THE LAST RIVER MILE

Thoughts near the take-out.

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GEOFF POSEGATE

Retired United Methodist pastor and leadership coach.

  • WHEN ALL ARE WELCOME; NO EXCEPTIONS

    Recently I had the opportunity to introduce something called Holy Communion in a large worship gathering. Depending on the church tradition, Holy Communion also is called The Lord’s Supper or The Eucharist. (The latter comes from a Greek word meaning “thanksgiving”.) It is a small meal of bread and wine or grape juice. Simply put, it signifies a remembrance of Jesus’ sacrificial death on a cross, a recognition of Jesus’ resurrected, living presence right now, and an anticipation of Jesus’ return in final, life-and-world transforming and reconciling victory.

    In my particular church tribe (United Methodist) part of the run-up to actually sharing Holy Communion is the reminder that it is open to everyone. A person does not have to be a member of a United Methodist Church or any church of any brand name to receive it. An individual does not even have to be one who buys into the Jesus thing. We believe sharing this simple meal can be a person’s doorway into experience the grace of God in Jesus the Christ. So, one of the most important parts of preparing to celebrate is the reminder to the gathering that all are welcome.

    At the very moment I said those words, one of the many people at the front of the gathering who was helping with logistics of serving turned and looked at me. This person’s eyes stayed on me as I explained that there are absolutely no barriers to the Lord’s table, and everyone is welcome. The individual was near tears, and I realized that the moment had become WAY beyond me and the simple mechanics of the Communion invitation. This was someone who had extensive, painful experience with not being welcomed. I was happily pushed aside, and it was Jesus reaching in that moment to embrace that individual.

    The particular soul was one of the following types of individuals: A non-white person. A person whose first language is not English. A person battling with mental health struggles. A gay or lesbian person. A neurodivergent person. An unhoused person. A person who does not identify with culturally dominant gender roles. An undocumented person. A person who cannot read. A special-needs person. A non-Christian person. A person living legally in the United States under asylum. A person with a criminal record.

    I’m not going to tell you which specific type of person the individual was. It doesn’t matter. You and I need to wrestle with the truth of who is not welcome in our particular settings.

    I was recently reminded of the words and thoughts of the late, great Rachel Held Evans. She noted that the scandal of the earliest followers of Jesus was not who they kept out, but who they welcomed in. Jesus himself observed that we will be surprised by those who enter the eternal Kingdom. (See Luke 13:28-30, Matthew 8:11-12, Matthew 21:31.) We’d better be practicing joining in his radical welcome now.

    I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.

  • GenZ GIVES ME HOPE!

    I mentioned in my last post that I spent much of last week at a state-wide youth conference led by Jesus-followers. I had the opportunity to watch several hundred members of Generation Z experience and practice faith. (GenZ is made up generally of those born between 1997 and 2012.) In addition, I am a part of a church with a strong student ministry. Up to 50% of the youth who participate are not from our church, and they are there because someone in GenZ invited them. The group has exceptional lay leadership. One of the leaders recently observed of the GenZ participants in youth ministry that they are providing the model for the rest of the church. Truer words have seldom been spoken.

    Many people point out that organized Christianity in North America seems to be at a low ebb. Churches are closing left and right. In less than a decade the number of people who identify as being a part of no faith system has doubled. Unchurched people are even more disillusioned with churches as belief in Jesus has been coopted for political purposes in these divided times. As I’ve said ad nauseum, people in America know more about what we Christians are against than what we are for. Yet while we baby-boomers (born 1948-1964) wring our hands and fret about all this, GenZ largely is unaffected.

    GenZ has their issues, as every generation does. But they bring much to the table. They may be distrustful overall of organized religion, but GenZ is exceptionally open spiritually. They just value and expect authenticity, having almost zero b.s. tolerance as a generation. GenZ Jesus-followers care little about doctrine and proof-texting, but they are openly hungry for authentic enccounter with Jesus. Getting into the Bible is less an intellectual exercise for them as it is an experience. I see GenZ as much more welcoming than we who have gone before them. (The statewide rally had a quiet room adjacent to the worship auditorium for those who had sensory-sensitive needs.) They don’t see diversity as a threat; rather it is an expression of the varied tapestry of God’s design. GenZ values work/life balance, and sees mental health concerns as centrally important rather than as a stigma. They are a pragmatic generation, but one that has a strong sense of service, and they want to be a part of something that is bigger than themselves. And they know how to dance for joy before the Lord! (Get on YouTube and enter “Church Clap.”)

