Episode 1: Who You Gonna Call?
EPISODE 1
Greetings Earthlings! And welcome to the first Fish Sandwich Heaven podcast. I’m your host chef, Candace Simpson. I invite you to check out the website to learn more about Fish Sandwich Heaven. This podcast will be accompanied by a transcript, so if it is better for you to read than to hear, you’ve got another option!
On every episode we’ll have an agenda. Shout outs to all the Capricorns with spreadsheets and calendars!
First, we’ll be at the Chopping Board. That’s our centering thought and affirmation.
Then, you’ll get your Fish Sandwich. That will either be a sermon, an interview, a ramble, a guest spot.
And lastly, you’ll get a To-Go Bag. That’s a bit of homework to carry you throughout the week.
Before we move on, I want to thank some of the people who have made this dream come true. Thank you to the Rev. Porsha Williams Gates of Porshanality Media for producing and mixing the podcast, thank you to Rev. Dustin Pickett of Umba Consulting for the logo, and thank you to all the folks who have made Fish Sandwich Heaven a thing. A major shout out to the people of Concord Baptist Church of Christ. Some of these sermons were heard first there, like the one you’ll hear today. The People of Concord have sustained me and nourished me in ways I cannot even begin to name. That’s the home team. And shout outs to the Pastors, Pastor Gary V. Simpson, Pastor Emma Jordan-Simpson, Rev. Bowen-Avery, Rev. Phillips, and the Reverends Thornhill.
If this is our first time getting connected, you may be wondering, “why fish sandwich heaven?” I’ll also link to a sermon here, called “A Packed Lunch.” But here’s the shorter version of THAT movie. I’m really drawn to the account of the feeding of 5,000+ in the 6th chapter of John. In this particular account, the day is saved by the lunch of a small child, a child who had two fish and five loaves. In my imagination, I wonder if the child had enough materials to make two fish sandwiches and still have an extra bread left over. And with this extra bread, was reminded to share over and over. When I think about heaven, it is here. Among thousands of people, all of us having our needs met, all because we decided to share and pool our resources.
Later on, we’ll spend more time reading and learning about Callie House, but until that time, I encourage you to grab Mary Frances Berry’s historical account of her work. Mutual aid, shared sacrifice, and communal bread-breaking is not just a faithful thing, it’s part of what it means to be Black.
I am an AfroFuturist, and I find a lot of meaning in the Black imaginations and artwork of Black people. The Wiz is one of my favorite movies because of the way it depicts fantasy, friendship, community, joy and struggle. I see heaven in the Brand New Day Sequence, when all the dancers are ripping their old skins off and freed from the economic exploitation of the former world.
I do not believe, then, that heaven is a place where we kick people out for not wearing the right clothes or having the wrong kinds of “lifestyles.” I think heaven is a place where we have our needs met, where we are safe, where we feel affirmed as one human among other humans. Heaven has often been talked about as the opposite of Hell, and we often imagine Hell as a kind of Jail. For many, if hell is a Jail, then Heaven is the place the good kids go for good behavior. But I do not believe in Jail, here or beyond, so heaven cannot be a place where good saved Christian kids go. If heaven is real, and I get to go, and it’s straight up praise and worship for all eternity, I'm coming back to Brooklyn on that escalator and will simply live my eternal days out as a ghost. Because at least then I can go to day parties, rooftops, couches, beaches and movie nights in the park.
Anyhoo. Fish Sandwich Heaven was a helpful metaphor for me to figure out, what are the ways we can survive and flourish here on Earth? What can we use of this tradition, what can be modified, what will we discern is poison? As we dream of ways to get beyond this world, how will we take care of each other? What blueprints already exist in our repertoire? And thus, fish sandwich heaven. Because that child had more sense than anyone else in the place.
At the Chopping Board:
We are worthy of help and assistance. We deserve to have our human needs met. We deserve compassionate ears when we ask for help, and we can give help to those who ask if it is a sustainable effort for both parties. We also have the option to say no to help that is offered. We can build a world of balance so that giving help doesn’t become one or two people’s job, but that giving and asking for help becomes the foundation of strong communities. May it be so.
Fish Sandwich
James 5:13-16, NRSV
3 Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. 14 Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.
Who You Gonna Call?
Trees have a very fragile network. A recent study suggested that trees communicate through their roots. After all, they’re stuck in the ground. So instead of saying to each other, “excuse me, can I get through,” they use underground signals through their roots to avoid competing for limited resources. It’s what some scientists call, a fungal internet.
Coral reef put out distress signals. Researchers have found that corals can communicate threats by releasing a distress signal. The smell is so intense that marine life have learned to get closer or further from the reef based on those chemicals. Healthy coral get visited, sick ones get abandoned.
