Take Back Our Holidays

Years ago, kicking off the Christmas “shopping season” the day after Thanksgiving was kind of fun. It meant that stores would not put up Christmas decorations and promotions until then. And it was a fun outing for family members who didn’t see each other that often.

Now, it’s become this frantic chase for “bargains” on the part of consumers and market share on the part of retailers.

I know a few people — my niece Betsy, for instance — who thought it was fun to get up before dawn and line up outside a big box store to be first inside for those “bargains.”  It was never my thing, but I wouldn’t begrudge her the fun, if that’s her idea of a good time.

But now Target and WalMart and who knows else are opening at midnight, and forcing their employees to start work at 11 p.m. or earlier on Thanksgiving Day.

This has GOT to stop. I’m already part of  Advent Conspiracy, to help churches urge a turn away from consumerism and toward the real meaning of Christmas. Now I urge everyone to pledge:

NO SHOPPING ON BLACK FRIDAY

until Target and WalMart and the other big box retailers give their employees a break on Thanksgiving. Some things are more important than shopping. Really.

I urge you to go to this website and sign the petition to Target to give their employees a break.

Now We Know

Occupy St. Louis

A Message to the people of Occupy St. Louis, inspired by Occupy Wall Street:

I’ve been saying for at least 10 years that we need to make the tax system more fair — so that rich people pay their fair share and so that governments have enough funds to provide essential services such as education and police protection.
But what I heard on TV and radio and the reader entries in online news forums was that few people agreed with me. I suspected that the Tea Party was as much a media creation as a real movement. I suspected that those of us on the left (who can spell our signs correctly) were not getting our opinions across effectively.
NOW WE KNOW…hundreds of thousands of people of all ages and backgrounds agree that we need to take our country back from the rich fat cats who are stealing our wages, robbing our 401Ks, illegally foreclosing on our houses and oppressing us at every turn.
NOW WE KNOW…because people took to the streets and parks in non-violent, non-strident ways, simply standing there, sitting there, erecting a tent or bringing a sleeping bag.
NOW WE KNOW…that the media can no longer ignore our message and our opinions, even if many of the tents have been folded.
NOW WE KNOW…just how strong our numbers are. Because for every person who slept in a tent, there were 10 or more people like me — who can’t sleep on the ground, can’t spend all our time in a park, but who came to an Occupy site every sunny afternoon and who support the Occupy cause and the voices of those willing to stand in for us.
NOW WE KNOW. And we will not forget. Not this month, not next year.

Is the Lord Among Us or Not?

Scripture:  Exodus 17:1-7,  Philippians 2:1-13, Matthew 21:23-32

Sermon preached at Epiphany UCC, St. Louis on Sept. 25, 2011

Is the Lord Among Us or Not?

One of the things I love about reading the Bible is the realization that people haven’t changed all that much. From the time of Moses, through the days Jesus walked among us, to today, human nature has been pretty consistent.

Take the Israelites, for instance. The passage we read today occurs after the plagues that forced the Egyptians to release the Israelites; after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea and the Egyptian soldiers drowned; after God showed Moses how to sweeten bitter water; after God fed the people with manna and quail. The people have had ample demonstration that God is guiding Moses to provide for God’s chosen people.

But the very next time they have a need and do not see an immediate remedy, they forget what God has done through Moses and they accuse Moses of bringing them into the wilderness to die of thirst.

Can you blame Moses for asking God, “What shall I do with this people? They’re ready to stone me!”

We can do a 180 and look at the story from an ordinary Israelite’s point of view, and Moses and Aaron come off as not always dependable, especially after that euphoric moment when they crossed the sea and their enemies were stopped. Once they were in the wilderness, the people didn’t get these miracles until they complained long and loud about Moses’ leadership. You notice Moses didn’t ask for God’s help until the people were ready to stone him. Who’s the stubborn one?

Figuring out the best way to lead and the best way to follow has been a problem for humanity since the dawn of time. I used to think of history as a continuum of progress, human beings learning from their ancestors and predecessors, aided by the spread of wisdom through written, as well as oral, communication.

