One Long Sermon -- Intro to Johnny Jubilee

"One Long Sermon -- Intro to Johnny Jubilee"

I'm John Auer. Except when I preach. Then I'm John Auer and a Half. To save my soul, I can get myself out of preaching, but I can't get preaching out of me. Julie says she would not have married a preacher. She was already daughter, granddaughter, niece, cousin, about to be sister-in-law to preachers -- Missouri Synod Lutheran! Hadn't she given enough for homiletical hyperholiness?

My folks were Unitarian-Universalists, so Julie and I came from experiences about as polarly opposing as possible. We dated for a year and went to church only to see "Cup of Trembling," the story of Bonhoeffer. Next time we were in church together, we came out married. We thought Julie had married a writer at worst. Now, 45 still-standing years later, here's a first try at "writing."

I have a lot of respect for the writing that goes into preaching and into the surrounding life and work of the preacher. I am longtime master of the 250-word "haiku" required for Letters to Editors. Writing as one's primary vocation is a whole other hope to make sense of oneself; not to be taken on glibly! I once told my father plaintively I didn't think my life would ever reach writing. He gently observed, some are made to write on paper, some to write on hearts. I have not forgotten the sense of permission flowing from that.

My way of preaching, as I see and hear it, tends to be shouting, moaning, complaining, cajoling, pleading, impassioning, free-flowing associating, text-wrestling, issue-connecting, constituent-stirring, activist-organizing, altar-calling. Such as my writing is now, it's still preaching, sermonic discourse, almost however defined, and however defunct, defunked in a digital world.

I owe some rhetorical bent to my father, J. Jeffery Auer, classic and timeless respecter of words. Some I owe to my mentor, James M. Reed, preacher at drop of a hat, often starting from Sunday comics, or bargain-day film he just saw, ending in careful analysis, call to action, always in name, and spirit, of Jesus.

All the rest, and more, I owe to Julie, my savior from much would-have-been-preached embarrassment, and the only one to trust with whether or not any given piece of mine "rollicks." Her own honest, open, quizzical, little-nonsense faith-fumbling -- against any excluding and ranking language, and toward being her own person, not some pastor's wife, even spouse -- has driven me up the wall, and back down a much better person in a much better place -- Thanks, Lu! We remain through it all partners, lovers, colleagues, friends. We are happily humbled by our three children, Jeffery, Jane, Jacob, who seem to forgive us for church-raising them, and by their families.

Retirement after nearly forty years weekly preaching presents me with unequivocal opportunity. Next to swimming, sleeping, going to church, work through health hassles, reading and writing now feel like all I do. I assumed I would try some kind of "memoir," as Jeffery, family historian, has been encouraging, especially of our 24 years in Chicago, highlighted by the holy and secular movement called "Harold Washington!" Others thought that could wait. Besides, all our "documents" for those years lie in storage across the continent. I was persuaded to try something now, based on available sermons.

I began reading through sermons from Reno, the last six years of preaching, gleaning images and passages I dared hope might stand some test of time and reality. First I thought I'd be writing for other preachers, for younger and newer ones. I relished working with Field Education placements in our congregations through the years, and with candidates for ordination.

The more I remembered lay leaders and activists, church and community colleagues along the way, the more I wanted whatever I wrote to be useful, usable to them as well - in whatever their questions, challenges, confusions, doubts, solidarities, struggles. I desired to speak more candidly, precisely, concretely, simply, to issues and actions of our public lives. Mostly, I want this work to be heartening.

A compelling number and variety of ones I want to write for now crowd my consciousness. Many have given and meant beyond measure to me. I try to eliminate from the sermons much trivia, waste, pompousness, jargon, abstraction, and the defensive/offensive stuff that grows out of "lovers' quarrels" between congregations and pastors. I jot down in a notebook only what strikes me as somehow strategic and applicable. I want it poetic and prophetic, as refreshingly readable, albeit ponderable, as it can be.