Even bees communicate. They dance to teach each other where the best nectar is throughout the fields. They don’t have GPS or Uber, but they have something better; their bodies.
But how do humans communicate? You’d think with such complicated societies that we’d have even more complex ways of communicating.
Sometimes we write Tweets. Or we create art. Or we stand in the middle of the street with arms locked. Or we write letters. Or, if you’re in rush hour traffic in New York, maybe you have a few hand signals.
And sometimes, we communicate through prayer.
This letter, James letter, is a communication that goes from house church to house church. The people of this time are in dire distress. Jesus has come.. gone... been resurrected for some time. Jesus promised he’d be back, and soon. That was a LONG time ago.
But scholars estimate that this was written way after Jesus died.
The people of the Jesus revolution are no longer college students. They’ve passed on, and their kids are rehearsing the stories about Jesus at the dinner table. And these people, the children of people who spent time with Jesus, are wondering when exactly this Jesus guy Auntie n’em talked about would show up. And they’re probably wondering what the point of faith is, anyway.
Perhaps you can relate.
I relate to this writer deeply at this stage of my life. This writer is tired of people doing one thing and saying another. This writer is tired of people treating rich people with more respect and kindness than anyone else. This writer is tired of people talking without compassion or care. This writer is so tired of people making promises they don’t intend to keep.
Though the writer did not know what it was like to live in the United States in 2020, the writer does have something to say to us. The writer reminds us that we have to call somebody when we are in distress. But we are not trees, or coral reefs, or bees.
We’re human beings. We have to communicate our needs. God sends us elders who can pray over us and check in on our well being.
Sometimes that’s hard because it’s difficult to ask for help. If you’re like me, asking for help takes a lot of courage. But sometimes you have to. And sometimes we ask for help and no one shows up.
We all know what it’s like to be In your coldest nights, no one can offer you a blanket. And then you look on social media and it seems like a Blanket convention, the very thing you need, others have in abundance. And you wonder, “why do i give so much if I don’t have any reciprocity?”
And still. The writer asks.
“Are any among you sick? They should call the elders of the church and have them pray over them…”
When your back gets against the wall and your wall against your back, who you call? When you have more month than money, who do you call? When the state of the world gives you anxiety and there’s nowhere you can escape cuz you HAVE to go to work and make this money to survive, who do you call?
When your timeline and newsbites and radio clips are filled with triggering stories of violent assaults, who do you call? When someone questions your intelligence and your right to exist, who do you call? When someone calls you by your old name, when you lost the job, when you go through a breakup, when you get evicted, when you lose a loved one, when you get news from the doctor… Who do you call?
James says, call the elders. James doesn’t say call the old men. James says call the elders.
There’s a difference between old men and elders.
And here is what I mean.
Sometimes old men cling so tight to their vision of a Great America that they push everybody else out violently.
Sometimes old men cling so tight to tradition and heritage, that they romanticize and LONG FOR the days when they enslaved Africans and enacted genocide of indigenous people.
Sometimes old men cling so tight to their limited interpretation of the bible, that they hurt women, children, immigrants, LGBTQIA+ people, cash poor folks, people with disabilities.
Sometimes old men re-traumatize survivors of sexual assault by forcing them to answer and testify AND remain calm. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Dr. Anita Hill know this story all too well.
There’s a difference between elders and old men. And I worry sometimes that our society is so obsessed with leadership coming in a certain package that we miss the miracle of Pentecost.
In those days, the young shall see visions and the old shall dream dreams.
God pours out God’s spirit on all flesh. Young AND old.
A Presbyter is Greek word for an elder of the church. As many times as this word comes up in the New Testament, it is rarely used to describe age. It is more frequently used to describe responsibility.
As a fun fact, Presbyterians are named for the system of government the denomination uses. Representative assemblies of elders, which are called presbyteries, govern the church.
An elder is someone whose responsibilities can range from standing as witness during baptism, taking active roles during worship, visiting the sick, ministry with the vulnerable, stewardship of church properties, and other duties as assigned. You are an elder if you do these things. It’s a job. A mission. An assignment. A calling.
For the people of this time, the Elders were an integral part, not just of the faith, but of human survival.
Our text tells us that we ought to “confess our sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” It is from this passage that we get the phrase, “the prayers of the righteous availeth much.”
But what do those prayers do?
You may have been hearing this word “abolition” a lot lately, and as Concorders we have a strong legacy of abolitionists in our community. We have Rev. Leonard Black, who had to leave the pulpit because of the Fugitive Slave Act. Not even the pulpit was safe for a Negro. He would later go on to write memoirs about the horrors of slavery and the hypocrisy of this so-Called Christian nation.
We have Sampson White, who was a well known abolitionist who helped Concord use member homes as sanctuary for runaways.