But in the 21st century, we’re still dealing with the same struggles. A traditionalist would call it sin. A psychologist would call it the human condition. Today, in our American society, we’d call it, “just politics.”

How do people act as “a people” to meet their needs and how do leaders lead them? How do we all follow God’s will to accomplish that?

That’s why I cherish the UCC slogan, “God is still speaking.” God is still speaking through these scriptures, because we’re still having the same kind of problems. And God is still speaking through people like Moses and the writer of Matthew and Paul and the people to whom he sent his letters. And people like us.

Lets take the Matthew passage. The chief priests who question Jesus’s authority have based their own authority on an assertion very similar to statements made by Moses and Aaron:  That is, when you complain to us about our leadership, you are really complaining about God.

That’s why I was so intrigued by the decision of the lectionary folks to pair the Exodus and Matthew scriptures in the same week’s reading. In Exodus, Moses and Aaron ARE God’s instruments. In Matthew, the priests only THINK they are God’s instruments, or maybe they know they’re not, which is why they’re so touchy about Jesus.

In both passages, the question is “by what authority do you do these things?”   In the words of the Israelites in Exodus, “Is the Lord among us or not?” Or other ways of asking it, “Are your words and actions from God or not?” “Should we listen to you or follow your leadership as having God’s authority or not?”

We readers of the Matthew story have the advantage of knowing the rest of the story. When the priests challenged Jesus, we know they were challenging God as directly as any person ever could. But they didn’t know that. They seemed quite certain of their own authority. They probably felt confident they could trace their lineage straight back to Aaron himself, even though plenty of people then and now would say they were lackeys hand-picked by the Romans.

In fact, Jesus (and Matthew, in the telling of it) turns their question of authority right back on them. He asks them about the source of the authority of John the Baptist.
The description of the chief priests’ and elders’ dilemma brings another element into the question:  The crowd. The people have already determined for themselves that John’s baptism and his authority are from God. If the priests dismiss his actions as not from God, they’re afraid of what the crowd will do.

The crowd. Jesus describes the followers of John — and by implication the followers of Jesus himself — as tax collectors and prostitutes. Isn’t it amazing that these powerful chief priests, appointed by the Roman emperor or his agents, would be afraid of tax collectors and prostitutes?  Kinda reminds you of the people who were about to stone Moses if he didn’t ask God to find some water, doesn’t it?

OK, so how does anyone determine that a leader who professes to speak for God really is speaking for God? Jesus gives us a pretty good benchmark with his parable of the two sons. One says he won’t do his father’s will, but then changes his mind and goes and does it. The other is very respectful of his father and says the right thing. But he doesn’t do it.

If the question had been, “which son has shown the proper respect for his father?” some people would take the words at face value, especially if they were spoken in public, or, say, on TV. They would say the second son showed the proper respect.

But Jesus didn’t ask about how things appeared, or what the motivation was of the two sons. He asked which son did what the father wanted done.

We’re locked into just such a contrast at the moment. We hear a lot of politicians and other opinion leaders saying they honor God and are speaking for God, but their actions do not match their words. Jesus tells us, in this Matthew passage, that the actions are what counts. And even those without honor — prostitutes and tax collectors — can tell the difference between the empty rhetoric of the chief priests and elders and the message of John and Jesus.

I’ll read that part again where Jesus says to the chief priests:  “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.”

Notice the translation is not “believe IN him.” But just “believe him.” John’s message was to repent, because another one greater than he was coming. The priests didn’t believe it. The people did, especially the people who had little or no power and no honor or respect in society. They saw and they believed and they changed. And they “are going into the kingdom of God” before the chief priests.

Are going. I used to interpret such passages as indicating they’ll go to heaven after they die. But Jesus is talking in the present tense, not after they die. Right here, right now. They’re going right now into the kingdom, which Jesus said was “at hand.”

That has been an evolving understanding for me, that the kingdom of God is here right now. Not completely — for if it were all accomplished, we would not be praying to God every week, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

But in those instances where God’s will is being done, God’s kingdom is there — that day in the temple with the chief priests disputing with Jesus as the crowd looks on, as well as here today, when, despite sin and the human condition and “just politics,” when people manage to do God’s will.