    In my admittedly limited engagement with GenZ and following Jesus, I’d say two things: First, all of us in the Body of Christ need to go to school on them, as our church leader noted. Where the Church has become a self-preserving institution, they will help us to be an outwardly-focused movement again. Second, I have no worries about the future of the genuine Body of Christ. In GenZ I’m looking at the future, and it is good.

    I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.

  • IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT OR FEAR CULTIVATION?

    I recently attended a large, faith-based youth conference gathering. As part of the event, several hundred students and their leaders would join in worship each evening. One night, in the midst of singing praise, the group had an unanticipated visitor. A local law enforcement officer came in the back of the auditorium and spoke to one of the conference leaders. He then walked quietly down one side of the crowd, obviously trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. After a few moments he returned to the back, still working on not impacting the worship that was happening. He spoke again to a few of the conference leaders, they all smiled, and the officer exited the facility. It turns out that someone had accidentally “butt-dailed” 911. He just wanted to follow-up and make sure everything was okay. He was just doing his job, and he did it well.

    However, the reaction among a few of the students and leaders who saw the policeman was noteworthy. One of the co-directors of the conference was Latino. (Native-born; his family is from Mexico.) The co-director was not visibly present in the auditorium at the time when the local policeman was there. Charged by the days in which we live, people did quick math in their heads and wondered if the co-director was in danger or had been detained. And instant fear filled a portion of the room for a time.

    Friends, that’s where we are in this country. It’s not just undocumented criminals who are in fear of a largely unchecked, unregulated para-military masked force having its way throughout the land. Any brown-skinned person, citizen or not, documented or not has reason to be afraid. Those who have died by I.C.E. use of deadly force posed no threat. (In at least one case, the wrong person was pursued and subsequently died.)

    I know that many who support President Trump’s policies and practices bristle when comparisons are made between this administration and the rise of the Third Reich in the 1920’s and 30’s. Well – stop using the same playbook! (Creating fear in the streets, undermining or eliminating free elections, suppression of opposition voices, demonizing and blaming “the other.” dismantling balance of power, degrading the free press, use of the “big lie” tactic, etc., etc.) I’m also aware that one default response to I.C.E. killings is, “Just comply.” I don’t even want to hear that. Where was compliance when Capital Police tried to protect the Capital and a Constitutional process on 01.06.21?

    A nation needs fair and safe border policies and practices. And I do not in any way advocate using violence to resist I.C.E. incursion. But, whatever was initially intended, this has devolved to domestic terrorism. The time for non-violent citizen resistance is now. Followers of Jesus are called to stand in the gap for those who are victimized. (Zechariah 7:9-10, among the myriad of texts speaking to this in the Bible.)

    This is not the America I was taught to love as a child. This is not the America I want to leave for my grandchildren. We are better than this.

    I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.

  • HOW CAN YOU TRUST HOPE?

    A close friend of mine struggles to have hope. This person has been burned by life so often and has faced so much disappointment and setback that a positive view of the future seems out of reach. My friend can’t seem to find a trustable hope.

    How do we have hope when hope has been crushed too often? How do we muster up hope when it seems that we live in days that are void of it? I recently listened to a National Public Radio interview of Ben Bradford, who hosts the NPR podcast “Are We Doomed?” I used to think that just religious people focused on the end times. Now, apparently, many people feel the possibility. That’s a hard environment in which to cultivate hope.

    I don’t have an answer. I just have some leanings that help me, at least a little. When I hope for something and it doesn’t come about, I have to asked if my hope was nothing more than an expectation that MY agenda would be addressed. That’s a pretty limited field for hope, if it’s narrowed to only that which I think should take place. Related to that, I have to have the courage to let my hope be open-ended. Hoping for good, positive, beneficial outcomes, I need be ready for possibilities that I have not considered.

    In the NPR interview, Ben Bradford says that the way we will survive an end-of-life-as-we-know-it circumstance will happen collaboratively. He believes that in the worst of calamities the best of human capability to come together and work together happens. Maybe that’s something we should be practicing right now, whether or not something “apocalyptic” takes place. Perhaps we should be asking one another what we’re hoping for, actively listening to the response. I think we should model actually being hope for someone who feels hopeless, when possible.

    The descendants of Hebrews hoped for God to send some kind of anointed One (“messiah”) for centuries. Over time, they locked in specific expectations of what that chosen One would be like. Jesus was and is the answer to that hope. And the messiah Jesus is was on virtually no one’s radar. There’s a lesson about hope in that.

    All that’s just me. I wonder how you keep hope alive. How do you trust hope?

