Pete Seeger: "God's Counting on Me, God's Counting on You"

I've never met Pete Seeger, but I've been listening to his songs since before I could drive a car. You may recall Pete written a lot of protest songs over the years, teaming up with the likes of Woodie Guthrie and many others.

Pete was the guiding force in bringing the 1947 folksong "We Shall Overcome" to the forefront as the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.

Since then, Pete has played his banjo all over the world, and he played at an inaugural concert for President-elect Barack Obama at the Lincoln Memorial. He is now 91 years old.

But don't think for a moment the punch has gone out of Pete Seeger.

He recently co-wrote this song with Lorre Wyatt about the BP oil spill and our government's response to the lagging economy. And God's Kingdom is popping off his banjo strings:

A few items for your consideration

I am not posting much on my own for a few days, but there are a couple of fascinating articles I would commend to you from Ekkelsia, the British Christian peace oriented organization (Ekkelsia's newsroll is featured in the left column of this blog). 

The first is by Uri Avenery, an Israeli peace activist and former member of the Israeli Knesset, who writes on how President Obama is gently setting a new course in relations with Israel that will alarm the Israeli right-wing. You can read his piece HERE. The second is by Martin Marty, the prominent Lutheran theologian, who writes about the difficulty with overtly Christian prayers in public settings like the inaurgural of President Obama. You can read that HERE.

Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Sharon Watkins

President Obama and Vice President Biden attended the National Prayer service yesterday at the Washington National Cathedral. The sermon was given by the Rev. Dr. Sharon Watkins, president of the Church of the Disciples of Christ, and the final prayer offered by Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. 

Pastor Watkins sermon was as simple as it was forceful. Here is the text of her sermon:

Harmonies of Liberty

Isaiah 58:6‐12, Mt 22:6‐40

Rev. Dr. Sharon E. Watkins

National Prayer Service; January 21, 2009

Mr. President and Mrs. Obama, Mr. Vice President and Dr. Biden, and your families, what an inaugural celebration you have hosted! Train ride, opening concert, service to neighbor, dancing till dawn . . .

And yesterday . . . With your inauguration, Mr. President, the flame of America’s promise burns just a little brighter for every child of this land!

There is still a lot of work to do, and today the nation turns its full attention to that work. As we do, it is good that we pause to take a deep spiritual breath. It is good that we center for a moment. What you are entering now, Mr. President and Mr. Vice President, will tend to draw you away from your ethical center. But we, the nation that you serve, need you to hold the ground of your deepest values, of our deepest values.

Beyond this moment of high hopes, we need you to stay focused on our shared hopes, so that we can continue to hope, too.

We will follow your lead.

There is a story attributed to Cherokee wisdom: One evening a grandfather was teaching his young grandson about the internal battle that each person faces. "There are two wolves struggling inside each of us," the old man said. "One wolf is vengefulness, anger, resentment, self‐pity, fear . . . "The other wolf is compassion, faithfulness, hope, truth, love . . ."

The grandson sat, thinking, then asked: "Which wolf wins, Grandfather?"

His grandfather replied, "The one you feed."

There are crises banging on the door right now, pawing at us, trying to draw us off our ethical center – crises that tempt us to feed the wolf of vengefulness and fear. We need you, Mr. President, to hold your ground. We need you, leaders of this nation, to stay centered on the values that have guided us in the past; values that empowered to move us through the perils of earlier times and can guide us now into a future of renewed promise.

We need you to feed the good wolf within you, to listen to the better angels of your nature, and

by your example encourage us to do the same. 

This is not a new word for a pastor to bring at such a moment. In the later chapters of Isaiah, in the 500’s BCE, the prophet speaks to the people. Back in the capital city after long years of exile, their joy should be great, but things aren’t working out just right. Their homecoming is more complicated than expected. Not everyone is watching their parade or dancing all night at their arrival.They turn to God, "What’s going on here? We pray and we fast, but you do not bless us. We’re confused." Through the prophet, God answers, what fast? You fast only to quarrel and fight and strike with the fist. . . Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice . . . to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house . .? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly . . .

At our time of new beginning, focused on renewing America’s promise –yet at a time of great crisis – which fast do we choose? Which "wolf" do we feed? What of America’s promise do we honor? Recently Muslim scholars from around the world released a document, known as "A Common Word Between Us." It proposes a common basis for building a world at peace. That common basis? Love

of God and love of neighbor! What we just read in the Gospel of Matthew! 