In those instances, the answer to the Israelites’ question of, “Is God here among us or not?” The answer is, “Yes. God is among us.” we are going into the kingdom.

Paul, in his letter to the people at Philippi, gives us some more clues on how to judge who has God’s authority and how God is acting among us.

If the peope have  “any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy,” they will show it by “having the same love [as Jesus].” They will be “in full accord and of one mind.” They will  “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than themselves.”

In the kingdom of God, each person “looks not to his or her own interests, but to the interests of others.”

Here is the perfect description of doing God’s will, of demonstrating “God among us”:

Jesus, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited, 
but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
You want to know the one whose authority comes from God? Look for the person who does not exploit the name of God, but accepts the servanthood of others, who looks to the welfare of others before his or her own power and honor and glory.

I find one glaring irony resulting from this passage about Paul’s understanding of Jesus and God’s kingdom:  that in such close proximity to an expression of awe at Jesus’s humility — that he emptied himself — some demagogues take the next description of honoring Jesus as a demand that all people bow their knees to one single (and not necessarily accurate) understanding of the statement that “Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Sometimes I fear that such people who are so certain of their own authority — and their own interpretation of Christianity –  are more like the chief
priests and the elders in Matthew than they are Moses or Jesus or Paul.

When we see someone who does nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regards others as better than themselves, someone who looks not to his or her own interests, but to the interests of others, then we see, in the words of Paul, “God who is at work in that person enabling that someone both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.”

Then we can say, “yes, the Lord is among us,” right here, right now, in the kingdom of God.

Praise God. Amen.

Micah6 Goes to a Party

Actually, we went to two parties in the last two days:  A rally in front of Sen. Claire McCaskill’s office in St. Louis on Friday afternoon and a fundraiser ladies’ brunch for the senator on Saturday morning. At one, people standing on the outside looking in chanted slogans through a bullhorn. And at the other, supporters rubbed elbows with the powerful, their voices rising to a loud murmer.

The two groups’ message was the same:  Stand up to the people who are waging war on the working and middle classes.

Don’t-Cut-Us-a-Raw-Deal Rally

On Friday, about 100 people stood on the sidewalk and traffic median outside Sen. McCaskill’s office in the 5400 block of Delmar Boulevard to urge her to hold the line on funding for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

About half a dozen or more ralliers using wheelchairs filled the sidewalk in front of the office.Those folks as well as the ones able to stand reflected a wide diversity of ages, abilities, races and causes. They held signs calling for no cuts; they chanted such slogans as:
“Ho ho, hey hey — protect the people’s Medicaid”
“Hey hey, ho ho — bill the corporate CEOs”
“Tell me what democracy looks like” — “THIS is what democracy looks like”
And the most popular, a rhythmic rap, “The people (yeah)/Have got a story (yeah)/To tell the whole. wide. world/THIS IS PEOPLE TERR-I-TORY”

Speakers included an African American minister and an Episcopalian priest who noted that Republicans bent on destroying the middle class through budget cuts have said “nothing is sacred” in the budget. To that, the lady preachers noted that “Some things are sacred,” such as children, the disabled, the elderly, people who are hungry or homeless or in need of medical care. The Bible is clear, these women said, that God wants God’s people to share with those in need.

Meanwhile, a group of clergy and activists met inside the office with Sen. McCaskill and her staff. Rabbi Susan Talve came out to the crowd to report on the conversation. “She hears us,” Rabbi Talve said.

Like the clergywomen who began the rally, Talve also quoted scripture, referring to the people following Moses from Egypt to the Promised Land. When they reached the River Jordan, Talve said, Moses sent 12 spies across the river. Ten came back saying it would be impossible to overcome the people occupying the land. Two said, “we can do it!”

“But two wasn’t enough,” Talve said. Moses and the people spent another 38 years wandering in the desert before enough people in the younger generation believed they could successfully enter the Promised Land.

The point is, Talve said, we need to increase the number of people who believe that Progressive policies can win elections. She urged the ralliers to spread the word: “Some things are sacred” and “We can win this.”