    I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.

  • WE ARE AN ASPIRATIONAL NATION

    As I can, I’ve been watching “The American Experiment” on Netflix. I highly recommend it. The series is an honest, thorough, and positive presentation of the roots of the United States of America. In it, one of the presenters describes our country as an aspirational nation. This means that we were not founded simply to preserve a national entity as is. To be aspirational indicates that we have values and ideals to which we continually strive. Our country was established with the understanding that we had not “arrived” but would constantly seek to do so.

    For example, “liberty and justice for all” is an ideal toward which we have worked for 250 years. And we are still working at it. (The phrase “all men are created equal” was penned by a man who owned other human beings as slaves.) Our aspiration toward liberty and justice for all forced us to face the painful, necessary truth that humans owning other humans is wrong. It has also guided us through the struggle for the rights and dignity of women. It has given voice to the labor movement. It still speaks to issues around civil rights. (We pretty much failed to live out the ideal with indigenous peoples.) And now we’re trying to sort it out with people who live and love differently than what many describe as the “norm.”

    An aspirational identity requires honesty; recognizing where we as a nation have succeeded and are succeeding, as well as facing where we are falling short of that to which we aspire. We will always be figuring it out in constantly new and unfolding territory, and that’s good. This doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it does mean it’s right.

    Followers of Jesus know the aspirational terrain. Loving God and loving others as God in Christ loves us beckons us continually in new and unfamiliar settings. We never arrive in this life; we are always aspiring toward…

    I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.

  • I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!

    Elaine (my wife) and I had planned to travel as much as possible upon retirement. In the last seven years we have more than reached our goal. All our journeys have taken us to the rich variety that is the United States. We have seen Big Sky country in the west, witnessing and crossing the Grand Tetons. We have viewed the grandeur of Saguaro National Park and the desert southwest. We have spent time by the bright green waters of the Emerald Coast along the Gulf of Mexico. We have enjoyed San Antonio’s River Walk and the old Spanish mission region of Texas. We have seen the utter glory of upstate New York and New England in Autumn. We have walked along the shores of three Great Lakes, and relaxed in the beauty of Door County, Wisconsin. We have experienced the magnificence of Alaska; the last frontier. And we just returned from another stellar trip to the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

    This nation is a magnificently varied tapestry of different topographies, landscapes, and natural wonders. This is much like the people of our great land. In our travels we have experienced a magnificent mix of people who are varied in how the live, how they believe, how they think, how they work, how they play, how they love, and how they experience life in the United States of America. They are as richly different as the land we share.

    We are a nation designed for this; for the freedom to be as different from one another as the Smoky Mountains are from the Great Salt Lake. This is where liberty and justice exists for literally all of us, from the New England lobster fisherpersons to rural California farmworkers. We are defined by endless variety.

    Following Jesus is not, has never been, and never should be the official, mandated faith of the USA. Freedom of religion is at our very core, for good reason. But for those of us who do follow Jesus, this country’s values, even if still aspirational, feed into a core of something we believe…that God’s love is for all. God’s love in Christ is not deserved only by a chosen few, it is not earned only by those who look and act a certain way, and it is not reserved for a select group of those who are favored. As this nation strives to afford life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all, we are under the mandate to offer the unrestricted, saving, transforming love of God made known in Jesus to all.

    We have a lot of work to do in the United States of America. We are still working on putting into practice what we put on paper in 1776. But we can celebrate this day the gloriously messy crazy quilt that is us. Woody Guthrie was right – this land was made for you and me, and ALL OF US!

    Happy 250th, USA! I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.

  • HE FIRST SAID, “FOLLOW ME.”

    In these days when what it means to be “Christian” seems to be up for grabs in North America, many divergent people claim to be doing what the one known as Jesus wants people to do. They can’t all be right, because some actions, behaviors, and proclamations are polar opposites of one another. So what did/does Jesus actually ask of us?

    Apparently he did not say, “Believe these particular doctrines,” even though those of us who follow Jesus act as if doctrinal accuracy is the begin-all and end-all. He did not say, “Do these particular religious things.” That kind of negates twenty centuries of battles of when and how to baptize, how to do Holy Communion/The Eucharist/The Lord’s Supper, what kind of worship music is “right”, etc. There’s nothing wrong and everything right with committing portions of the Bible to memory, but Jesus said nothing about scriptural expertise being the main thing. And Jesus didn’t pitch himself as the heaven-ticket in his invitation.

