Missionary Renegade: Rev. Britt Cox offers a meditation to guide us this Lenten season for Wednesday, 1 March 2017 of Reconciling Ministries Network in Chicago, Illinois, United State "Not in stone, but on your hearts..."

Friday, March 3, 2017

Rev. Britt Cox offers a meditation to guide us this Lenten season for Wednesday, 1 March 2017 of Reconciling Ministries Network in Chicago, Illinois, United State "Not in stone, but on your hearts..."

Rev. Britt Cox offers a meditation to guide us this Lenten season for Wednesday, 1 March 2017 of Reconciling Ministries Network in Chicago, Illinois, United State "Not in stone, but on your hearts..."

In Jeremiah 31, God speaks of a new covenant - one where the law of God will be written "not on stone, but on their hearts." The Israelites had become oppressive towards the most vulnerable, and God encourages them to make sure they are relying on their inward gifts of compassion, love, understanding, and courage as they seek to live out their faith. This season of Lent, we are invited to do the same - to search our hearts for the law God has written up on them - for our own healing and for guidance in living out justice within church and society at large.
Rev. Britt Cox expands on this Lenten theme in the video below and invites us all to journey through this season in search of the law of God - not on stone, but written on our hearts."

Transfaith for Allies

Join us on March 18, 2017 at Noon Eastern for a very special Transfaith for Allies: Office Hours with United Methodist Alliance for Transgender Inclusion leadership, RMN's transgender organizer, and RMN's northern regional organizer. Bring your questions about transgender concerns in the United Methodist Church and join in the conversation! Sign-up here.
Woe to you who oppress God's little ones

RMN Executive Director, Matt Berryman, responds to Trump's recent rollback of federal guidelines meant to help protect trans youth across the country and calls for all United Methodists to take action in their local regions to ensure our kids have access to the restrooms that are safest for them to use.

Woe unto you who oppress God’s little ones by Matt Berryman, Transgender

We are in an extraordinary moment in US life when the oppression and injustice long felt by marginalized communities is being advanced and extended by the current administration with remarkable boldness and aggression.
The current rollback of federal guidance on protections for transgender youth and children is an undoing of the minimal progress undertaken previously to protect vulnerable children of God.
There is much to say, much to do, and much to feel during these most troubling and uncertain times. Nevertheless, today we feel compelled to say:
God loves trans children and youth
God loves black and brown trans people
God loves trans immigrants without American documentation
God loves trans people who are poor
God loves trans people who are men, women, non-binary, genderfluid, and agender
God loves trans people of the Islamic faith
God loves trans people of every ability
God loves native trans people
God loves transgender people.
God loves transgender people
God loves transgender people.
Woe unto you who harm children of God.
Woe unto you who discriminate against children of God.
Woe unto you who oppress God’s little ones.
Woe unto you who hide your face from the suffering of God’s people.
Woe unto you who sell your soul, who refuse God’s grace, and resist love.
Just as we are now faced with extraordinary challenges to the most basic of Godly values and principles, we are faced with extraordinary opportunities to witness to the gospel. Transgender children and youth are under attack by a government hellbent on maintaining historic systems of privilege and oppression. If we are to be the church of Jesus Christ, our only call is to embody love, organize for justice, and resist these forces of wickedness.
Please take action in your church, local communities, and state levels on behalf of all those marginalized communities now under attack – for Christ’s sake.
Editor’s note: In a few months, the Supreme Court will hear what could be a landmark case on transgender student rights. If you are a faith leader, add your name today to this historic amicus brief in support of Gavin and transgender students across the country.
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Matt Berryman
Matt Berryman serves Reconciling Ministries Network as executive director. Prior to joining the staff of RMN, Matt spent three years in law school at the Florida Coastal School during which time he worked for churches, law firms, and LexisNexis as a legal editor.From 2002-2009, Matt served United Methodist congregations in the Jacksonville area of the Florida Conference.In addition to serving churches in the United Kingdom, he has led training events and workshops for The United Methodist Church, The Fund for Theological Education, Emory University, and the Fellowship of United Methodists for Music and Worship Arts.He received a B.A. from the University of South Carolina and a M.Div. from Emory University. Although he loves the heat and sunshine of Florida, he anticipates growing to love the charm of cold weather living in Illinois and the perfection of the snowflake!Matt loves an outdoor concert, a good idea, and his 14 year old son, Aidan.

