The crucifixion is not an image, or a theology, that speaks to most of us in this season of unfolding spring. Oh, we pay attention to the violence of the world, but we find nothing “saving” in that violence. The rebirth that moves us, and for which we yearn, has little to do with that itinerant Jewish teacher whose death and, in the Christian story, rebirth is celebrated by so many. We draw more inspiration from the wonder of the new birth we see around us in nature. It is there that we find our hope. We prefer to reflect on the daffodils.

Still, the Christian story surrounds us in this culture. Indeed, the promise that Jesus embodies in that tradition is the promise out of which our faith tradition grew and still grows. But the crucifixion and the cross are not the only images from that tradition we can look to as we experience the reality of spring around us and try to make a space for rebirth and healing in our hearts.

Here is a different image that may speak to, as it does to me. It is Jesus as king…a lion king.

The Other Side
By Nancy Thomas

And it came about that Jesus, King, was passing
Through the grasslands of Burundi and as he
Entered a village ten leopards approached,

Slinking between the huts, pad-padding down
The paths on great pudding feet,
Ten shadow beasts brought low by mange and

Malice came near and said to the King of the Cats,
O Master, Jesus, have mercy on us,
We know if you will you can make us clean,

Heal our hide, sharpen our claws, restore our
Terror names, and Jesus, Beast, said
I will, be clean, and straightway the ten

Leopards were healed and with leaps and holy
Yowls they departed, but one, when he saw
He was healed, returned and crouching purred

His praise, a gravelly grace song, and Jesus
Cat, twitched his tail
While all the skies of Africa sang.

Nancy Thomas—with her husband, Hal—co-directs a master’s program in Intercultural Studies at the Bolivian Evangelical University in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. I just discovered her poetry and share this with you in the hope that you may find the healing and rebirth you need in this season.

Happy Easter,

Bill

Last weekend, 80 leaders from our First Church community met to reflect on effective leadership development in our faith community. Rev. Terry Sweetser from the UUA led the workshop, providing both ideas drawn from around the country and questions for us to consider. The spiritual message that Terry brought was, I think, both powerful and surprising...

Leadership in our faith community is least about the exercise of power and most about the power of transformation. The exercise of leadership, which happens in so many places and so many ways at First Church, is an opportunity and an invitation to transform ourselves and transform our community. Leadership is, first and foremost, a spiritual practice.

Our understanding of leadership is one of the most important ways our religious culture offers an alternative and poses a challenge to the norms that most of us find in the wider world. We all, of course, bring our experience of the wider world with us to church. We try to provide as much recognition for leadership, in its many forms, here at church as we possibly can. But leadership is not primarily about personal recognition and certainly not primarily about having power. The authority that leadership carries, for us, is the authority to serve and to care for the people and the institution. That authority carries with it the responsibility to listen and learn…constantly.

Leadership is sometimes related to specific roles in our governance structure—membership on the Board of Trustees or Nominating Committee for example, or chairing one of the many committees that support our diverse ministry (Religious Education, Adult Programs, etc). Those roles are important and carry real responsibilities. But each of us has the capacity to lead. This, for us, is a core theological belief. James Luther Adams called it the Prophethood of all Believers.

First Church ministers, staff and lay folks are recognized and called on for leadership in the wider Unitarian Universalist community…more often than you may know. Just a few examples make the point:

• Mark Slegers is the premier consultant for music programs around the country. The same is true for Cathy Cartwright in religious education and Kate Lore in social justice. Kate’s ministry in the larger community will be recognized at the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon banquet on April 25th.
• Lay leaders like Marilyn Scott offer consultation on a variety of issues to other congregations through the Pacific Northwest District. Kathryn Estey serves in this capacity, too.
• I currently serve as Chair of the Meadville/Lombard Theological School Board of Trustees. Tom Disrud chaired the Starr King School for the Ministry Board until last year. All of your ministers offer less formal consultation to our colleagues and mentorship to those on the path to ministry. We understand this investment of time as a part of our work, and part of our effort to participate in the transformation of this faith.
• Justice work like Ministry for Earth, which grew up here at First Church, is touching hundreds of UU congregations. The Green Sanctuary program has certified more than half of all UU congregations and is still going strong.

Leadership in our faith is service. It is a giving back what we can in gratitude for all that we have received. That may sound like leadership service is an obligation. I know some people think of it in that way. But each opportunity to serve is also an opportunity to grow, to learn and to change.

As a faith community, we believe that “revelation is not sealed,” that there is more truth about living a good life yet to discover. Leadership can be a part of that process, engaging both the leaders and the followers in the spiritual work of growth and transformation that is at the heart of Unitarian Universalism.

The quality of a sermon can be judged in many ways: the hush or the buzz in the sanctuary when a truth is spoken, the number of e-mails the preacher receives, sometimes the number of tears that fall in response. By any measure, my sermon last Sunday struck a chord for many.

