From the Heart of Pastor Jacqueline A. Thompson
December 20, 2017
Well, we're almost there. We are just FIVE days away from what we call Christmas, the day we commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. I wonder what life was like for Mary the 5 days before she gave birth. Somehow I doubt she was shopping or decorating. I don't believe she was prepping food to cook or hanging lights. She certainly was not wrapping gifts although she was carrying the greatest gift the world would ever know.
Five days before Mary gave birth, she may have been traveling. According to the gospel of Luke, she and her husband Joseph had to leave Nazareth and report to Bethlehem for the census. It was about a four to five day walk from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The men had to register in their hometown so they could be counted for taxation by the Roman Empire. Who could imagine some 2000 years later, TAXES would still be adversely impacting the masses. Today, our empire passed a heinously deceptive tax bill that benefits the wealthy, burdens the middle class and decimates the poor. Although it's been billed as a "massive tax cut", millions of us will end up paying more under this new plan. Corporations receive permanent cuts while certain individuals receive temporary reductions. It repeals the individual healthcare mandate leaving 13 million more Americans uninsured by 2027. This new plan increases the deficit by 1.45 trillion dollars with no clear plan to pay for the increase.
While this plan was being debated again today, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson was called upon to offer prayer during the Presidential Cabinet meeting. I listened as he prayed that God "give us a spirit of gratitude, compassion and common sense" in what he called "this time of discord, distrust and dishonesty”. I confess: I laughed and in that moment understood exactly why Mary sang her song known as the Magnificat! In spite of the circumstances she faced and the empire could not escape, she was clear about the character and nature of her God. I am not certain of whom Dr. Carson petitioned but I know the God of Mary has very different concerns than the god of empire.
The God of Mary, has regard for the low estate of God's servants
The God of Mary, is Mighty and has done great things - Holy is God's name
The God of Mary, has mercy of those who fear God from generation to generation
The God of Mary shows strength through God's actions
The God of Mary scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts
The God of Mary pulls down the mighty from their thrones
The God of Mary exalts those of low degree
The God of Mary fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away
Is it any wonder why her soul magnified the Lord and her spirit rejoiced in the God of her salvation? We have lit the candle of joy. There are times when our reasons for joy our shrouded by the burdens of our everyday reality. But James left an instruction for us in the first chapter. James 1: 2-3 says we must "COUNT IT ALL JOY." It refers to trials and tribulations that test our faith in God. These times increase our ability to endure and endurance will carry us all the way through to the purpose of God for it. So today, I make a decision in the midst of all the hustle and bustle of this season to COUNT IT ALL JOY....The God of Mary has placed Joy on the inside that will soon bring Joy to the world! This joy we have, the world didn't give it and the world can't take it away.
COUNT IT ALL JOY!
Blessings to you!
Rev. Dr. Jacqueline A. Thompson
Assistant Pastor
December 13, 2017
It's what we all say we want. It's what we all say we need. It's our desire to see it in our families, communities, nation and world. This time of year, we declare it in the earth. Some of us would be satisfied if we could just get it in our own hearts and minds even if for only a moment. What its IT? PEACE! Peace in our western, Christian context has become completely synonymous with the absence of conflict, discord and strife. The word itself conjures images of tranquility and quietness. Literally, many see peace as a place, a destination. We will know we have reached it when we are free from worry and concern. We pray for it. We attempt to pay for it. We travel to exotic locations hoping to experience it and yet it often eludes and evades us.
During Advent, we light the candle of peace and recite Isaiah 9:6. "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." In addition, other scriptures tell us to do what makes for peace; live in peace; to seek peace and pursue it and then be peacemakers. But some things are just easier said than done.
The birth of Christ reminds us that peace is so much more than the absence of chaos and conflict. Shalom in the Hebrew and Eirene in the Greek carry with them the notion of well being. Everyday there is something and even someone that comes to rob, distort and destroy our sense of well being. That's why we must know the true source of our peace. Jesus said to his disciples in John, "Peace I leave with you. My peace, not as the world gives, give I to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." Our sense of well being does not come from our government, our education, our social status nor our career achievements. It is not found in our reputations, our affiliations or our vocations. It is found in the one who said, in this world you WILL have trouble and suffering-I have overcome the world. I have told you these things that you may have peace IN me. You can have it, in the middle of all the chaos and discord - there is a peace that passes all human understanding. Ask for it...Believe it!
When peace like a river attends my way;
when sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say
It is well, it is WELL with my soul!
Until next week, may these texts increase your peace: Philippians 4:6-7; Isaiah 26:3-12; Matthew 11:28-30; Matthew 8:23-27; Colossians 3:15.
Blessings to you!
Rev. Dr. Jacqueline A. Thompson
Assistant Pastor
December 6, 2017
I don't usually write during Advent as December begins my time of annual vacation. But my spirit kept nudging me and so I write. This past Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent. The season of waiting and expectation. It is the time where we are supposed to reflect on the first coming of Christ and look forward to the second. At my church and perhaps at yours, we recited the litany and lit the first candle: the candle of HOPE. I wanted to be there, excited..expectant..hopeful...full of anticipation but I wasn't quite there.
CONFESSION: I'm tired of waiting and hope deferred makes the heart sick. In reality, I've been stuck. Stuck right around November 2016, living in a constant state of dissonance perpetuated by every tweet, every regressive policy, every asinine press conference and every alternative fact that has taken place daily since then. Hope has been marred by shock and disbelief that what I never thought would happen, happened and at how fast and how far we have fallen.