    To those he approached and called, Jesus asked something very specific – “Follow me.” (Mark 2:14, for example.) The original Greek is a form of the word akolouthei, which literally means to walk along or behind someone, accompanying that person in a specific direction. In describing a teacher/disciple relationship it meant aligning with a specific leader and becoming like that person.

    So, Jesus wants us to follow him by becoming like him. That means SO much. Above all, it means love; not love as a feeling or sentiment, but love as a chosen action. It is a sacrificing love, penultimately demonstrated in Jesus’ submission to the killing cross. It is loving others in the same way God made known in Jesus loves us.

    Grounded in this other-focused love, becoming like Jesus means being on the move. It’s about going to where people are, rather than waiting for them to come to us. It’s about being with the people whom cultures decide are worthless (Matthew 9:10-17), sinful (John 7:53-8:11), inferior (John 4:1-42), dangerous (Mark 5:1-20), dirty (Luke 8:43-48), or foreign and suspect (Luke 7:1-10). And it’s about treating all of them as if they are God’s most beloved. It’s on this foundation that grace, salvation, and transformation happen.

    Jesus just asks us to follow him and to be like him in this way. Love God and love others as he did/does. That has lots of implications for me. It means I can’t just slap the label “Christian” on myself and expect a hurting, skeptical world to buy it. Among other things, it means I can’t claim Jesus as Savior and Lord and default to a demeaning, racist remark into the same microphone. (I’m not judging this incident; I’m just observing. I’m guilty of plenty of inconsistencies in my own words as well.) Following Jesus is not always easy. Sometimes we will face fierce opposition. Sometimes we will be in the difficult position of speaking grace and truth to great secular power. Sometimes we will be crushingly alone.

    But in fact we will never be alone. The One we follow promised to be with us, always…no matter what.

    I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.

  • “BIBLES AGAIN” !

    When I walk in the morning I spend time praying. Leading up to praying, I typically listen to faith-based music. I’m a fan of so-called “contemporary” worship music. I’m a little wary each time I log on to Spotify, though. While most of contemporary music is solid, some reflects really bad theology and practice. (The same is true of old hymnody, by the way.) This morning, for whatever reason, I started out skeptical.

    And then I heard one that was new to me. And, just like that, the Holy Spirit turned skepticism into a dance of praise. I’ll let the lyrics speak for themselves:

    BIBLES AGAIN (Brent Morgan)

    “I opened up my old Bible again. Blew off the dust from my childhood friend. I thumbed through a page, not sure where to begin. But opened up my old Bible again.

    I see people on stage and leaders of men use scripture like teeth, leaving marks on our skin. Something ’bout saving a world full of sin. Well, I hope they open their Bibles again.

    “Cause I don’t think Jesus was sent here to teach us to fight until one of us wins.

    We pick and choose verses to build bigger churches. If only we’d open our Bibles again.

    I opened up my old Bible again. I tore through the pages to find where it said to hate my own neighbor and curse my own friend. So I opened up my old Bible again.

    I was taught to fear God. Now we’re taught to fear men, and misrepresent what our Savior has said. So listen up close to the letters in red, if you ever open your Bible again.

    ‘Cause I don’t think Jesus was sent here to teach us to fight until one of us wins.

    We pick and choose verses to build bigger churches. If only we’d open our Bibles again. Yeah, I hope we open our Bibles again.”

    As Richard Rohr has said, it’s less about us reading the Bible, and more about letting the Bible read us. Would that all of us who reduce Jesus to an obedient, benign mascot for our particular ideology would really open our Bibles again.

    I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.

  • IS IT FASCISM, AUTHORITARIANISM, OR PATRIARCHY?

    What are we looking at in our country right now?

    Many of those who resist the present administration throw around the term fascism. That’s a strong, volatile term. It means extreme nationalism and aggressive militarism. Fascism presumes the need for completely unchecked dictatorial power vested in one individual or an elite few. It is build on a presumed social/political/ethnic hierarchy, with the favored nation or people at the top of the pyramid. Governmental controlled is unfettered, opposition is disallowed and eliminated, and social mores are fiercely regimented. The needs of the nation completely override the freedom of individuals. In my limited view, while the United States may be leaning this way, we’re not there. Though it may be clinging by its fingertips, the Constitution is holding, so far. And confessing that I am one who has used the word fascism sometimes, it’s a trigger word that just entrenches divisions that are already hard to overcome.

