Skirball Cultural Center

For my May 2nd Tuesday day off I visted the Skirball Cultural Center for the first time since Before Covid.

Last Tuesday was election day in California; of course I voted blue. I'll include pics in my month end rundown.

"Guided by Jewish tradition and inspired by American democratic ideals, the Skirball welcomes people of all communities and generations to participate in cultural experiences that celebrate discovery and hope, foster human connections, and call upon us to help build a more just society."

To my distress I missed Inventing America: The Comic Book Revolution, but it's on view through 28 February 2027 so I'll catch it when a new exhibit opens. I'll also be sure to have $$ for Noah's Ark.

The late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel referred to Shabbat as a Palace in Time. The room was filled with paintings by Robert Russell and Lisa Edelstein that at first looked like photographs.

Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels + Weirdos celebrates everything about punk.

The book store and gift shop, of course!

Welcome signs on the 405

Pentecost 2A

My sermon from yesterday.

Matthew 9:9-13

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, "Follow me." And Matthew got up and followed Jesus.

And as Jesus sat at dinner in the house – Matthew's house – many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples.

When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

But when Jesus heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy; not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners."

Here in the global North, we're one week into the halcyon days of summer, with sunny days, star-spangled nights, picnics, barbecues, music on the half shell, and feeling all of our dreams may come true, after all.

At the same time, the church's year of grace has opened wide the six month long season when we count Sundays after the Feast of Pentecost, a time of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost when the Church really comes into its own as we discern God's call and claim on our lives, and what ministries God may be calling us to respond to. Green is the liturgical color for these months, as we act in ways that help the world around us bloom and flourish.

This is the year of Matthew's gospel; today's gospel reading is Jesus' call to Matthew and Matthew's response. Although none of the earliest gospel manuscripts indicate an author, a community gathered around this disciple Matthew probably wrote this gospel.

As we just heard, Jesus notices Matthew at his workplace. Matthew collected taxes, tariffs, and tolls in the employ of the occupying Roman government. People generally hated tax collectors because – among other abuses – they added on their own charges to the amount required to return to Rome.

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all contain this story. And, Mark and Luke tell us this tax collector's name was Levi, which means he was from the priestly tribe of Levites that ministered at the Jerusalem Temple. In other words, his life had fallen off the rails and he was in a profession opposed to his origins.

Today's reading from Matthew's gospel only mentions a house, but Luke and Mark tell us it was Matthew's house where Matthew/Levi made an extravagant banquet. Although we don't know the elapsed time between Jesus' invitation and Matthew's response, Matthew doubtless already knew a lot about Jesus. As part of his response to Jesus' invitation to follow him, Matthew offered an amazing feast to all comers, as if he already knew plentiful food was one of the signs of the presence of God's reign on earth.

Luke tells us everyone reclined at table. In that culture, reclining for a meal was a sign of shalom, of having "enough," no longer needing to scratch for life or be beholden to empire. Reclining at table meant everyone was an equal among equals.

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You know about the ultra-religious pharisees with their self-righteous attitudes, and how they separated themselves from everyone else to avoid contamination. Jesus references "sacrifice" of the ceremonial law that did nothing to connect anyone to God, nothing to benefit anyone anywhere. Jesus reminds us he wants mercy.

Long ago in a previous life I knew a young woman I'll call Cheryl, because her name was Cheryl. Life dumped a lot on her from outside, and she made some decisions that had negative outcomes. It felt as if everyone was giving her unhelpful suggestions. When a new dog came into Cheryl's life and she decided to adopt him, she told me she asked herself what trait or characteristic did people need most? Her answer was mercy, so she named her new canine companion Mercy.

Is God able to name and call each of us Mercy and Merciful?

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Originally for this start of the season of Pentecost when we discern and engage ministries that help the world bloom and flourish, I considered asking all of us to divide our lives into our immediate home, workplace, neighborhood; this parish and any other church communities where you're involved; and the larger, greater world out there. I thought I'd ask each of us what God is calling us to do in each of those arenas—smaller, manageable acts of service. That still feels like a good idea, but it's clear to me that the past couple of months, last Sunday's guest from Global Refuge, the needs of the city and county of Los Angeles and beyond, and today's immigration focused retreat after worship all point us to a continued emphasis on immigration and immigrants.

Last week Karla from Global Refuge placed immigration in the context of the Pentecost of our baptism! Scripture tells us we all are strangers and sojourners everywhere we go, and God travels with us.