And yet while I wasn't looking, Hope found me in the most unexpected place. It wasn't found in the visitation of the angel. It wasn't in the Song of Mary nor in the leaping baby of her cousin Elizabeth. Hope found me in the socio-political context of his birth. Jesus was born into a climate very similar to ours. He was born to a people and family who lived under Roman occupation; burdened by excess taxation that benefitted the wealthy; governed by a religious aristocracy who had traded the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for the political agenda of Caesar Augustus. Literally, he came into a society for which there was "no room" for him. Meanwhile God was said to have been silent for some 400 years prior. It appeared as if all anyone could do was imitate Simeon in the gospel of Luke, who spent his time fasting, praying and "waiting for the consolation of Israel".
But then I realized it was into the midst of this burdensome, oppressive, dark, silent situation that God came. Unassuming and without need for anyone to make room, Jesus came. While they were waiting, God was working. God did again as God had done in the beginning. Without permission or invitation, God stepped into the middle of that which was dark, void and chaotic! It helps me hope to know that God doesn't need perfect conditions, optimal surroundings or human permission to move and act on the world's behalf. And neither do we. We are living in times where the message has been made clear, that for some of us - there is no room. Perhaps there never was and these days are just reminders of that forgotten truth. But the first coming of Christ serves as a reminder that despite man's agenda, God's Kingdom can and will prevail without human permission or invitation. It is a challenge to us, to avail ourselves believing that God can bless us and use us in spite of our own oppressive, dark, burdensome and silent situations. It is a reminder that in these times, Jesus is STILL Emmanuel, God with us!
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus name. I wasn't quite there Sunday but today, I'm on my way. Context is everything! It's a journey...and I'm on it...Join me!
Until next Wednesday, may these words Help You to Hope: Lamentations 3:21-23; Isaiah 41:10; Deuteronomy 31:6; Proverbs 23:18; Romans 8:24-25.
Blessings to you!
Rev. Dr. Jacqueline A. Thompson
Assistant Pastor
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From The Heart of Dr. Jacqueline A. Thompson
I know I am going to be in trouble. I will get calls and texts and emails asking what am I doing and why. I am supposed to be taking my annual leave that (not for trying) always seems to get backed up to December. This is supposed to mean no working including sending this note. But when you are blessed to do what you love, it doesn't really seem like work. So we will just call this sharing. I am not working, I am sharing. I must thank Dr. James Noel, Professor of African American Christianity and Religion at the San Francisco Theological Seminary, who unbeknownst to him has inspired this time of "sharing".
Dr. Noel reflected on a conversation he had with his daughter who like many across generations, culture and class are grappling with the realities of Ferguson. For many, it is devastating to know that what W.E.B. Dubois identified as the problem of 20th Century is STILL the problem of the 21st Century. Even with some African Americans holding the most powerful positions in the land and becoming a part of what Eugene Robinson refers to in his book, Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America, as "a transcendent elite", the events surrounding Ferguson are a haunting reminder for some and realization for others that the problem is still the color line. In reflecting on his daughter's thoughts, Dr. Noel stated "My sense was that she was not simply making a statement but that she was asking her dad a question that all African American kids of her generation need answering during this season of Advent when the despair provoked by Ferguson threatens to eclipse and make "HOPE" either meaningless or a mere cliché--what Marx termed an "opiate."
The idea that hope can be eclipsed, made meaningless, mere cliché and an opiate stuck with me. Whether we admit it or not, it is the danger we live in as believers everyday. So much of life's experiences threaten to steal, kill and destroy our hope. It almost seems unreasonable to expect people to hope or continue to hope in the face of such glaring, repeated unrelenting injustices. To repeatedly ask people to live their lives with an expectation of peace, justice and equality that almost always has resulted in disappointment, disregard and despair all while penalizing them for displaying symptoms of their constant Post Traumatic Stress Disorder feels inhumane. Even as I write, CNN has breaking news that there is no indictment for the officers involved in the death of Eric Garner in New York. No wonder, the Prophet Habakkuk and other writers of the biblical text can be heard asking, "How long Lord?"
From the Middle passage to slavery through Jim Crow, lynchings, legislated segregation, to legal freedom but institutional bondage, sub-par education and prison pipelines. How long, Lord? From Emmet Till and Jimmy Lee Jackson to Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown plus all the other countless names from both eras that are never called. How long, Lord? The Psalmist David asked in Psalm 13:1-3, How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Dr. Cornel West reminds us that to live is to wrestle with despair yet never allow despair to have the last word.
For me that is ADVENT. It is the season that reminds me that despair does not have the last word. The ability to have hope in the midst of despair is inextricably connected to who and what you have placed your hope in. Today it was from that uncomfortable book of weeping, groaning and despair called Lamentations that I was reminded of why I continue to hope. In chapter 3, Jeremiah laments the realities of his life. He speaks of the affliction he has experienced in every area of his life and I am commiserating with him. But around verse 21, he switches on me. He says, "Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will hope in him".
Jeremiah reminds us that our hope does not rest in the power of man, the systems of man or any concept of justice and fairness as constructed by man. Our hope is in the Lord: the Lord's mercy, compassion and faithfulness. Because of the Lord's mercies, we have not been consumed. With all that we have faced historically and continue to face in the present, we have not been consumed. With all that we will face, we will not be consumed. Through all that you have been through and are going through right now as you read this, you have NOT been consumed. There are no easy answers to all the questions we are faced with in this hour. But the hard questions must be asked and the work must be done. We owe it to the ones who came before us and to those who will come behind us.
In this first week of ADVENT, where hope is at risk of becoming empty and cliché, let us actively call some things to mind and renew our hope. For as much as I wanted to disagree with Jeremiah, when I look back over it all and call some things to mind, I must admit I still have hope. And today with even greater clarity and resolve, I can say like the hymn writer Edward Mote: My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ, the solid rock I stand, ALL OTHER GROUND is sinking sand. All other ground, is sinking sand.
Keep hope alive,
Dr. Jacqueline A. Thompson
Assistant Pastor