th century was included in daily bread:

“Everything included in the necessities and nourishment for our bodies, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, farm, fields, livestock, money, property, an upright spouse, upright children, upright members of the household, upright and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, decency, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”[10]

That’s quite a list of pretty much everything our bodies might need to live well and to live in stability with the people around us.  Hunger and poverty are destabilizing to the extreme.  I often wonder what I would do if I were desperate to feed my family.  I imagine different scenarios that involve what people around the world and in my neighborhood are experiencing.  Would I migrate? Would I apply for SNAP benefits?  Would I work two jobs?  Would I steal?  Would I stand in line for hours?  Would I walk miles for water?  Would I starve to feed my children?  Very few of us know what we would actually do. I certainly don’t.  At this point in time, Rob and I have plenty to feed our family, seeing to our needs and then some.  We can eat and savor in the manner that Judith Jones talks about the pleasure of food.

Wendell Berry, author, poet, and farmer, writes that:

“Eating with the fullest pleasure…is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection to the world. We experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and power we cannot comprehend.”[11]

Mr. Barry’s words caught me off guard in last week’s staff meeting devotion and conversation about Luther’s Table Blessing After Meals. (Pretty cool that we get to do those kinds of things as a church staff.)  I’d not thought much about eating as an experience and celebration of dependence.  If I’m honest about it, I think it surprised me because to my mind having food means having independence.  But that independence is a story made up out of whole cloth, an unconscious fiction that helps me sleep better at night. The Gospel of Luke would align with Mr. Barry.  Things like food and clothing are given by God and received by us.  There is nothing we create by ourselves. Sure, seeds can be planted but the ground for planting needs to be there first and seeds need to be garnered from plants that already exist.  See where this is going?  Eating is an act of utter dependence, whether it’s in desperate starving gulps or savoring sips.  We confess our dependence on the planet and on each other with every act of eating.

As Christians, every act of eating confesses our dependence on God. This includes our eating of Holy Communion.  We physically confess with our hands cupped and held out to receive the grace of God that we cannot create on our own.  “We are beggars, this is true.”[12]  We are dependent on the grace of God in Christ Jesus for all that we have, for all that we are, and for all that we can be to each other so that all people may eat and live.  As the prophet Isaiah reminds us, our light rises in the darkness as we offer our food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted; and the Lord guides us continually, making us like a spring of water whose water never fails.[13] Thanks be to God and amen.

[1] Sunday, August 6, is week three of five of Augustana’s sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer.

[2] Remembering Judith Jones. NPR Here and Now on August 3, 2017. http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/08/03/remembering-judith-jones

[3] For more on Venezuelan food shortages see “Banging on Empty Pots, Venezuelans Protest Food Shortages,” at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-idUSKBN18U0SO.

[4] Taffy Brodesser-Akner. Losing It In the Anti-Dieting Age. The New York Times. August 2, 2017. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/magazine/weight-watchers-oprah-losing-it-in-the-anti-dieting-age.html?smid=fb-share&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2F

[5] Learn more about South Sudan famine and how to help at https://www.elca.org/en/Our-Work/Relief-and-Development/Lutheran-Disaster-Response/Our-Impact/South-Sudan-Relief

[6] Updated 2016 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics can be read at http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-statistics/

[7] Luke 12:29-31

[8] http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/let-them-eat-cake.html

[9] Meda Stamper, Presbyterian minister in Leicestershire, England. Commentary on Luke 12:1-21 for Working Preacher on July 31, 2016 (a ministry of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN). http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2923

[10] Martin Luther. Luther’s Small Catechism in Free Indeed: Devotions for Lent (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 2016), 50.

[11] Luther, 91. “Table Blessing After Meals.”

[12] Last words attributed to Martin Luther on his death bed.

[13] Isaiah 58:10-11, paraphrased.

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Psalm 107: 1-9

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures for ever. 
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
those he redeemed from trouble 
3 and gathered in from the lands,
from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south.*


4 Some wandered in desert wastes,
finding no way to an inhabited town; 
5 hungry and thirsty,
their soul fainted within them. 
6 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress; 
7 he led them by a straight way,
until they reached an inhabited town. 
8 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wonderful works to humankind. 
9 For he satisfies the thirsty,
and the hungry he fills with good things.

1 Corinthians 10:16-17  The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?17Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.