The Ordinary Times: Recent Episodes
Jason T. Smith
Besides reading the NYT, I've been known to consume a lot of cable news. Regarding that news consumption, there are channels I watch (like MSNBC), channels I don't watch (like FOX News), and channels I should watch (like CSPAN). Why should I be watching CSPAN you ask? Well because it features pure, boring, unfiltered documentation of Congress. That setting is also the backdrop to a New York Times opinion piece from Dec. 20, 1865 entitled, "The Consummated Amendment." In it the author describes the history and ratification of the 13th amendment (that ended America slavery). It was also the beginning of the three Reconstruction Amendments and the Reconstruction Era. They were new rules centered on the least, the oppressed, the "outsiders." They aimed to reconstruct how we Americans both think and act. A strong parallel intention can be found in the Gospel reading of Matthew 5:1-12. In his Beatitudes, Jesus aimed to reconstruct how we think and act. His central focus is centered around the least, the oppressed and the outsiders.
On April 12, 1861 The New York Times published, "THE WAR IMMINENT." It was a telegraphed, live reporting from Charleston, SC of the final hours before the first shots of the Civil War. Those shots did not signify the separation of the Southern States into the Confederacy, because that had already occurred earlier. Rather it symbolized a violent national break-up, a damnable divorce and a dissolution of a Union that was under the illusion that both sides somehow stood for Freedom. And yet, in the beginning of those dark times, there is a comparison to the light of Scripture found in the Gospel of Matthew 4:12-17. In it we find Jesus dealing with his own national history (both distant and immediate). In the middle of it all he finds meaning in the words of an ancient prophet who spoke to the woes of war, civil divisions, military melees and political strife of his own time. Inspired by it, Jesus proclaimed a peaceful invasion following the inundating militaristic ones.
In an August 4, 1856 article about a Florida flood, the New York Times deferred to printing the local expertise of The Tampa Peninsular. In that article we learn that there are different kinds of journalist covering events in different ways, and sometimes one journalist can cover several approaches. Today’s lectionary reading (in a year devoted to the Gospel of Matthew) defers to relaying the expertise of The Gospel of John. In these account in John 1:29-34 we learn that even in the Bible there is something akin to a journalist covering events in different ways. Just like The Tampa Peninsular, this story referencing another story, swirls around the imagery of water.
The New York Times was born in the 1850's: a time of radicalism versus conservatism within society. The backstory is integral to understanding the whole story of the newspaper. And so it is with the Good News, according to the Gospel of Matthew 1:1-17. Because outside of what we imagine conservative and liberal to mean, Jesus was a radical: dealing with the context of a very conservative thing: religious tradition.
The Good News: The Ordinary Times podcast will be returning for Season 2 on January 8, 2023.
The Bad News: So will my awkward Dad jokes.
By 1961 Orvil Eugene Dryfoos had become the publisher of the New York times, succeeding his father-in-law Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who in turn had succeeded his father-in-law Adolph Ochs. He proved to be a caretaker for the New York Times. So, Dryfoos wasn’t working the metaphorical “banker’s hours” of 9-5 but what bank hours were becoming. Automation was leading to a banking overnight and weekends shift on what was formerly a 9-5 weekdays job. It would soon disrupt publishing as well. By 1963 Orvil Dryfoos had ended his time as the publisher. This caretaker for NYT was now taken to the undertaker. He had worked dutifully on his way up, and due to a strike during his short tenure, worked himself to death. No matter what kind of power we have in this life… our lives soon give way to the afterlife. The boss isn’t the boss, if he has answer to a higher power. That truth brings us to the lectionary reading from the Gospel of Luke 12:32-48. In it Jesus warns us about the assumptions of automation and accounting for our lack of action.
An October 23, 1933 presidential election article from the times entitled, “GAVE ROOSEVELT 7,060,017 PLURALITY.” It was more than a story of what was won, it was a story of what was lost… and who lost it. If you listen to this podcast often, then you know where I am going with this. There is a parallel between this news story and the Good News narrative found in Luke 9 51-62. The part that may be surprising about our Bible story today is that it will conflict with how much of our storytelling is presented in Christianity. We often frame things in terms of “winning.” We speak of victory in Jesus, winning souls for Christ, conquering the flesh… the list goes on and on. But in today’s Scripture we will see Jesus encountering the politics of nationalistic and ethnic division, rethinking the relevance of biblicism and rejecting undisciplined discipleship… and he loses something in every case. In all of his success and wins, there was nothing that Jesus was afraid to lose.