Ladies’ Brunch for Claire

When you walk into the Royale, a bar/restaurant on Kingshighway just south of Tower Grove Park, you can tell it’s a gathering spot for Democrats and Progressives by the photos over the bar:  Joseph Pulitzer, Harriet Tubman, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Mel Carnahan, among others. The owner is a stalwart supporter of Democrats said Sen. McCaskill in her brief remarks.

More than 100 women and a handful of men gathered at the restaurant for brunch on Saturday, thrown by The Women of St. Louis, which includes a list of female democratic office holders and former office holders. Guests paid $50, $100 or more to attend and to inject cash and encouragement into the senator’s campaign for reelection next year.

Sen. McCaskill arrived at 10:30 a.m., about half an hour after the event began, and worked the room and patio, listening to supporters. Several of them — including this blogger — took her to task for appearing too ready to compromise on important programs, and for allowing the Republicans to dominate the budget discussions with talk of cutting programs for the poor and middle class rather than raising revenue from the rich and ultra rich.

“The Republicans have done us a favor,” McCaskill said.  Since last year when the Republicans took advantage of the troubled economy to gain majorities in several statehouses and in the U.S. House of Representatives, “They have taken things too far.”

Republicans took the vote of people who were unemployed and looking for ways to increase jobs, and (in the Missouri General Assembly) tried to abolish child labor laws, or (in the U.S. Congress) tried to defund Planned Parenthood, she said. “I don’t think the voters put them in office to gut Medicare.”

To those of us who want McCaskill to send a stronger Progressive message, McCaskill said compromise was necessary in politics. “No one is going to win by being pure” in ideology.

Democrats are developing a strategy and a message, she said. Expect to hear more about their efforts to end subsidies for oil companies and to raise income taxes on individuals’ “second million.”

“This election is going to be one of the nastiest campaigns in our lifetime,” she said. “You have two choices. You can throw up your hands and complain about the Democrats…. or you can double down and help me win this.”

The key to the election will be the votes of Independents, McCaskill said. But the key to the Independent vote will rest on the energy and commitment of Democrats. “All of us who are Democrats must stay united and quit complaining about each other. We need to realize that what is at stake is much bigger than any single issue.”

She looked around the room and acknowledged supporters who have been with her through many elections, especially the campaign to get to the Senate. “Do not ever think that just because I’ve done this before I can do it without you.

“I need you to put on your walking shoes,” the Senator exhorted. “Put those really high heels back in the closet and save them for the victory party.”

That line got the biggest cheer of the morning.

Flooding, Farming and Cotton Prices

Flooding, farming and cotton prices

In April, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers intentionally flooded hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland along the Mississippi River to “control” flooding in more densely populated areas. In Missouri, the corps blew up levees around Birds Point in southeastern Missouri to divert flood water from Cairo, Ill.

In early June, The New York Times reported that the Mississippi’s record flooding is expected to dump a record amount of nitrogen and phosphorous from farmland runoff into the Gulf of Mexico, thus producing the largest “dead zone” yet in the Gulf. The article suggested that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency might tighten controls on fertilizer usage in the Delta states. The reporter did not mention the intentional flooding, which could have been a major factor in the runoff problem.

The next day, McClatchy Newspapers reported that cotton prices are at an all time high because of floods in Pakistan and Australia and freezes in China. No mention of the flooding in the Mississippi Delta, but the flooded acres in Missouri are prime cotton land, and I assume the farmland in states farther south could be, too.

The runoff problem alone is enough reason for the corps to rethink using farmland floodways to divert the river from towns like Cairo.

A new rubric is needed that takes into account the ecological damage of farmland runoff and the economic value of crops that the flooded land could have produced.

Agricultural products still account for the majority of U.S. exports.