The part of the sermon that has generated the most conversation was my telling of the some of the story of race here in Oregon. It was illegal to be Black in Oregon (under the law) until 1926. That language was not removed from the Oregon “Bill of Rights” until the year 2000. The formal apology from the state legislature for its actions (Day of Acknowledgement) in 1999 was an honest effort to bring formal closure. But this history adds some much needed perspective to our concerns about diversity. If you were not in the sanctuary last Sunday, you can read the sermon here.

Many people have expressed appreciation that that story was given voice from the pulpit. “The great gift is that we can now talk about this. It’s like this has been in the closet, or we’ve been in the closet on this issue, and its been holding us back.”

And many people, sometimes insistently, wanted to know how I thought we should respond. What shall we do? How can we address this history?

For me, the first and most important response is for us to learn more about the history of this state. Not the civics book narrative, but the history viewed through the lens of race. There is an Oregon timeline, in broad strokes, juxtaposed to the national story. Take a look.

For more of the story from the perspective of the people who experienced it, look for a copy of A Peculiar Paradise, published in 1980 by the Oregon Black History Project. Our own Barbara Miller and Helen Warbington were leaders on the Task Group that compiled the book. It is, sadly, long out of print but used copies are still available at Powell’s and I have one (thanks to Helen) that I am willing to lend.

The book goes up only to 1940. So the question of what we are called to do today is very appropriate. I want to share just a few of my own reflections, in the spirit of keeping the conversation going.

One of my next steps is to discover how this history is being taught in our schools today. For those of you with children who are being taught Oregon history, you should ask “what” history they are being taught. I think the young people in our youth programs should be asked that question as well.

The relatively small proportion of African Americans in the state certainly impacts our work for justice. Unlike the national picture of incarceration, for example, Oregon’s prisons are not majority people of color. The unconscionable disparity between the rates for whites and people of color is still true in Oregon, but the Black population (1.7%) means that most of those incarcerated are white. How will that shift our work as we engage with The New Jim Crow?

Will Oregon become a haven for those who would flee our nation’s multi-cultural future? Is that already happening? I’m struck by the description of Portland as a “Blue State” within a “Red State?”

Will more diversity come to Oregon in this era, as employers in both the private and the public sector strive to employ more African American, Hispanic, Asian and Native American workers. Will this result, given the nature of our industries, in a population of persons of color who are better educated and more affluent? That remains to be seen.

How does the state’s history around race carry forward into our policing practices?

There are many questions on my mind. What I believe is that we will be better served to know the history of this “peculiar paradise” and temper our celebration of Portland as a progressive citadel with a deeper knowing of the real journey this community has travelled.

“Corporations Are People, My Friends” – Mitt Romney

The Citizen’s United decision by the US Supreme Court allows almost unlimited corporate political spending. It is based on the theory that spending money is speech and therefore protected by the Constitution.

This definition of freedom of speech in monetary terms seems dangerous enough to me. But it is also based on the theory that the right to free speech extends to corporations because, legally, corporations are people.

Corporations are people? How did we get here?

Astonishingly, at least to me, the courts have found a legal basis for corporate personhood in the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution. Let me remind you that the 14^th Amendment was passed in the wake of the Civil War to guarantee equal protection of the law to former slaves.

Here is the language from Section 1 of the Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.” OK so far. Only human beings are born or naturalized. “No state shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Here is where the complexity arises.

There is a long legal history involved, going back to English Common Law, that recognizes “natural persons”—you and me—but also “artificial persons”—corporations and governments. The drafters of the 14^th Amendment did not specify “natural persons”, though there is absolutely no argument that the intention was to guarantee rights to African Americans, not Exxon.

The irony in this is heavy, but the reality is that of the vast majority of cases brought before the Supreme Court under the 14^th Amendment have been brought to protect and extend corporate rights not to protect the rights of individuals.

Even more surprising is that the Supreme Court never ruled on corporate personhood. In fact, the Court explicitly chooses not to rule on it. But the court reporter in the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad included the corporate personhood language in his “headnotes” (or description of the case).

From 1886 to 2013, the idea of corporate personhood has become accepted law. The truth is, however, that the public never voted on it; it was never enacted by any legislature; and it was never even stated as a finding in an opinion of the Supreme Court.

On Friday, April 26, at 7 p.m., Thom Hartmann will present the Sewell Lecture: Speaking of Justice. His Book, Unequal Protection, lays out the history of this strange legal  doctrine and the way it has been used to insulate corporate  power and protect corporate interests. Hartmann is a leading  voice in the Move to Amend the Constitution to correct this  damaging and dangerous legal fiction. He is also no stranger  to First Church.

We need to understand the history of this strange doctrine and consider adding our voice to this debate.

Save the date. I’ll be there and I hope you will as well.

Blessings,   Bill