So how do we go about loving God? Well, according to Isaiah, summed up by Jesus, affirmed by a worldwide community of Muslim scholars and many others, it is by facing hard times with a generous spirit: by reaching out toward each other rather than turning our backs on each other. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, "people can be so poor that the only way they see God is in a piece of bread." 

In the days immediately before us, there will be much to draw us away from the grand work of loving God and the hard work of loving neighbor. In crisis times, a basic instinct seeks to take us over – a fight/flight instinct that leans us toward the fearful wolf, orients us toward the self‐interested fast . . . In international hard times, our instinct is to fight – to pick up the sword, to seek out enemies, to build walls against the other – and why not? They just might be out to get us. We’ve got plenty of evidence to that effect. Someone has to keep watch and be ready to defend, and Mr. President – Tag! You’re it!

But on the way to those tough decisions, which American promises will frame those decisions? Will you continue to reason from your ethical center, from the bedrock values of our best shared hopes? Which wolf will you feed? In financial hard times, our instinct is flight – to hunker down, to turn inward, to hoard what little we can get our hands on, to be fearful of others who may take the resources we need. In hard financial times, which fast do we choose? The fast that placates our hunkered‐down soul – or the fast that reaches out to our sister and our brother? In times, such as these, we the people need you, the leaders of this nation, to be guided by the counsel that Isaiah gave so long ago, to work for the common good, for the public happiness, the wellbeing of the nation and the world, knowing that our individual wellbeing depends upon a world in which liberty and justice prevail.

This is the biblical way. It is also the American way – to believe in something bigger than ourselves, to reach out to neighbor to build communities of possibility, of liberty and justice for all. This is the center we can find again whenever we are pulled at and pawed at by the vengeful wolf, when we are tempted by the self‐interested fast. America’s true character, the source of our national wisdom and strength, is rooted in a generous and hopeful spirit.

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, . . .

Send these, the homeless, tempest‐tost to me,1

Emma Lazarus’ poetry is spelled out further by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr,: "As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than twenty‐eight or thirty years, I can never be totally healthy . . . I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made."2 You yourself, Mr. President, have already added to this call, "If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. . . . It's that fundamental belief — I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper — that makes this country work."

It is right that college classes on political oratory already study your words . You, as our president, will set the tone for us. You will help us as a nation choose again and again which wolf to feed, which fast to choose, to love God by loving our neighbor.

We will follow your lead – and we will walk with you. And sometimes we will swirl in front of you, pulling you along. At times like these – hard times –we find out what we’re made of. Is that blazing torch of liberty just for me? Or do we seek the "harmonies of liberty", many voices joined together, many hands offering to care for neighbors far and near?

Though tempted to withdraw the offer, surely Lady Liberty can still raise that golden torch of generosity to the world. Even in these financial hard times, these times of international challenge, the words of Katherine Lee Bates describe a nation with more than enough to share: "Oh, beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain . . ." A land of abundance guided by a God of abundance, generosity, and hope – This is our heritage. This is America’s promise which we fulfill when we reach out to each other. Even in these hard times, rich or poor, we can reach out to our neighbor, including our global neighbor, in generous hospitality, building together communities of possibility and of hope. Even in these tough times, we can feed the good wolf, listen to the better angels of our nature. We can choose the fast of God’s desiring. Even now in these hard times let us

Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring,

. . . with the harmonies of Liberty;

Even now let us Sing a song full of hope. . .

Especially now, from the center of our deepest shared values, let us pray, still in the words of James Weldon Johnson:

Thou who has by Thy might

Led us into the light,

Keep us . . . in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;

Shadowed beneath Thy hand,

May we forever stand.

True to our God,

True to our native land.

1 Emma Lazarus

2 The Words of MLK, Jr., selected by Coretta Scott King, 21

3 James Weldon Johnson

My impressions of the inauguration of Barack Obama

I watched the inaugural by myself yesterday, on a small television propped up in a corner of our condo in Charlottesville. I was invited to a gathering across town, but I chose not to go, nursing my cold. I had friends in Washington DC, but chose not to join them. Friends on the Mall text messaged me through the day, and my friend, Tony, sent the photo at right from his iPhone standing near the Washington Monument. Lori was at an inaugural breakfast party in California with current, former and bought-out reporters and editors with The Sacramento Bee, and sent video from the party. 

In my sea of technological connections, I found myself choked up at times by the images of Michelle Obama and her yellow dress, by Barack Obama’s smile, by Muhammad Ali pushing his walker onto the platform, by Dianne Feinstein explaining the Yosemite painting at the Congressional luncheon, and most especially by the images of the crowds and their flags.