Published in Letters, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 9, 2011

Memorial Day 2011

(left to right: Alice Baldwin, Tom Baldwin, Vici Griswold, Bill Griswold)

This photo was in the scrapbook that my mother made about my parents’ first years of marriage BK — before kids. When I was a young girl fascinated by weddings, I asked to see Mama and Daddy’s wedding picture. She showed me this photo — two happy couples, both of the men in leather flying jackets. And she told me the other man did not come back from the war. He has always been a symbol, to me, of the uncertainty of life and the sacrifice of war. This is my Memorial Day tribute to two WWII American fighter pilots: Bill Griswold, who died in 1942, and Tom Baldwin, who died in 1981.
My father and mother, Tom and Alice Baldwin, were married, Jan. 8, 1942. It was a double wedding with Bill and Vici Griswold. A month and a day after Pearl Harbor, these two couples rushed to get married before the men went off to war. They were both pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps.
Four days later, Daddy, 2nd Lt. Thomas E. Baldwin, and 2nd Lt. William Griswold boarded a troop ship for the South Pacific.

Here are excerpts from Lt. Baldwin’s journal, which he kept on board ship, and his letters home.

Postmarked Mar 8, 1942 but written in mid-January

   I am being very optimistic when I write this. It is as tho’ there will be an opportunity to mail it soon. My urge to write it now is prompted by a rumor that we will soon pass a mail buoy[?] (whatever that is; I think it is a gag) and letters from home had better be ready.
    The trip thus far has been very pleasant. We are very crowded, but everyone realizes that and makes allowances for it. Joe, George, Bill Griswold, & I are in the same room. We also share the same table in the dining room.
    It was just a week ago that we were so suddenly awakened at 5 in the morning and I had to hurry away. It wasn’t easy to leave you there. The words “El Camino” will, I think, remain with me always; & even tho’ I don’t know what it means in Spanish, it represents a brief period of boundless happiness to me. Truly it was a “honeymoon cottage” for me.”
————–

Postmarked Jun 19, 1942
While I was enroute to here I saw some of the boys I knew back home. Gris & Joe and George are still together and getting along fine. Gris has had quite a lot of mail from Vici but Joe has sort of been left out….

————–

Postmarked July 2, 1942

You keep mentioning Hepford and I’m sorry I can’t be of any help. When I saw Gris I asked him about Hepford but he didn’t know. I thought Bill might know because they were right good friends.

—————
Dated August 2, 1942 (censorship rules had been relaxed to allow dates in letters home) Postmarked August 14, 1942

 …  I am wondering if you have continued your correspondence with Vici. If so you undoubtedly have heard the bad news about Bill. I only learned of it a few days ago. Just in case she hasn’t written you I will be more explicit. He was killed in an automobile accident about the second week in June. I learned of the unhappy event in a letter I just got from Joe. It was a terrible thing, and I certainly feel sorry for Vici….

   There is something about this place that reminds me of Christmas time in the South. Which brings to mind the experience Dad had when he first went away to school and had such a hard time explaining the customary way of celebrating Christmas back home. Get him to tell you the story. I’m sure you will enjoy it.

In the same envelope, postmarked Aug 25, a note from Elizabeth Baldwin, Tom’s mother, addressed to Alice and her sister-in-law, Julia Baldwin. They were roommates in St. Louis while they attended secretarial school.

Notice in Tom’s letter he speaks of how it sounds where he is. Julie, tell Alice how you children used to celebrate Christmas with your fireworks. Evidently he is where shooting is going on.
————

Dated Aug 17, 1942; Postmarked Oct 13, 1942
As you can perceive, the censorship regulations have again been changed so that we can give our whereabouts at least to the extent of saying “somewhere in New Guinea.” We can’t tell anything about it nor how long we have been here, nor how long we are likely to stay. But I will say that we have been here long enough for us to long for Australia. The living conditions aren’t bad. As a matter of fact, conditions are considerably better than we expected, but I would settle for any place other than New Guinea.

Tom Baldwin returned from the South Pacific in the summer of 1943. He was stationed in Venice, Fl., as an instructor in the flight school there. After the war, he never flew again and he rarely talked about the war.

Missouri Governor Too Busy with Real Problems to Acknowledge Breitbart

Gov. Jay Nixon has more important things to do than respond to Andrew Breitbart’s latest spurious attempt to influence politics with a fraudulent video smear.

Standing in front of the Old St. Louis Courthouse where the Dred Scott decision supporting slavery was one of the sparks that set off the Civil War, Gov. Nixon on Friday vetoed a bill that would have weakened the Missouri Human Rights Act protections for workers.

