National Spirit Day (Oct 18) supports promoting anti-bullying by signing a pledge that the GLAAD, (formerly the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) web page hosts, and by wearing purple. Spirit Day is a means of speaking out against LGBTQ bullying and standing with LGBTQ youth. LBGTQ youth disproportionally face bullying and harassment because of their identities. Pledging to "go purple" on Spirit Day is a way for neighbors, parents, classmates, and friends--to visibly show solidarity with LGBTQ youth and to take part in the largest, most visible anti-bullying campaign in the world.
BUILD Action - October 10, 2018
Tree Planting - help wanted
Come join us after church on Sunday the 21st - to RSVP or for any questions,
please email Dick Williams
Service in the Park - Sumpter Park - October 14
On Sunday, October 14, we will return to Sumpter Park for the 9:30 service. Following the service we will have a pot-luck coffee hour, with chicken tenders provided by the church, so bring something to share, and we recommend a camp chair or similar if you would like to sit.
Directions to Sumpter Park:
Community Conversation - October 17 @ 6:30 pm
Sharing Our Truth
Community Conversation
October 17th
6:30-8:30 pm
On Wednesday, October 17, please join us for dinner and community conversation, led by seminarian Jill Williams. Dinner will be from 6:30-7:00, after which we will create a safe space to share and listen to each other’s stories. To honor feelings surrounding our recent national events, our time will center around the theme of sexual trauma and how we can share our experiences, listen to each other, and hold our suffering together. There will be time for prayer and reflection also. Please come to speak your truth and/or to be a compassionate listener. Both roles are important for healing. This event is for adults (18+) only. Please contact Jill at jillwilliams1904@yahoo.com with any questions, concerns, or needs for reassurance.
Family Dinner night - October 10 @ 6 pm
The View from Bolton Street
The View from Bolton Street
This week in the Gospel Jesus puts his foot down. There is no real other way to read Jesus’ words in Mark about Divorce other than as a strict condemnation: “He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” Jesus acknowledges to the Pharisees that Moses does allow for divorce, but only because of the hardness of our own hearts; but that God - once he has put two people together - does not like to see them pulled apart.
This is a tough reading in 2018. For Christians of all stripes. For more conservative Christians who attempt to take too literally readings on the sanctity of life and the validity of homosexual relationships, they will quickly turn the page when confronted with Jesus’ teachings on divorce. We all know a thrice divorced born again Christian who blames ‘the gays’ for ruining the world, don’t we?
But it is also a tough reading for more liberal or progressive Christians. In a #MeToo era where women are finally able to come forward about abuse - physical, sexual and emotional - the voice of Jesus saying ‘if you divorce your husband/wife you commit adultery’ seems out of character. And we too, perhaps, desire to ‘flip the page’ quickly and move on to other things.
But Jesus is quite adamant here. The breaking of the bonds of marriage is sinful. AND IS BORNE BY MALE AND FEMALE ALIKE. Now, to understand this you have to step back a bit in time. Because 1st century marriages were not like 21st century marriages. In fact we wouldn’t recognize them as marriages at all. In the first century, women were treated functionally like property. A woman rarely had a say in whom she married at all, and if a man found any reason to dislike her (she wasn’t attractive enough, couldn’t bear enough children, wasn’t healthy enough, couldn’t cook) he could petition for a divorce and suddenly she was an ‘unclean’ woman. Not suitable for marriage to anyone else, presumed unfaithful and, if she was lucky, left to work in her family’s home the rest of her life. The ‘sin’ of divorce only went one way. It was always the woman’s fault - no matter what the man did.
And in THAT context Jesus stands up and says FIRST that a man who divorces his wife is guilty of adultery. HE is guilty FIRST. As the main arbiter of power, after all, it is/was incumbent on the man to maintain and preserve the relationship; and they failed, and so bear the burden of the sin. This was Jesus calling for a 1st century #MeToo movement.
Now here in the 21st century we are facing a different kind of challenge regarding sexual ethics - but we can approach it with the same question. Perhaps today the Pharisees would ask ‘Should not a woman prove she was assaulted? Raped? Abused? For that is what the law requires?’
And perhaps Jesus would respond - ‘only because of your hardness of hearts is the burden of proof put on the accused. Only because of a system built by men of privilege and power are those with the most to lose asked to risk the most to obtain Justice.’ Indeed in the 1980s, 90s, and even today — the only person ‘guilty’ of adultery if you drank too much, stayed out too late, or wore the wrong clothing, was the woman. The men were just ‘doing what men do’. ‘Boys will be Boys’. But Jesus’ message continues to resonate today — that the sin of adultery whether in marriage, after a first date, at an all-night-kegger, or a Church function – is borne first by those with the most power, authority, and control. And so too the responsibility: to treat people respectfully, to ensure a safe environment for the most unsure, and to be prudent, judicious and honest when accusations of harassment and abuse arise.
The #MeToo moment IS a challenging moment for the Church, because it requires us to ensure that the Church is a safe space not only for previous victims of abuse, but also a space that can be kept as free from abuse as possible AND that commits to responding honestly, appropriately and fully to reports of abuse when (not if) they happen. Jesus offers us a good model in the gospel today - to put the onus on those with the most power to recognize their collective responsibility for that work - and a model we can strive to enact every day.
Anti-violence walk with Councilman Costello - Monday October 8
Next Monday, October 8, at 6:00 pm Councilman Costello, city officials, and concerned members of the community will be meeting at the Shake & Bake Family Fun Center, 1601 Pennsylvania Ave., for an anti-violence walk through the neighborhood. The plan is for the various officials to address the assembly at 6:00, then walk together to Penn North where there will be a moment of silence and prayer. Following the prayer(s) the group will walk back down to the Social Arts club.
Full, and quite possibly more accuate, details will be available at Councilman Costello’s facebook page later this evening. You can go directly there via this link.
BUILD - Kirwan Commission training at Brown Memorial
Are you aware that there is a commission that is developing recommendations that could result in the biggest change in education policy and funding across the state in a generation?
On October 7 at 12:30, BUILD and Brown Memorial Presbyterian will be hosting a training on the essential work being done by The Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, also known as “the Kirwan Commission.” The Kirwan Commission was created to make recommendations that will prepare Maryland students “to meet the challenges of a changing global economy, to meet the State’s workforce needs, to be prepared for postsecondary education and the workforce, and to be successful citizens in the 21st century.”
This is a huge opportunity for Baltimore city, where 96% of our schools experience concentrated poverty. Please join us in the sanctuary (1316 Park Avenue) after church to learn more about the Kirwan Commission and what we can do to help get its policy and funding recommendations passed by the legislature. Now is our chance to finally give our schools appropriate funding over the next decade and more. RSVP by Tuesday October 2nd to Rebecca Crew at rahcrew@gmail.com.
As you may notice - the deadline to RSVP was yesterday. All are still welcome, but there will not be lunch for anyone who has not already RSVPd - so, please eat your fill at coffee hour here at Memorial (or at least, take the edge off) before heading across the street.