I was choked up by the music, beginning Sunday night with Bruce Springsteen’s “Come up for the Rising” and Tuesday with Aretha Franklin’s “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and Yo Yo Ma and his friends playing strains of Aaron Copeland. I was choked up by the poetry and the music of the moment.

As a candidate, Barack Obama’s rhetoric only grew stronger as his candidacy grew. His speeches became poetry, not just policy statements. Even the names of his children are poetry: Malia and Sasha.

Yesterday, as a new President, he allowed the poetry to surround him. His words were as simple as they were muscular. “We will act,” he said, and it is about all he really needed to say. The new President used the poetry of Scripture to tell us it is time to “put away childish” ways and make the hard choices we’ve avoided really since the Reagan years.

And the sea of people cheered and waved their flags.

The problem with inaugurals – especially this one – is that the music and poetry and the magic will make it seem that the presidency of Barack Obama was inevitable, that his inauguration was destiny. It wasn’t. It came on the backs of slaves and civil rights workers and other presidents like Lyndon Johnson whose formidable skills brought forth the Voting Rights acts of the 1960s, and Supreme Court justices like Thurgood Marshall and Earl Warren. Barack Obama would be the first to tell you that.

This inauguration came because Barack Obama is a smart, shrewd politician who learned from his mistakes, hired really smart, shrewd people, and they ran a tough campaign and bounced back from one set back after another. His inauguration was a triumph of the American spirit, yes, but it was also triumph of American politics played very, very hard, for keeps, by very able contenders, any one of whom could have won and stood up there yesterday as the Chief Justice fumbled the oath.

All that is true. And, yet, Barack Obama put poetry and music and optimism into the day by his presence, his manner, his smile, and the people he brought with him. And the people, so full of hope, from sea-to-shining sea, are ready for the clouds to lift, ready for hope, ready to be done with cynical leaders governing cynically, ready to call Barack Obama their President, and praying he will succeed, will not disappoint, that he will make his poetry real.

And that brings me to my favorite character on the TV program West Wing, Josh Lyman, the fictional deputy chief of staff, whose fondest words always were: “What’s next?”

What’s next? 

Photo at top by Anthony Ramirez; photos at bottom from the New York Times.

Pastors Rick Warren and Joseph Lowery inaugural prayers

Several folks have asked for Pastor Rick Warren's prayer from this morning. I posted Bishop Gene Robinson's prayer yesterday, and while some see this as a war of prayers, I don't. All our prayers are imperfect even as God hears them perfectly. For good measure, I am also posting the Rev. Joseph Lowery's benediction with its overtones from "Lift Every Voice and Sing." Here's Pastor Warren's followed by Pastor Lowery's prayer:

Invocation by the Rev. Rick Warren:

Almighty God -- our Father. Everything we see, and everything we can’t see, exists because of you alone. It all comes from you. It all belongs to you. It all exists for your glory. History is your story. The Scripture tells us, ‘Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.’ And you are the compassionate and merciful one. And you are loving to everyone you have made.

Now today we rejoice not only in America’s peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time, we celebrate a hinge-point of history with the inauguration of our first African-American president of the United States. We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequaled possibility, where the son of an African immigrant can rise to the highest level of our leadership. And we know today that Dr. King, and a great cloud of witnesses, are shouting in heaven.

Give to our new president, Barack Obama, the wisdom to lead us with humility, the courage to lead us with integrity, the compassion to lead us with generosity. Bless and protect him, his family, Vice-President Biden, the cabinet, and every one of our freely elected leaders.

Help us, oh God, to remember that we are Americans, united not by race, or religion, or blood, but to our commitment to freedom, and justice for all.

When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you, forgive us. When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity is ours alone, forgive us. When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect that they deserve, forgive us.

And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes -- even when we differ.

Help us to share, to serve, and to seek the common good of all. May all people of good will today join together to work for a more just, a more healthy, and a more prosperous nation, and a peaceful planet. And may we never forget that one day, all nations and all people will stand accountable before you.

We now commit our new president, and his wife Michelle, and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, into your loving care.

I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life -- Yeshua, Isa, Jesús, Jesus -- who taught us to pray:

Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

Amen.

Benediction by the Rev. Joseph Lowery

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand -- true to thee, O God, and true to our native land.

We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day. We pray now, O Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant, Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration. He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national and, indeed, the global fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hand, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations. Our faith does not shrink, though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.

For we know that, Lord, you're able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor or the least of these and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.

We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that, yes, we can work together to achieve a more perfect union. And while we have sown the seeds of greed -- the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.

Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little, angelic Sasha and Malia.