Preachers use a lot of quotes. I like to think I saw attributed to Dr. King that "all good preaching is plagiarizing," oral tradition, since anything worth saying through these millennia has been put to every possible substance and shape. So this is a "chapbook" mixing, shaking up my words with many, better others. If anyone, preacher or otherwise, wants further to plagiarize, spread it around, please, as Abbie Hoffman says, "Steal this book!"

I am writing this in four quarters, seasons of the liturgical "EarthChurch" year.
1) Winter: Advent, Christmas, Epiphanytide; touching, more or less -- Human Rights, Slaughter of Innocents, New Year, Three Kings, Baptism of the Lord, Birthday of Dr. King ("Holy Ghost" to Washington's "Father" and Lincoln's "Son!"), Reconciling Sunday, Black History, Transfiguration.
2) Spring: Lent, Holy Week, Eastertide; Ash Wednesday, Women's History, Jewish-Christian Relations (Yom HaShoah), Archbishop Romero, Native Practice/Earth Day, Mothers Day, Memorial Day, Day of Pentecost.
3) Summer: Spirit as Sanctifier (Baptism, "Personal Holiness"); Trinity Sunday, Juneteenth, Fathers Day, Independence Sunday, Hiroshima/Nagasaki.
4) Fall: Spirit as Sustainer (Communion, "Social Holiness"); Labor Sunday, World Communion, Indigenous Peoples, Children's Sabbath, Reformation, All Hallows/Dia de los Muertos/All Saints, Christ the King/Cosmic Christ.

Appointed Common Lectionary readings lurk loosely and dimly in background, sometimes made explicit. I strive to do with as little traditional "God Talk" as I can. I seek to take off on my own riffs and scats wherever I'm led, playing off, and on, other works cited in sermons. These hope to be heated, if not yet hot, flashes of a mildly irascible lover of language -- from Johnny Auer Sports Desk collecting baseball books, periodicals, memorabilia as a kid, to Johnny Jubilee.

Coming Full Cycle: I see Jesus in Luke 4 announcing himself to be "fulfillment" of Jubilee; following from image and practice in Leviticus 25 and Isaiah 61; flowing into Acts 2 and the Acts of All Us Apostles of Spirit Justice and Joy! Pentecost and the Holy Spirit are half the Church Year us, and nobody would ever guess it. Jesus' Return as the Spirit, birthing the Church, the Body of Christ, stretches Jubilee to the Ends of the Earth: All is Forgiven! Future is Open! We are filled with more powers than we can ever be comfortable with. The Spirit is Comforter, yes; but Counselor, Advocate, the one who supports us called up before judges, heads of state, carrying on Jesus' resistance to death!
For me there is no more Jesus to "wait for." He is not "coming again" except every day. He is, as we say, "mission accomplished." Now he is "all up to us!"

I hope this is read with pleasure. In bits and pieces, in fits and starts. Aloud as often as possible. Not necessarily as a sermon prompter or a devotional guide. As a kind of a raucous, tempestuous partner in whatever crimes of life and love, justice and peace you're about at the moment. In 1972 a carload from Parish of the Holy Covenant -- whose people served as my seminary-within-my-seminary, firing my hope for congregations -- drove through the night to witness the verdict in the trial of the "Harris Seven" draft resisters. On the way, they composed this song to the tune of Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World." It still speaks for me, and I'd like it to speak for this work. Thanks.

Did you ever hear of Jesus, was a good friend of mine,

understood a single word he said,

But I helped him drinking his wine,

Yes, he always had some mighty fine wine.

Singing joy to the world, all the boys and girls now,

Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea,

Joy to you and me.

If he is the King of Heaven and Earth, this is what we should do,

Throw away the bars and the cars and the wars

And dance in a world brand-new,

Yes, dance in a world brand-new.

So let's love and Serve the People, Sisters and Brothers all,

We're the high night-flyers and the rainbow-riders,

We're the fools for God and having a ball,

Yes, the fools for God and having a ball.