He spoke to a crowd of invited guests representing advocates for the disabled, minorities, organized labor and faith groups. Noting that only 10 days remain in this legislative session, Nixon urged the audience to “lock arms and move forward” to block the efforts of those who will “put energy and efforts to overturn” his veto.

“The rights of all are inexplicably bound to the rights of the few,” Nixon said before he signed his veto.

Indeed. Breitbart’s hashed-up video attempts to attack education and the labor movement in Missouri through two clumsily cobbled together videos of an online University of Missouri course on labor. Despite his history of releasing obviously doctored videos that are later repudiated, Breitbart appeared to have some initial success in attacking at least one of the professors with this latest video — Breitbart’s first foray into Missouri politics. It is a case of attacking the rights of an individual to attack the rights of all.

But Nixon did not rise to Breitbart’s bait. “I haven’t seen the video and I won’t comment on something I haven’t seen,” he told this blogger in a brief session with the media after his speech. He gave the impression, although he did not say so directly, that he has more important issues in the state than to give credence to the likes of Breitbart.

Nixon gave a glimpse of his focus for these next few days.

• Later today he is heading down to southeastern Missouri to “work cooperatively with local folks” to deal with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to blast a hole in a levee on the Mississippi River that would flood 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland to divert the rising river away from Cairo, Ill. He defers to the Missouri Attorney General, who is pursuing the matter in federal court, even after a ruling earlier today by U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh that the Corps’ plan is legal. “I’m worried that [the Corps plan] could scour a new path of the river,” Nixon said. But “it’s important to say we need to be prepared” for the Corps to carry out its plan.
• By tomorrow morning, he plans to look “analytically” at the legislature’s proposal for redistricting Missouri, which has lost a congressional seat as the result of the latest census. “I’m working on that this weekend,” he said in response to a question. “It’ll be a quick time frame. I won’t drag this out. We need a map that reflects the state. … But I haven’t spent … I need to spend some significant time on it before I can comment.”
• He’s more or less done talking about the “Puppy Mill” measure that the voters approved last November and the Legislature passed a bill to repeal. Nixon’s “Missouri Solution” brought all sides together — those who want to improve breeders’ treatment of dogs, and agricultural interests who want to protect the right to breed animals — with a compromise bill that passed the Legislature earlier this week.
• Following the Puppy Mill compromise, he’s working with legislators on an economic development bill that, he said, would be good for both businesses and workers.
• He’s concerned about “a number of education programs” that some Republicans have targeted for cuts, including money for higher education and special education. On some of these, “the difference between the House and Senate is really small” and he is hopeful of a compromise. This could be seen as an oblique reference to the attempts by some legislators to use Breitbart’s video to cut funding for the University by discrediting two of its professors.

In closing, Nixon said he would take each of the “Fix the Six” measures being presented by anti-labor factions in the state as they come up. The bill he vetoed today was the first to get as far as initial passage. “We are working with leaders across the state” to find ways to entice companies to invest in the state.

“We’ll see how it develops,” he added. “but we are not going to build our economy by going backwards on civil rights or lowering compensation for workers.”

  ——-Virginia Gilbert

Amending Missouri’s Initiatives

This was published in Letters to the Editor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sunday, April 24.

Faulty statutes

On the compromise to amend the “puppy mill law” passed by a state majority in November: Apparently, it is fine to repeal or amend a law approved by the voters through an initiative. That’s good news that folks have agreed on how to change Proposition B more to everyone’s liking — because, you know, the voters obviously didn’t understand the implications of what they were voting on.

As long as we’re amending laws passed by initiative, St. Louis and Kansas City voters would like to repeal Proposition A (from the same election) that requires us to approve our city earnings tax every five years. Both cities re-approved those taxes earlier this month with resounding majorities — nearly nine to one in St. Louis and more than eight to one in Kansas City. But the specter of having to approve this very fair tax every five years is expected to affect both cities’ bond ratings and has the St. Louis mayor talking about shifting to less progressive funding.