We go now to walk together, children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone, with your hands of power and your heart of love.

Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- (laughter) -- when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter) -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter) -- and when white will embrace what is right.

Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen!

REV. LOWERY: Say amen --

AUDIENCE: Amen!

REV. LOWERY: -- and amen.

God bless the President of the United States and all his people

May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.

May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness.

May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,

give deliverance to the needy,

and crush the oppressor.

May he live while the sun endures,

and as long as the moon throughout all generations.

In his days may righteousness flourish and peace abound until the moon is no more.

Psalm 72

Bishop Gene Robinson's prayer few heard

New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson offered the opening prayer at yesterday's We Are One inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Few heard Gene's prayer. HBO did not broadcast it and my friends standing on the mall tell me they couldn't hear it - the sound system inexplicably cut out. You can hear and see video of the prayer at EpiscopalCafe by clicking HERE, and read reactions positive and negative.

Prayer is prayer, and God hears the cries of God's people. God bless the United States of America and the President-elect and his family. Here is Gene's prayer:

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.
O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

Bishop Katharine to give closing prayer at National Prayer

This just in: Our own Bishop Katharine will be joining quite a group of clergy at the National Cathedral at the National Prayer Service:

Presiding Bishop to give closing prayer at National Prayer Service after inauguration

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, January 16, 2009

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will offer the closing prayer at a National Prayer Service set for January 21 at Washington National Cathedral. President Barack Obama and his family are scheduled to attend the invitation-only service.

The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, Dean of the Washington National Cathedral, will welcome attendees to the event, followed by an invocation from Diocese of Washington Bishop John Chane.

The 2009 Presidential Inaugural Committee announced on January 16 the spiritual leaders who will participate in the service, which is a tradition dating back to the inauguration of George Washington and is considered the conclusion of the official inaugural events.

The prayer service, set to begin at 10 a.m. EST, will be broadcast live on the cathedral's website. Online participants can light "virtual" candles and leave personal messages of hope, renewal, and reconciliation at the website. Online visitors can also access an historic presidential photo gallery, view video footage of the national prayer service, and explore the role of this "church for national purposes" throughout the years, according to a news release from the cathedral.

The service will include scripture readings, prayers (including those for civic leaders and the nation), hymns and blessings delivered by faith leaders from across the United States. The Rev. Sharon E. Watkins, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) will deliver the sermon, the first time a woman has preached at the service.

"President-elect Obama's faith is a central part of his life and he will begin the first full day of his Administration with a service of interfaith prayer and reflection," presidential inaugural committee communications director Josh Earnest said in the committee's news release. "The National Prayer Service, which will embody the themes of tolerance, unity and understanding, is a worship service for all Americans."

The Rev. Otis Moss Jr., senior pastor emeritus at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, will provide the opening prayer, followed by a prayer for civil leaders delivered by the Rev. Andy Stanley, senior pastor, North Point Community Church, Alpharetta, Georgia.

Scripture readings will be provided by Dr. Cynthia Hale, senior pastor, Ray of Hope Christian Church, Atlanta, Georgia as well as Archbishop Demetrios, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, New York City, and the Most Rev. Francisco Gonzalez, S.F., auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Washington. Rabbi David Saperstein, executive director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Washington, D.C., has been asked to read the psalm.

Responsive prayers will be given by:

• Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president, Islamic Society of North America, Hartford, Connecticut;
• The Rev. Suzan Johnson-Cook, senior pastor, Bronx Christian Fellowship, New York City
• Rabbi Jerome Epstein, director, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, New York City
• The Rev. Carol Wade, canon precentor of the Washington National Cathedral;
• Dr. Uma Mysorekar, president, Hindu Temple Society of North America, New York City;
• The Rev. Jim Wallis, president, Sojourners, Washington, D.C.;
• Rabbi Haskal Lookstein, Congregation Kehilath Jeshurunm, New York City;
• Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, senior pastor, Windsor Village United Methodist Church, Houston, Texas

Roman Catholic Diocese of Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl will help conclude the service with a prayer for the nation, followed by Jefferts Schori's closing prayer and a benediction by the Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary of the Reformed Church in America.

The first inauguration of George Washington in 1789 in New York City was shaped largely by a Congressional resolution that relied heavily on the English coronation ceremony, according to information on the cathedral's website. It required that, following the oath of office in front of Federal Hall on Wall Street, the Senate and House walk a short distance to St. Paul's Chapel on Broadway to hear "divine service" by the chaplain of Congress, Bishop Samuel Provoost. He acted in a role similar to that of the Archbishop of Canterbury at English coronation services.

-- The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.