Contrary to my mother’s advice, I’ve found that you can learn a lot from following a crowd. At least that’s what one author found in a New York Times article from July 15, 1929 about the death of Eng Fooi Shue (one of the leading merchants of Chinatown) and the crowds that gathered to mourn him. The newspaper's publisher learned to use that crowd to make one individual successful: himself. Yet in those unbelievable numbers that made up that crowd there are individual deaths like Eng Fooi Shue’s, and group suffering like his family back home in China. But every now and then there are individual lives like Dr. Huey Kin, the Presbyterian pastor who oversaw the funeral... Individuals that desire to be used for the success of the crowd. In fact I don’t just see it in the New York Times story but also in our Scripture reading of Luke 9:10-17. One of Jesus’ greatest gifts was his care for the crowd. He was a Messiah with mercy for the multitudes.
The September 14th, 1925 NY Times article entitled, “Macy Says Moses Abuses His Power” is an Op Ed against Robert Moses, the New York public official who built a bridge to carry urbanites to Jones Beach past the outer boroughs. As goes New York, so goes the nation: and the era of new roads to new homes would be exported to every American city. Herein lies a parallel to our scripture reading of John 16:12-15 on this Trinity Sunday. Rabbi Jesus was preparing to leave Earth for his new home in Glory, yet he would not leave them without a road to the Father. When we say that the Church is the Body of Christ we don’t actually mean that Jesus is physically there. In the Holy Spirit he left the Comforter as an overseer. Even when Christ’s physical Presence is missing from the Church, he is there in Essence when his Commands are followed. Because in John 16, Jesus sensed the nearing of an age with his teaching was the road God would travel to find a new home in a renewed People.
In 1986 the New York Times did a book review of an author whose persona would later double as a character in a popular film. You may have first encountered neurologist Oliver Sacks played by Robin Williams in the movie “Awakenings”, but in real life he wrote the book that it was based on and also a curiously titled work entitled “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat.” That later work is the one that the newspaper reviewed and serves as one of the narratives in the case studies of the British doctor.
Dr. Sacks tells the true life story of one of his patents that had visual agnosia a condition of impairment in recognition of visually presented objects. It is not due to damage to the eyes but to the brain. They can correctly “see” things but cannot correctly recognize them without informational context. Wikipedia describes it as, “If a person correctly perceives the forms and has knowledge of the objects but cannot identify the objects.” So, in short, yes, a man once confused his spouse for an object that we wear on our heads. You could go so far to say that he objectified his wife… rimshot please?
If you happened to attend church this Sunday, then you may have encountered a similar episode from the Easter reading. In John 20:1-18 Jesus’ follower Mary Magdalene comes to his tomb and encounters the Risen Christ but mistakes him for the gardener. It’s as if she experiences a kind of visual agnosia, because without the proper context she cannot recognize him. After the crucifixion, she was used to seeing Jesus dead but after the resurrection, he is yet alive. But that’s not the only religious parallel to Dr. Sacks book that I want to discuss here.
There also seems to be a reversal of “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat” between Christ and his wife. Now despite whatever you may have read on the Da Vinci Code, history proves that Mary Magdalene was not Jesus’ wife. But the Bible tells us who is… it’s you… and me… and every Believer who has been baptized into faith in him. Scripture refers to the Church as “the Bride of Christ.” But the more I look at it, it seems like Jesus’ wife is experiencing a kind of visual agnosia. Many people don’t recognize who Jesus is. Worse than that, we can sometimes objectify him. Not as a hat per se, but as an American, a warmonger, a libertine, a Capitalist, a persecutor, an escapist, a motivational speaker or any other role that we have projected upon him… almost as if he never spoke about who he understood himself as. And trust me, he did.
So, when The Ordinary Times podcast started, I researched and reported through the stories where Jesus revealed how he is to be recognized. Then when the actual season of Ordinary Time took a break, we changed the format to interviewing people from different parts of the body of Christ about their stories. And at the end I asked them, “Who is Jesus?” This morning, we’ll review their answers.
In a letter to the editor from 1992, a Japanese-American guest columnist told how he never felt like an outsider on the small farm in Utah that he was raised on. His parents were first and second-generation Americans and they raised all of their children as Americans. As far as the author was concerned, he looked, acted, felt and was perceived as 100 percent American. That is great for him. But it is not universal for everyone. I know this because the letter to the editor was in response to an earlier article by another Japanese-American writer. It was an April 29 Op-Ed entitled "Bashed in the U.S.A."