But, in 2020, we also have the servant leaders of the Concord Freedom School. And while they may not consider themselves abolitionists in that particular term, they inspire me because they show us all what Love looks like. Abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore reminds us that abolition is about presence, not absence.
And even this summer, our Servant Leaders showed up virtually for our students. They held space for our children’s concerns. They asked questions. They checked in with families, even virtually. They served as advocates. They used their creativity to spark intense and thoughtful discussions about justice, freedom and fairness with our children.
Sometimes we forget just how powerful this kind of presence is. But our Servant Leaders, my elders, remind me, in their own ministry, that we are building up freedom fighters. We build up our children in the hopes that they will be able to withstand the nonsense of this world, we equip them with affirmations so no one can tell them they are worthless and then sell them products to make up for their supposed inadequacies, we empower them to ask questions so no one will give them less than what they deserve and call it “justice.”
If I can be frank, I want to live in a world where instead of calling the police, we would call on the elders. That’s faithful. That’s what I think the writer of this passage is trying to get us to see. We can take care of our sick, our unhoused, our widows, our vulnerable.
What kind of cultural shift would that take? What resources would we need to do that effectively? What if we confess our sins to each other? There is another passage in Matthew 18 where Jesus describes a conflict resolution process.
You two talk, and if that don’t work,
You bring in a mediator, and if that don’t work,
Talk in front of the church community,
And if that don’t work, we might just have to accept that our time to be in this community is done. And that’s okay.
There are so many instances in which calling the police only escalates the potential for violence, rather than diminishing it.
Abolition is about building a world where we have a community of safe and caring elders who we can talk to when we are in danger, worried, nervous, concerned. It is about making sure everyone has something to eat, some safe place to lay their head at night, clean air and water.
This is what the elders help manifest. This is the ministry of the elders.
And when I’m in trouble, I would rather call the elders than anybody else.
The bad news is that we live in a world where evil is all around us. Everywhere you go there is trouble. People are in distress and there seems like there’s no end in sight. But the good news is that we can take care of one another. We can be so intimately connected that we communicate so well that it’s like the calls of trees, reef, and bees.
Natural. Instinctive.
Who do you call?
“they should call for the elders.”
There is no better way to illustrate this than with a very scholarly text. The 1997 Disney movie, Cinderella, featuring Brandy, Paolo Montalban, Whoopi Goldberg and Bernadette Peters. Cinderella, played by Brandy with long beautiful braids, has a confrontation with her stepmother. This evil stepmother bullies her and calls her common, spitting it out of her mouth as if to indicate her disdain.
She destroys Cinderella’s dreams.
Brandy goes outside and does what I think is called prayer. She makes her petition known before somebody. Among the trees in her backyard (who are, in my imagination, witnessing her supplication and maybe praying alongside her through their own roots), she begins to pray.
She says to the sky, “Father, I know I promised I would stay, but after tonight I don’t see how I can stay. IF you’d only known how much she’s changed, you’d understand. I deserve to be loved.”
She kneels on the ground and starts singing. And I wonder if those trees started communicating on her behalf. If in their fungal internet network, they shared the message with somebody, somewhere out there.
And then, somewhere in the distance, her fairy godmother, played by the incredible Whitney Houston shows up. The elder showed up with words of encouragement. And material resources.
It doesn’t matter that the elder says, or that eventually Cinderella gets her prince charming. In fact, you and I are wise enough to know that fairy tale endings are just that, for fairy tales. Sometimes you don’t get the prince, or the news, or the job, or the apartment you wanted.
But the point is that the elders show up. To remind us that we are not alone. To remind us that there are indeed angels watching over us all night and all day. That we are not the first or the last to struggle.
Perhaps you can remember someone who showed up for you. A fellow choir member. A classmate. Someone in your family who always made sure you had a to-go plate.
If you are sick, call for the elders.
One day, you will be the one called. You’ll need as much practice as you can get.
So long as this is the world we have, we will always be in need of good people who make visits.
Who do you call?
God loves us enough to put incredible people in our lives. All we have to do is find them. That’s a hard task. But I promise you, the elders are here.
Ask for help.
People are here to help you. If we’re going to make it out of this wilderness, It’s going to take a strong community.
Who do you call?
To Go Bag
Take a minute to think about someone who has demonstrated that they love and care for you. Take out your phone. If the person who takes care of you has texting capabilities, send them a text and say “thanks for being there for me.” If they don’t, give them a call.
If anything is clear, it is that we have to love people for loving us.
Ask for help, my friends. You don’t have to be Black Panther or one of the Dora Milaje.
You can just be you.
And when someone asks for help, let’s do our best to answer that very vulnerable call with compassion. As always, we are all we can rely on.
Who do you call?