I don't have an answer or a suggestion for ways to engage and minister around immigration during the next few months. We know it takes prayer, thought, listening, time, and conversations to discern where God is leading us and the nature of our responses.

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Again today Jesus invites everyone to the table of grace for a foretaste of the feast to come when…

…many will come come from the east and the west, the north and the south, and recline at table in the Kingdom of Heaven. Luke 13:29

Amen? Amen!

Our song of the day is "We Come to the Hungry Feast"

Five Minute Friday :: Criticize

• Five Minute Friday :: Criticize Linkup

To criticize or to be critical originally meant to be discerning. Or to judge. Both criticize and judge are examples of words with a connotation gone off the rails in popular perception. Another? On the phone I said to a call center worker, "I appreciate your argument, but I'm not interested." She replied, "I'm not arguing with you!" I countered, "You're giving me your opinion. That is an argument."

Maybe I've spent too much time in too many academic venues. Ya think so? Oh, who knows.

In any case, you might show me a scripture commentary and I might remark, "That's the form critical one." Or "That commentary is redaction critical." There's nothing negative about ventures into higher scriptural criticism—just the opposite, as they dig into origins, contexts, editions, glosses, omissions, additions, interpretations, so we can better understand God's communication with humanity, comprehend more fully God's presence and actions in history.

Nuances aside, "criticize" generally isn't a positive word for us, probably because we have too much experience with opinions of others that rip apart our ventures, look for flaws and mistakes, sometimes attempt to denigrate our best attempts and in the process make us feel less worthy.

Some individuals work as professional critics. Professional means they get paid to write and publish opinions and reviews of books, music, visual arts, theatre, food, etc.. Many of us enjoy critiquing those topics; some have gained followings on their blog, substack, or other social media.

How about you?

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Five Minute Friday :: Deal

• Five Minute Friday :: Deal Linkup

"Here's the thing," my coworker often says. And she often reminds me this isn't forever; we're not going to work at these jobs until the end of days. In that case, it's not a bad deal. If forever were the case, would that be different? Yes. It would be a very sad deal.

Humans often think of life as a zero-sum game: you get results commensurate with what you put in. We're not necessarily mistaken because that's often the deal. An example would be a dessert that costs twice as much as another dessert being almost twice as tasty. We often consider paying less than usual a good deal. Needing to work less intensely or not as long as usual for a particular outcome? Good deals.

But here's the thing! Do you remember the Exodus narrative? Moses had helped rescue God's people from oppressive, thankless labor without respite. Egypt was the breadbasket of the world and they'd have starved to death if they hadn't stayed there, but it was an existence of counting every unit of input and output, pharaoh boss never being satisfied, and God's people not having freedom – or time – for worship.

You remember Israel's experience during forty years in the post-Egypt desert? We know they complained – "murmured" – longing to return to the cucumbers, melons, onions, leeks, and garlics of Egypt. But here's the deal. Because they couldn't grow anything in the desert, they had no choice but to trust God's provision. With manna from the sky and water from the rock, with the grace-filled gift of Ten Words or commandments to guide their lives together, there was no quid pro quo. There was no "deal." Life was pure gift.

My coworker often says "Here's the thing." For now there's a real deal because we need to work six days every week. But the seventh day? That's shabbat. Sabbath. Rest from planning, from working, from being beholden to any deals. A time to remember life as gift and to offer the gift of life to someone else.

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Five Minute Friday :: Benefits

• Five Minute Friday :: Benefit Linkup

I've been in contexts where asking people if they receive benefits or bennies (not the drug) is common. Bene, benefits are about goodness, wellness, getting the good stuff and benefiting from it. Doing well by getting the goods.

Like EBT-Food Stamps, some unearned benefits are an essential, life-giving grace.

The Godspell version of Psalm 103 pretty much comes from hymn 293 in the Episcopal Church's Hymnal 1940 and celebrates a long list of benefits God gives us:

Oh bless the Lord my soul
His grace to thee proclaimed
And all that is within me join
To bless his holy name

Oh bless the Lord my soul
God's mercies bear in mind
Forget not all his benefits
The Lord to thee is kind

Oh bless the lord my soul!
He pardons all thy sins
Prolongs thy feeble breath
He heals thine infirmities
And ransoms thee from death

God clothes thee with his love
Upholds thee with his truth
And like an eagle he renews
The vigor of thy youth

And bless God's holy name
Whose grace hath made thee whole
Whose love and kindness crowns
Thy days

Oh bless the lord
Bless the lord, bless the lord
My soul!