Sometimes people can technically be in the same group, yet their similar experiences can be recorded differently depending on their perspective. But this phenomenon isn’t only a racial one, but it can also be religious. That difference in perspective can affect your fidelity to your faith when there is friction between you and fellow believers.
We can see a similar thing happening in this Palm Sunday’s Gospel reading of Luke 19:28-40. All four Gospels share a version of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem before his Passion Week. Yet, the different details and their foreshadowing on future events by the end of the week show similar experiences can be recorded differently depending on the perspective. Luke tells how his followers praise Jesus as he rides into Jerusalem as a triumphant king, while criticized by his enemies the Pharisees. Other Gospels pictures it as a generally jubilant crowd. Yet this image will be juxtaposed later with that of crowds who called for him to be crucified, in chorus with his enemies the chief priests. Jesus’ experience takes the ethnic and nationalistic experience of the two Japanese-American writers and expands it to be a religious experience as well. Today we will explore that area even more with my friend Dr. Ansel Augustine. He is the author of the new book, “Leveling the Praying Field: Can the Church We Love, Love Us Back?” In it he explores the contemporary and historic experiences of Black Catholics in their relationship to the Church at large
A March 31st, 2018 opinion piece in the New York Times called “God and Her (Female) Clergy“ caught my eye. It told of the historic resistance to women in ministry amongst Christian and Jewish congregations across America. It shared how this was usually explained by citing Old Testament Law and New Testament Epistle as the justification. Then it cited Rev. Serene Jones, the first woman president of New York City’s Union Theological Seminary “where almost 60 percent of the students are now female.” And it told of Rabbi Emily Barton, who presides over a Conservative synagogue in Des Moines, IA who advised “If I was giving advice to women who wanted to be clergy, I’d say, ‘Be O.K. with being uncomfortable, because there are always going to be things in your religion that make you uncomfortable,’ ” Barton said. ”Sometimes you just have to live with your discomfort.” Which brings us to our today’s Scripture of John 12:1-8, where a woman named Mary (the sister of Martha and Lazarus) does not let being uncomfortable or criticized get in the way of serving the Lord. Today we’ll interview Sue Park-Hur, discuss her ministry in Christian peacemaking, leadership in racial reconciliation and perspective on listening to women as they answer Christ’s call.
In 2019 a New York Times author thought it would be fun to visit the house that she grew up in but hadn't seen since she was 15 years old. To her surprise, the owner invited her, her parents and husband inside to see the changes. And there were changes... and not all good ones. Jesus' most famous parable in Luke 5:11-32 explores what happens when a wayward son comes back home after he decided to change. Today we interview the bivocational pharmacist and Baptist pastor, Rev. Johmyrin Johnson, about the potential, problems and promise of returning home.
Almost a year before September 11th, the definitive start of the story of the 21st century, friends, family, patrons of the arts and parishioners gathered to eulogize a man who worked to tell some of the great stories of the 20th century. His was born Ellwood Keiser, but was known as Father Bud: a Catholic Paulist priest and Hollywood filmmaker.
Jesus was not only a storyteller… he was a character in the greater story. He understood his place in the overall metanarrative of Salvation History. Sure, we understand his atoning death as unique but in the text of Luke 13:1-9 he fills the recurring character of the prophet. When he headed to Jerusalem, he stepped into the role of Jonah: the out-of-town prophet telling the big city to change. When he called on listeners to “Repent” he repeated the lines of John the Baptist. Today we will interview another priest and filmmaker, Father Tom Gibbons, on the intersection of storytelling and the story of Jesus.
In 2019 a New York Times article shared how the federal government ordered that the case against Eric Garner's killers be dropped. They were NYPD officers. You may have been surprised, but God was not. In our Scripture reading for today, we learn of Jesus’ response to the threat of state sanctioned violence. Violence that threatened to execute law breakers. Violence that would crucify him. In today's bonus episode we interview Minister Christian Watkins and discover how the struggle against police brutality intersects with today’s reading of Luke 13:31-35.
As we take a break from the liturgical season of Ordinary time, we will pivot to interviewing guests with insight for how current events in our daily news intersect with what we learn from the Good News of Jesus. Our friend Josh Daly shares about his involvement with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and how Luke 4:1-14 applies to Christians caught in the war in Ukraine.