Read his statement here.
A reflection on Standing Rock

Last week, Standing Rock Sioux and Water Protectors were forcibly removed from their camps by North Dakota State Police, the National Guard, and Wisconsin state police. Two United Methodist Seminarians reflect on their experiences at Standing Rock and call us all to solidarity and courage in the days ahead.
A Reflection on Standing Rock by Maria Salazar, Intersectionality, Privilege

We want to begin by naming that we ourselves are not Native and cannot speak on behalf of indigenous communities. As two seminarians in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Nation and the #NoDAPL movement, we recognize this is a fight to protect Mother Earth; yet more importantly, this fight is for indigenous sovereignty in a country that has for centuries falsely claimed ownership of this land.
This is our personal experience as outsiders who visited the Standing Rock Sioux Nation in November, in light of the eviction of Water Protectors from the Oceti Sakowin camp today.
As we type this, nine-hundred miles away our indigenous relatives and Water Protectors are being forcibly and brutally removed from indigenous land – land that just a few months ago we were praying and marching on. We type this not because our words are particularly significant, but because on this day, it is one tangible thing we can do. Today is a day of prayer and a day of mourning. Thanks to media like Unicorn Riot we are able to see, in real time, the extent and force police are using. We are able to see the tactical gear they wear, more reminiscent of the wars we wage in other countries. We are able to hear the screams of people as they get tear gassed and listen to the prayer songs that are lifted, unceasingly. We write because today this is what resistance looks like.
We write because our short visit to Standing Rock has been lodged in our hearts, because we carry the faces and stories of individuals we met. We write because we cannot and must not look away.
We understand our visit to Standing Rock was atypical. Over 500 clergy converged, answering an invitation for a day of action. The police we encountered did not harm us. They let pastors and rabbis come close to them, pray, and walk away. We were shielded not because of our faith but because of arbitrary symbols that were deemed not threatening. A cross is safe; a red bandana is not. We bore witness to a struggle that did not start in November 2016 or that spring, but much earlier, centuries before.
We attended because we knew the irreparable harm that is committed in the name of Christianity. We knew our presence would not undo it, but had hope that in answering this call to action we could begin to write a new story.
All stories of movements have leaders whose names become the emblem of the struggle. But for every Martin Luther King Jr., there were hundreds of African-Americans who boycotted the bus system. Too often those who bear the brunt of the work are women, youth, and elders. The same is true of Standing Rock. Within a camp of thousands of people, we must recognize the value, dignity, and uniqueness of each life. We will remember and lift up the young indigenous woman who courageously rode her horse to the front line of the police blockade, whose face, amidst the chaos of friend and foe, embodied serenity and peace on a land that is her home. We will remember and rejoice in the conversation between a young man who stood on top of a highway post gazing at the sea of resistors, careful not to fall on his new friend, an elderly indigenous leader, who had just given him a small, simple rock as an exchange of solidarity and gratitude. We will remember and honor the school teacher from Fort Yates as we shared a hug that needed no words. As Kelly Hayes writes, “The camps are not Standing Rock.” We will remember that the radical hope and love we saw embodied in Standing Rock will continue no matter what happens today.
In the call to come as clergy standing in solidarity with Standing Rock, we were greeted with another call, a benediction: to engage in conversations, listen to one another and above all, bring these stories back. Perhaps the best way to begin writing a new story as Christians saturated in colonialism and white supremacy is to begin sharing the stories of the people we have historically silenced. We must bear witness to the myriad of voices at Standing Rock, instead of unjustly making the Mni Wiconi movement what we want it to be and projecting our own assumptions and expectations onto it. The reality is that the foundation of this movement is sustained by the lives of everyday people, resisting by existing.
As grateful guests in the Oceti Sakowin camp, we needed to reject our innate tendency to fix and lead a movement that was never ours, but instead to respect and support this fight as active accomplices. Isn’t that who we are called to be as Christians? To love your neighbor as yourself requires this unconditional, mutual respect of the other to realize the kingdom of God in our midst.
This unconditional love cannot stop today.
The injustices of February 22nd, 2017 become yesterday all too quickly, but the wounds of another day amidst five centuries of colonialism only reopen scars yearning for healing. Ironically, we as bearers of a cross – once the facade of a sword – learn from our Native relatives about ways to heal: through prayer, song, forgiveness walks, and joy in resisting as a community. Today we pray and mourn with the Standing Rock Sioux and Water Protectors as they are forcibly and cruelly evicted from the site of resistance they have called home. Tomorrow we will continue to stand alongside our indigenous relatives as they heal. Tomorrow we walk together and write a new story together. The Water Protectors are showing us another world is possible; will we be courageous enough to listen?
Madelyn Johnson

My name is Maddie Johnson and I am a first-year seminarian at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary earning my Master of Divinity. I am originally from Overland Park, Kansas, and intend to move back to Kansas upon graduation in hopes of becoming ordained as a Deacon in the United Methodist Church. I am passionate about social justice, particularly regarding the church’s role and responsibility in being co-creators of God’s kin-dom today. I embrace the irony of my love for donuts and allergy of gluten.

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Maria Salazar
Maria Alejandra Salazar is a first-year Master of Divinity student at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Originally from Peru and raised in the Catholic tradition, Maria is a 1.5 generation immigrant claiming Skokie, IL as a second hometown. Currently living in Chicago, Maria identifies as nondenominational and is in seminary for the hell of it, navigating the complexities and joys of faith, spirituality, and commitment to social justice. With her background in community organizing and nonprofits, Maria hopes to bring together faith and justice work for the long haul. She loves traveling and attempting to grow her own food.

Read their reflection here.