Defenders of Justice, Disturbers of Peace

"Defenders of Justice, Disturbers of Peace"

Speak clearly! Pay personally! Pentecost! Jubilee! Spirit-Filled Body of Christ! Birth of Jesus Again in the Church! Birth of the Church Again in the World! Born to suspicion, suveillance, harassment! Bound to Counselor, Advocate, Holy Law Firm! Defenders of Justice, Disturbers of Peace!

As elected and consecrated bishops of the church, we repent of complicity in . . . unjust and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq. In face of administration's rush toward military action based on misleading information, too many of us were silent.

We confess preoccupation with institutional enhancement and limited agendas while men and women sent to Iraq to kill and be killed, while thousands of Iraqi people needlessly suffer and die, poverty increases, preventable diseases go untreated.

We confess our betrayal of scriptural and prophetic authority to warn the nation: true security lies not in weapons of war, but in enabling the poor, the vulnerable, the marginalized to flourish as beloved daughters and sons of God.

(United Methodist Bishops)

* * * * *

Witness to Gospel, to Living News, much too precious to be entrusting strictly with bishops, with preachers, with nominal leaders of any like ilk. Wars never ending unless, until least visible, vocal among us speak out, act out, faith-filled opposition: Greek parrhesia, word used once in Gospels but all during Acts -- speaking with "boldness," openly, riskily if not recklessly; term stolen from Greek city-state; language of citizenship/discipleship, prophetic place, persuasive participation, in public assembly, ecclesia --

Literally, "Freedom to Say It All!"

Resurrection! Jubilee! Life! Even, especially, to oldest, deadest of systems, structures, churches, states -- Paul proclaiming even in chains! Naming of Nations on Pentecost Day, "contents page from Roman Empire Atlas!"

192 constituencing United Nations - and counting!

"The Holy Spirit is a very political bird. And it does not stop for border guards! The authoritarian lines are crossed. Indeed, in Pentecost those lines are blown right off the face of the map!" (Bill Wylie-Kellerman)

Day of Imagine-Nations in every new way! My arthritis, much less her cancer, teaching, enhancing, not only attacking and seeking to conquer; but Spirit-filled bodies, and Body the Church, respecting, honoring, every last person, every last part; both gifts and limits, to who we are, to what we can do; death threats and life threats, pairing off, making up, letting go, tragicomically, metacosmically,

as we let and go on . . .

The people know the salt of the sea and the strength of the winds . . .

The people take the earth as a tomb of rest and a cradle of hope . . .

They are in tune and step with constellations of universal law.

The people is a polychrome, a spectrum and a prism held in a moving monolith, a console organ of changing themes, a clavilaux of color poems

wherein the sea offers fog and the fog moves off in rain and the labrador sunset shortens to a nocturne of clear stars serene over the shot spray of northern lights . . . The steel mill sky is alive . . . . (Carl Sandburg)

"Why, we're the people, we go on." (Ma Joad)

Black and White and Red All Over

"Black and White and Red All Over?"

"I want to learn how to speak Language of Red . . . in world often appearing black and white . . . Open space of desire is red. Desert before me is rose is pink in scarlet is magenta is salmon . . . Palette of erosion is red, running red water, red rivers, my own blood flowing downriver; my desire is red . . . Red sits on the top of the rainbow." (Terry Tempest Williams)

Holy Spirit saving, rescuing, delivering from view of world strictly black/white, cut/dried; bringing nuance, subtlety, empathy, choice; complexifying, diversifying, whole New World of "Other!" Be reddened! Be ripened! Feast of First Harvest! First Fruits of First Resurrection! Joyful Discernment, Just Distribution, every last gift, spiritual, material, praxisible, ideal -- JUBILEE! Resources redly, ripely, richly, routinely -- provided for all!

Show us the Red! Passion, desire, beyond black and white! World as God-in-Jesus sees, as Christ-in-Us, -- awash in all kinds, all colors -- Ultimate Creativity, Infinite Variety, Goodness, Grace -- intended for all.

Worship in Spirit, in Holy Ghost, Holiest Shade of Red! Bridging bonds, breeches, barriers, boundaries of every rite, every rote! Come to the City, Earth- Heart, Jerusalem! Nations still nastily nationalizing, as yet un-uniting, cities
flourishing with non-traditionals: Populist Islam, Pentecostal Christianity . . .