What we see and how we see changes. So, we employ specialist to help us see.Helping people see is what Eugene G. Wiseman did for a living and in a September 28, 1922 opinion piece called “An Optometrist Protests” he proceeded to clarify
what several other professions should do as well. Helping people see is also the subject of our current lectionary reading from Luke 6:39-45. In it Jesus discusses critics with no sense of self-criticism.
Nestled in the fourth of six columns of stories on the fourth page of the March 22, 1918, issue of The New York Times is a headline that reads, “PRISON TERM FOR PREACHER.” The author relays the story of Rev. Clarence H. Waldron, a pacifist, Pentecostal preacher in the green mountain state just north of New York. Earlier that week a Federal court in Burlington, VT convicted the reverend “of disloyal utterances and of attempting to obstruct the operation of the draft.” His disloyalty and obstruction of government were committed as he dutifully preached the Gospel. The words of Luke 6 :27-38 are laid within a matrix. The lectionary reading shows us the original template that Christ set in place for his Disciples to follow, yet somewhere along the road we have broken the mold. Sometimes changing a few letters in the matrix can spell disaster. And Christianity is an example of one of those things.
On January 31, 1915, the New York Times printed “SOUTHERNER URGES EQUALITY FOR NEGRO.” Dr. Charles Hillman Brough was advocating for equal footing amongst the races. But soon after slowly ascending from the plain of equality with Black fellow Arkansans, he found himself looking down on them from the familiar perch of White Supremacy. He could not value his poor Black neighbors because he defined his identity in a way that was diametrically opposed to them. This week’s Scripture reading in Luke 6 17-26 presents us Jesus: a prophet opposed to measuring people in terms of profit. The Lord was able to lead his proposition with a primary place of the Poor because he numbered himself among them.
A letter to the editor titled “Sailors of Yesteryear.” appeared in the May 6, 1911 edition of the New York Times. It was written as a response to a question from a prior article’s question, “Where are the sailors of yesteryear?“ Luke 5:1-11 shares with us a story of Jesus calling Peter from his former career as a sailor (specifically a fisherman) and into his future calling of steering the Church to uncharted waters. It also asks future Christian readers how we will navigate through the dangers of religion and power.
We Contemporary-Christians hold many hybrid identities. An article entitled, “MANY FLOCK TO HEAR FREE SYNAGOGUE PLANS” from January 28, 1907 tells of when a Jewish-American rabbi came to town but chose to speak to a crowd away from a synagogue. He was also a Reform rabbi with plenty of ideas concerning change. More than an Americanism, could the gifts of ancient Judaism be reformed with the best of Modernity? This week’s reading in Luke 4 21-30 asks a similar question of its original readers. Jesus asks how our ancient faith meets our modern world.
The July 24, 1904, article “ANARCHISTS FROM EUROPE.” grew from the pulsing fear that foreign agents were engaged in a revolutionary campaign threatening America. What was especially troubling was the allegation that the suspects would potentially be disguised as members of the Salvation Army (what the article calls “Salvationists”). Revolutions were feared because they started with foreign thoughts... ideas that were spread by proponents with platforms. We encounter a similar scene in the reading from Luke 4:14-21. Jesus’ parentage and prophetic forefathers colored how he perceived the world. Yet they were overlooked insights that many Jewish teachers of the time missed while digging deep into the details. To their ears his Gospel seemed unusual, strange and foreign. Indeed, Jesus’ ideas about salvation were revolutionary.
On September 27, 1900, the New York Times reported in “The President At A Wedding.” that President McKinley returned to his hometown for a celebration. In American culture, rings of metal evolved to become the primary symbols of the institution of marriage. Likewise, marriages became a symbol of the notion of family itself. But there are many forms that a family can take and many stories that flow from their form. The narrative in John 2:1-12 is also set at a wedding celebration, and under its familiar surface, it reveals a more nuanced story of families and alternative families.
All stories begin with water. At least the ones that ended up being printed in Adolph Och’s New York Times. That is because the printing process begins with it. Both Reform Judaism and Reformed Protestantism are drenched in a similar metanarrative: the idea of an elect people submerged in salvation history. One version of that story appears in our reading from the Gospel of Luke 3:15-22. He told those who traveled from the big city to a smaller water with bigger implications.
This introduction to the series centers around Luke 1:1-4 and the life of publisher Adolph S. Ochs.
Starting Sunday, January 2nd, The Ordinary Times: stories for people who only attend church on Christmas and Easter.