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La Brea Tar Pits & Museum

In Spanish La Brea means "the tar." Brea is the word for tar or pitch. La Brea Avenue goes north-south for approximately twenty miles through Los Angeles. Did you know La Brea Avenue ends in Inglewood at Century Boulevard and then continues as Hawthorne Boulevard deep into the South Bay?

The famous La Brea Tar Pits and accompanying museum are next door to LACMA on Wilshire Boulevard with no break between campuses.

This past Tuesday I continued my museum series with my first ever visit to the Tar Pits grounds and museum. The exhibits and their narratives are mind-boggling! The museum inscribes a circular path, and there's a leafy green central atrium where guests can walk, sit, and relax.

My excursion to the Tar Pits was more than timely because they'll be closing on July 7th for two years while they update and renovate.

• Antique bison

• Extinct camel

• Americcan lion

• Tuna Tuesday at my nearby Subway

Five Minute Friday :: Sustain

• Five Minute Friday :: Sustain Linkup

What has sustained me all these bleak years?

Getting out of bed a half hour before first light and watching another new day gracefully make its way onto the world. Trying to relocate myself in better illuminated settings from my past. Can I replicate some form of those here and now? Admitting I've still been hitting a few balls out of the park over these many seasons. Despite everything.

Re-membering: bringing back together; again forming a whole from scattered parts. Dreaming. Can the future be an updated version of those parts when they still were whole, before they cracked and scattered?

This is earthquake country. Before I visited the new David Geffen Galleries at LACMA last Tuesday, I read about the project. Probably related to moment skyscraper and high rise construction that bends in an earthquake or a storm so it doesn't crack and break, the entire new museum wing can bend and extend five feet.

I may have mentioned a friend's comment that a mutual acquaintance is "very establishment," without adding a negative or a positive interpretation. They simply are. I'm still "very Y2K." That means I've experienced 911, the Great Recession that my economics degree insists qualified as another Great Depression, the Covid pandemic, the January 6 insurrection, and a long series of shipwrecks and disappointments in my own life. Along with the rest of my population cohort, I've survived global and individual assaults, so a return of anything Y2K-ish will present itself differently from the original.

Have I learned to bend in the storms and earthquakes? Yes. More by necessity than by intention. Have I cracked and broken? Or have I bent?

At my church in Previous City, during the offerings of bread, wine, and tithes, as they set the Eucharistic Table we'd sing from Psalm 116:

What shall I render to the Lord
for all his benefits to me?
I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving
and will call on the name of the Lord.
I will take the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord.
I will pay my vows to the Lord
now in the presence of all his people,
in the courts of the Lord's house,
in the midst of you, O Jerusalem.

God invites everyone to the feast! "Jesus Christ, the bread of life; Jesus Christ, the cup of salvation!"

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David Geffen Galleries at LACMA

• My Tuesday day off this week was especially bloggable because I visited the new David Geffen Galleries at LACMA. Due to an afternoon private event, everyone had to leave LACMA at 2, so most likely I'll go back on the free second Tuesday in June. The Miracle Mile location features three museums; I recently read Los Angeles has the most museums per capita of any city in the world!!!

• Alexander Calder designed this poster when LACMA's Wilshire Boulevard location opened in 1965.

• Looking southwest at the Petersen Automotive Museum

• On the right you can see the dome of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. When I visited there not long after it opened, everyone had to show a vaccination card. Besides the museum, my January 2022 rundown includes Float Fest the day after the Rose Parade, and a small selection of the many pictures I got at the [LA River] Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Preserve the last Sunday of the month.

• Urban Light by Chris Burden

• At the Geffen Galleries

• Three favorite paintings in the Geffen Galleries:

• Lane Barden, [Los Angeles River] View from the 7th Street Bridge, 2018

• Granville Redmond, California Poppy Field [detail], circa 1926

• Henri Matisse, La Gerbe (The Sheaf), 1953

• At the Jack in the Box near LACMA I sprung for a favorite lunch combination—customized Chicken Sandwich, French Fries, and Diet Coke.

• Hazelnut Frappe at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf that moved a few blocks west from the busy noisy Wilshire and Vermont location I used to visit when I first came to LA. Mature green trees surround and shade the store at Wilshire and Mariposa.