World being prepared -- Repaired? Many "strange bedfellows" under one sheet? -- for our children, grandchildren, all generations -- of "Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia . . . " How dare we not discover -- new ways of speaking, hearing, acting, building relations with every "Other" -- meeting each in own language, own faith, own culture, own way, own time -- every last Shading of Red?

* * * * *

It was barely dawn, and I was still sound asleep. Then came a noise -- holy racket of sorts. Honking and calling and furious fluttering of wings. I made it to front porch just in time to see eight huge Canada geese land in lake on little farm where I live. With great fanfare they touched down, then skimmered across the water to stop, wings still beating in the air.

Red fire appeared between trees on the western horizon, then slowly turned orange and finally a stabbing yellow. Birds and bugs of all sorts joined in early morning chorus of welcome to day -- humming, chirping, whistling, singing. I laughed out loud. It was the closest thing to Pentecost I am likely to experience.

It descends on us like rushing wings, tongues of fire, a cacophony of voices. Startling. Dazzling. Unpredictable. Enough to make the neighbors think somebody raided nature's wine cellar before the sun ever came up.

(Joyce Hollyday)

* * * * *

Drunk not only on Eternal Nature but on Recent History; fearstruck-dead by what happens to Jesus; wanted by local authorities now wanting us -- stayed afraid, subdued, preoccupied with own survivals; for all purposes good as standing "Church Movement" before it begins! And again, and again, and . . .

Yet Jubilee Day! Some Few Timid-Ass Disciples stepping right through our walls! Transporting resurrection -- pious to public, sanctum to street!

Little wonder suspected of too much to drink! Had to be drunk, or crazy, to witness that name so boldly! Risen Christ ascending -- clearing, expanding, levelling playing, praying field -- resurrecting us, even against better judgment! Instilling us with gifts, with moves for the Open Field, the Whole World we rarely, if ever, dreamed we bore in us! Spirit of Jesus' Radically Grassroots Presence, revealing in us Who he still is, What he still does . . . even in us!

"Pentecost means speaking without confusion. These were just Galileans!" Lay speakers! "There wasn't a seminary degree among them, no studied rhetoricians . . . But on Pentecost they speak the truth with eloquent simplicity."

(Bill Wylie-Kellerman)

Truth world still hungry to hear to this day: "For a long time during those frightful years I waited for a great voice to speak up in the Church. I, an unbeliever? Precisely. For I knew the spirit would be lost if it did not utter a cry of condemnation when faced with force . . . What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear . . . voice condemnation when faced with force . . . condemnation of war in such a way never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could arise in the heart of the simplest person. They should get away from abstraction and confront the bloodstained face history has taken on today. We need a grouping of people resolved to speak out clearly and to pay up personally." (Albert Camus)

Spirit of More Than Three Times the Charm

"Spirit of More Than Three Times the Charm"

Unlikely kinship! Only a Fun-Loving, Play-Loving Spirit joining, holding, melting, molding such Mixture together! Body-filling, heart-warming, mind-boggling, Breath-Taking, Breath-Giving, Breath-Being, Breath-Doing! Jesus' own World-Changing Kinship with "God?" "Work in Progress?" Nothing, nothing, nothing in all creation separating us from Cosmic Love? Nor Any One from all the "Others?" Beginning with fear-fullest followers, dare-dodging disciples locking selves in "upper rooms?"

Yet "ending with us running loose in the streets, nobody figuring out just how we get there! Swept out and along by great winds? It's as if all the walls dissolve! Or in reversal of resurrected Christ's passage into our midst, we pass through the walls and out!" Spirit of Jesus: the Outsider In? Body of Christ: the Insider Out? "Disciples take resurrection of Jesus to streets?!" (Bill Wylie-Kellerman)

Beyond dualistic, either/or, way of thinking; to paradoxical, both/and ways -- beyond thinking itself? All by itself? Differences, tensions, conflicts, contradictions hanging together in one thought, one image, one word, one action -- Until seen in new Third, Fourth, Fifth; Many Ways as it takes? "To the Trinity -- and Beyond!"