    A better concept to describe where our nation is might be authoritarianism. Authoritarianism has similarities to fascism: power concentrated in a strongman leader or an elite few, suppression of dissent, control of information, motivation by fear of “the other,” etc. Chat GPT identifies fascism as an ideology and authoritarianism as more of a functional operating system. Authoritarianism can be used to buttress any ideology, right or left. Fascism is most definitely a right wing ideology. (All fascist government are authoritarian, but not all authoritarian governments are fascist.)

    Beyond all this, I feel there is a greater question. It’s less about WHAT is happening than it is about WHY it is happening. In a previous post I noted underlying fear of a demographic shift in our country that is inevitable. (See “The Killing of Alex Pretti and the Fear of 2045” – 01.26.26.) Authoritarian leadership in general and fascist leadership specifically depend on and feed on such fear. So what is it that so many Americans fear losing? I think there is a visceral fear the loss of a world defined by patriarchy; specifically the patriarchy of Caucasian men. Patriarchy presumes that life is determined by and directed by men alone. Men are the ones who should hold political leadership, moral authority, social privilege, and wealth control. Carefully constructed ideologies, philosophies, and theologies have been built to buttress this world view. Whether consciously recognized or not, this is what is endangered, and this is what necessitates authoritarian leadership to protect it in the minds of many.

    Signs of desperate protection of patriarchy are everywhere…The pseudo-testosterone driven need for UFC fights on the White House lawn…The Southern Baptist Convention undergirding their opposition to women in pulpits…The firing of top ranking female (and non-white) military leaders…Sparing no expense to protect wealthy, powerful male sexual predators. (The Department of Justice is still in contempt of Congress for not releasing the full Epstein files as mandated. Our congressional leaders do not seem to care.) White patriarchy is in full circle-the-wagons mode.

    The effort to enlist Jesus (a non-white male) as a patriarchy champion is worse than bogus. Search biblical characters such as Hagar, Deborah, and Lydia. Note that God’s promise was to pour out the Spirit on all flesh. (Joel 2:28, Acts 2:17.) The morning on which Jesus’ resurrection was discovered, the men were scared, hiding, and useless. Women were the first to see and to proclaim it. (Yes, those of you who oppose female pastors; the first to preach Jesus risen were women.) Simply and bluntly put, to stand for patriarchy is to stand against the risen Lord.

    And, for the record, I am an old white man. I have been the beneficiary of a patriarchal mindset. I have been complicit in a view of reality that does not reflect my faith or the true core values of a nation. Patriarchy needs to die. It’s time to withdraw life-support for it.

    I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.

  • WHAT IF WE PRACTICED EXPECTANCY?

    In these troubled days, it seems to me that we’re losing many things I thought we were to value and protect: civility, statesmanship, collaboration, trust, compassion, respect, and hope, just to name a few. Maybe I’m over-reacting, but maybe not. I do think, though, that we’ve lost our grip on positive expectancy. How much do I think that my day today will be substantively and surprising different than the previous day? Or do I assume the same basic elements and events will be in place just like they were yesterday? Do I click on the news believing something positive and hopeful is taking place, or do I assume the same left/right finger-pointing and blaming will continue from the day before? If I am a Jesus-follower, how did I approach worship yesterday? Did I expect something out of the ordinary to take place? Or did I assume the songs, the prayers, the sacrament, and the message would all be done in the same order and in the same way as the Sunday before? Is my life characterized by expectancy, or by the presumption of the same old same old every day?

    The earliest days of the Jesus-following movement were marked by uncommon signs and wonders. (See Acts 5:12-16, for example.) This was not showy, televangelist, raise-money-for-jets kind of stuff. By all account these were powerful, humbling indicators of a welcoming, loving God, made known in Jesus the crucified and risen. Early followers of Jesus seemed to live with a daily expectancy that a risen Jesus would do something big, uncontrollable, and inexplicably wonderful.

    We were once a part of a church in which the leaders made a bold, prayer-fueled decision to practice what they called expectant worship. Rather than just doing things in the same order and in the same ways each Sunday, they chose to envision and plan weekly worship as if it was fifty-two stand alone events every year. They wanted all who worshipped each Sunday, whether long time church members or people new to faith, to come saying, “I wonder what God’s going to do in worship today?” It was far from a perfect process, and things didn’t change overnight. But in the end lives changed, people encountered Jesus, strangers were welcomed into the Body of Christ, and new hands-on serving ministries were born. Many factors played into this, but the core atmosphere was expectancy.

    I don’t believe signs and wonders aren’t happening. It’s that we aren’t conditioned to see them. We see what we choose to see. How would it be different if I chose to believe that God is at work and I chose to expect to see God at work? What if I approached my day with expectancy?

    I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.