No need to take the measure back to the entire state. What say we ask the Legislature to fix this obviously faulty statute and return local control of municipal revenue and taxes to the cities in question and get Rex Sinquefield out of our city’s business?

See also:

Why I support the city earnings tax

Easter in one hop

“Easter in one hop.”
The full page ad caught my attention. Is International House of Pancakes touting an Easter brunch? Has some megachurch devised a way to call the secular world’s attention to the most sacred day in the Christian calendar?

No. It was a Walmart ad. A full page ad in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, page A7 in Wednesday’s paper. That’s Wednesday, April 20, in the middle of HOLY WEEK, touting THE. MOST. SACRED. DAY. IN. THE. CHRISTIAN. YEAR. as a day to “Save money. Live better.Save gas. Save time.” by shopping at Walmart.

Easter in one hop? Are they going to open the store doors with a procession singing “Jesus Christ is Risen Today”? Are they going to serve communion in the snack bar? Read scripture in aisle 10 about how the resurrection of God Incarnate brings new life to all of humanity?  Proclaim the Good News — Jesus has risen! Death, where is thy sting! — from the customer service counter?

My jaw drops in amazement at the incredible hubris and insensitivity of the world’s largest retailer casually suggesting Easter is merely an opportunity for the corporation to  try to sell things. They aren’t satisfied with completely co-opting Christmas for frenzied consumerism. Nearly every retailer does that in America today. “Easter in one hop” takes corporate greed, secularization and diminished regard for Christianity to new lows.

Do I really need to say this? The only “one hop” to Easter is found in church. Many churches have special events all this week — foot washing, communion services, and other types of worship today, Maundy Thursday; tennebrae services where candles are extinguished instead of lit, or preachers preach minisermons on “The Seven Last Words of Christ” on Good Friday; preparations of all kinds on Easter Saturday, including last-minute choir rehearsals and general sprucing up of the church in anticipation of the big day.

I say this on good authority:  Every functioning church in America will be open for “one hop” worship on Easter Sunday, starting, in some places, at midnight for an Easter vigil, continuing at sunrise in many early-morning outside observances, and on into the day with pageantry, trumpets, wonderful singing, joyful preaching, prayerful intercession, careful reading and discussion of scripture, and into the evening, with Easter night observances of Jesus on the road to Emmaus or appearing to the disciples in the Upper Room.

I don’t ever shop at Walmart — for a lot of reasons. The primary one is the way the world’s largest retailer has driven manufacturing jobs out of the United States and into countries like China that exploit their workers.

But for those of you who do (maybe a friend or relative works there) — I urge you NOT to shop at Walmart this week — Holy Week. Instead,  “hop” in to the church of your choice for Easter. It’s not about bunnies. It’s not about chocolate. It’s not about shopping. It’s not about Walmart. It’s about the Good News of the resurrection. Hallelujah. Glory to God in the highest.

Virginia Gilbert

Lights Unto the World

Lights Unto The World

The matches pop and flare
the flames flicker at the wicks
and catch, reaching upward
God’s covenant in a candle
God’s promise in a flame

Ba-ruch a-ta A-do-nai, E-lo-hei-nu me-lech ha-olam

O come, o come Emmanuel

First night, first light
One thin straight candle on the right
One fat round candle on the circle

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee

Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe who has sanctified us with his commandments and commanded us to kindle the lights of Hanukkah

God comes to the chosen ones in the winter’s cold
God stands by the chosen ones in the darkness

… thou dayspring come, and cheer our spirits by thine Advent here

…who performed miracles for our ancestors at this season

Four Sundays in a row, fat candles
stand in the wreath
They burn in turn and are extinguished before they are spent
so that by the fourth lighting
the first is short and the fourth is barely used
On Christmas Eve a fifth is added — the Christ candle

Eight nights in a row, thin candles
stand in the menorah
in celebration of the time
when one vial lasted as long as eight
They burn down each night to tiny remnants of wax
to be replaced anew

Blessed are you, Lord, who gave us life and kept us and delivered us to this time

Bid envy, strife and discord cease; Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace

One table, one family
Two sets of candles
God’s covenant with a people
And God’s promise in a man

— Virginia Gilbert