Holy Spirit original "Moving Experience," over void, over deep, beginning again -- mobilizing, setting in motion, freeing for Freedom Movements.

* * * * *

Jesus' Third Way coercive, insofar as forcing oppressors to making choices they'd rather not make. But non-lethal, great advantage of which, if we have chosen mistaken course, opponents yet alive to benefit by our apologies!

Jesus' teaching carrying far beyond war, pacifism to militant non-violence actualizing already in present ethos of God's domination-free future . . . His teaching on nonviolence forming charter for way of being in world breaking spiral of violence . . . "Do not counter evil in kind" -- this insight the distilled essence, stated with sublime simplicity, of the meaning of the cross . . .

In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000,000 people experienced nonviolent revolution succeeding beyond anyone's wildest expectations. Adding all countries touched by major nonviolent action last century -- Philippines, South Africa, Poland, Soviet Union, Chile, U.S. South, Independence Movement in India . . . Do we dare now add Egypt? Tunisia? Beyond? -- figure reaching 3,337,400,000, staggering 65 percent of all humanity! In teeth of assertion, endlessly repeated, nonviolence not working in "real world." (Walter Wink)

If Two and Two and Fifty Make a Million

"If Two and Two and Fifty Make a Million"

Pentecost! "God-in-Jesus" version, "End of the World!" Power-Filled Presence of Jesus! Challenging, changing choice to this day: Giving up on this world? Giving Life to this world? No other "world," no other "life," coming to save
what we make of them now -- each of us spreading responses, like fire, like wind: "If two and two and fifty make a million, we'll see that day come round -- We'll see that Day come round!" (Pete Seeger)

Fiftieth Day! Jubilee Day of Easter!! All things forgiven, made new, started over! Suddenly from Heaven there came! One Tongue pouring forth Every Language! First-ever gathering, "United (Uniting?) Nations!" Broadly-Casting! Simultaneously Translating!

"To each is given manifestation of Spirit for Common Good!" Spirit of Jesus, alive in all our spirits! Jew, Greek, slave, free, male, female, young, old, included, dismissed, adopted, biological, red, brown, yellow, black, white -- all precious in Spirit-Sought Sight!

"One could trace history of church . . . ecclesiastical discussion . . . whether God's Spirit operative among Gentiles, women, people with dark skin, children, homosexuals, faithful of other religions, now even animal kingdom . . . God's Spirit blows where it will . . . mysterious wind, beyond seeing, beyond understanding . . . Always higher, lower, more powerful, more pervasive than we have yet imagined." (Gail Ramshaw)

* * * * *

Is there some other, or ether, "world" to be lived in today? Or is this alone World of the Spirit's Action? "Now and forever?" "Rapture," by any name, pretense that what happens here does not bother who's already "chosen? for some other "world?"

Just as they knew it would be: proof of their rightness spread round them like grass or sidewalks among bland custardy palaces, picnic tables of their reward. Air smelling of children and coconuts. Truth blaring from every station on dial. Missing dogs, black squelch of November, bittersweet wringing red hands?

Saddened to meet an old love without pain in gilded silent grove that lately, come to think of it, looking rather dusty, and where less and less often they feel someone watching? Angels kind but not very talkative. No wonder they gather, like exiles, straining toward faint reports crackling up from below -- war, disaster, stars plunging into the sea. God, it appears, is elsewhere even here. (Katha Pollitt)

Elsewhere even here?! Land of the "safely saved?" Inquired of yet, by Resurrection Each Morning: Why do we still seek living among the dead? Is Jesus not always Risen? Always "Not Here?" Not any one place among any one people very long? But always Going Before us? Heading out on his own? Cutting edge? Making Way Out of No Way? Calling -- Come out! Come out! Wherever! Second; Third; Irrepressible Coming? Elusive as Wind, as Fire? Defying us All- Who-Would-Limit the work of this day?